Congratulations to Derek and Kellie, our Season 16 champions!

The amazing Season 16 of Dancing With the Stars has come to an end. We have our winners: Derek Hough (in his fourth title) and Kellie Pickler.

Season 16 Mirror Ball winners: Derek Hough and Kellie Pickler

This is not, as anyone who read my column last week knows, how I expected it to go. There is no way 

in any Universe that Jacoby is a better dancer than the gymnast Aly. But here's what I think happened, why this result went down the way it did.

I really think it's unarguable that the four pros (Derek Hough, Mark Ballas, Valentin Chmerkovskiy and Karina Smirnoff) are the BEST on this season's show. By that I mean not only sheer talent, but creativity and passion and creating memorable dances. These four are the top of the top.

Peta Murgatroyd is fabulous, Kym Johnson has a couple of mirror balls. Heck, Tony Dovolani was last year's winner. But these four have both creative genius and the ability to work with whichever "celebrity" they get, to mold a winning season. At the outset, it wouldn't surprise me for any one of them to win. It just depends on who they are paired with.

Derek Hough, paired with Wynona, would've gone out of the competition just as fast as Tony Dovolani did.

The pros' job in the beginning is to take this lump of clay called a celebrity, and turn them into a dancer. How much they succeed at this depends just as much on the pro's choreography talent as it does on their hand-holding talents.

There were many moments in this season, for example, when the blissful genius of Mark and/or Derek's choreography guided their partners over otherwise rocky unfamiliar terrain. Val C. was tethered to a rocket, firing on all cylinders, and he had to tame her. Karina mostly just had to overcome their height differential, deal with Jacoby's farts and somehow turn out his pigeon toes. 

So I am REALLY very grateful that whoever decides these pairings gave Derek (and Mark and Val) at least a shot by pairing them with someone who was somewhat capable of finishing.

Honestly, most of the season was like dropping off dead weight one by one to finally see what the real dancers were going to do.

And so, we end up at the Finals, finally. Oh blissful heaven, was it wonderful!

I have to examine Karina and Jacoby first, because I expected them to drop off sooner.

KARINA SMIRNOFF AND JACOBY JONES (actual third place)

Karina Smirnoff and Jacoby Jones

This picture, to me, typifies what their whole season was like. Karina is there, working her ASS off, and Jacoby mostly looks like a clown, just sauntering through his paces, seeming like he really didn't want to be there.

They did a jive to start. And then, in their freestyle (the dance which really determines it all), they brought in a New Orleans-style jazz band, and a bunch of kids. I'm surprised there wasn't a kitchen sink. But we'll leave all that alone. They placed third.

Let's move onto the real three couples, as far as I'm concerned.

MARK BALLAS AND ALY RAISMAN (unbelievably, they placed fourth)

Mark Ballas' challenge at the beginning of the season was to take a gymnast (who is used to long practices and doing things until you get them right, all good things) with no sense of timing (as far as dance counts) and no romantic experience to speak of to convey passionate dance moves.

And LOOK. Look at this.

 Mark Ballas and Aly Raisman, doing a sexy samba. Courtesy of ABC/Dancing with the Stars 

You are looking at a very sexy woman here. Mark has always been sexy, is sexy in every dance, but to watch Aly's evolution has been amazing. This is NOT how she looked on the first show.

The signature dance, I would (and am) arguing here is the dance which makes or breaks a mirror ball champion is the freestyle. One of the things I admire the most about Mark Ballas, and so look forward to seeing in DWTS, is the creativity he brings to his choreography. He pushes the envelope, he crosses the line, he breaks new ground in his dances. Any groundbreaker is looked at askance at first. So he certainly has his detractors. I am sure, in this freestyle, he had a lot of people going, "Wow. WTF was that?" In fact, I'm sure that had everything to do with why he ended up fourth. They didn't get it.

But what I saw was the same poetry that I am going to laud Derek Hough for in a little bit. A melange of both Aly's strengths and a portrait how far she's come. A dance which not only pushed her further than comfortable limits, but also pushed him. It was mesmerizing and fantastic and everything a finale freestyle dance should be.

Aly R and Mark Ballas in their groundbreaking freestyle dance.

VALENTIN CHMERKOVSKIY AND ZENDAYA (placed second)

Going into the final episode, Val and Zendaya had the most judges points, and everywhere you went on social media, people were rooting and rallying for them to win. I thought for sure it would be a landslide for them.

They did an amazing samba, including a step that Len said he hadn't seen since the 50s. (What?) Fluid and mesmerizing. Beautiful.

Zendaya and Val C. do their samba during Finals. Courtesy of ABC/DWTS.

Zendaya and Val C. do the cha-cha relay (winning it).

Zendaya and Val were indeed the gold-star standard on that dance floor, and for my money, given the entire season, certainly deserved to win the mirror ball.
For their freestyle dance, Zendaya, who has an affiinity for kids, wanted to bring them in for part of the dance. As these two "dances with kids" freestyles went, I much preferred what Zendaya and Val did with theirs (compared to Karina and Jacoby's version). But I much preferred what they did alone too.

They were luminous and dynamic in their freestyle. Every bit champions.

Val Chmerkovskiy and Zendaya, absolute perfection.

DEREK HOUGH AND KELLIE PICKLER (winners of the Mirror Ball trophy)

But the actual winners of Season 16 were Derek Hough and Kellie Pickler. And here's why, IMHO.

Every week, the folks at home are encouraged to vote on the dances they just saw. I think they did that again this time. They weren't voting on who was the best all season long. They were voting on best dance, in fact, best freestyle dance.

By that measure, it was Derek Hough's win by miles. And I do credit Derek Hough with this win, as with his other wins. Sure he gets willing participants who are more or less able to do what he commands, but it is his vision, his passion, his choreography which wins trophies.

So, too, here.

Derek Hough and Kellie Pickler, reaching for the stars. ABC/DWTS

The freestyle dance he created smartly didn't include gimmicks like kids or brass bands. It was all about the dance, and also smartly, it was all about in one dance recreating all the dances of Season 16 for him and Kellie. It was passionate, fluid and very moving. I, like Carrie Ann Inaba, was in tears at the end of it. It was stunningly beautiful.

One of those dances where you just thank God that Derek Hough is in the world, creating dances for us to watch. 

This, more than any other thing, is why they won the Mirror Ball (IMHO). Kellie Pickler and Derek Hough

They deserved to win, after this dance. Its poetry and perfection was beyond compare.

And, on that subject, I want to mention how glad I am that nowhere in the season did we have (well maybe some nonsense at the beginning) ridiculous asides to camera about how "badly they want to win" this trophy.

This cast, and most specifically, Derek and Mark and Val C., continually throughout the season rightfully declare how it's all about the process, and that each dance is special, and that they are all a family. I really liked how the emphasis wasn't on "winning." It was about creating beautiful dances, in concert with your partner. That's as it should be.

A beautiful, memorable season.

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Donald Driver's Secret Weapon

First things first. Ladies and gentlemen, our Season 14 winners:

Peta Murgatroyd and Donald Driver. And here's why.

When last I examined this, I looked at the top four couples. Let's visit them again.

In fourth place (unjustly) was Derek Hough and Maria Menounos. Their ouster at fourth place was certainly an anamoly of voting, of people thinking they were safe, and not picking up the phone for them. The night that was their last, they had TWO perfect dances. TWO 30s from the judges. That is not a couple who was meant to go home.

And I am, frankly, still upset about it. So, let's just gloss over Derek and Maria's perfection.

 (*SOBS*)

What does it take to become a champion?

Frankly,  what it takes to win, mostly, is amazing choreography by the Pro. That's why you are going to see Derek Hough and Mark Ballas win the Mirror Ball over and over and over again (and Karina Smirnoff), because they provide stunning, breath-taking choreography for us to feast upon.

To my eyes, Cheryl Burke is a good choreographer, servicable, but she is not on the same level as Hough and Ballas. She just isn't. Added to that, her partner, William Levy got to third place mostly because he has a rabid fan following that salivated over his hot looks (and his gorgeous shaking ass). Them's the facts, m'am. In interviews afterwards, Burke tried to play down the fact that it was a pretty face that helped get "Team Fuego" to third.

No, he was pretty. That's what got you third. Own it. Embrace it.

First or Second? How do we decide?

Then we come down to our top two. Let me say this. I love Mark Ballas' choreography, more than anyone else on this show, and so I always, from the first episode, hope that he comes in first, and expect him to.

What I realized with Season 14 is that choreography only gets you so far. And while any of the top four in any other season might have won, in THIS super competitive, multi-talented season, it was not enough.

Naughty Bits as a Downfall

Katherine Jenkins, while elegant and graceful and providing stunning lines, almost from her first dance, was hindered by one thing, which ended up keeping her from the Mirror Ball trophy. She is, pretty much, a prude.

Now, I'm not saying that it's a prerequisite for a winner of DWTS to run around in scanty clothes, necessarily. It's more this. One has to own one's body as a dancer. The body, clothed or unclothed, is a vehicle for the dance. We saw, in the interview packages, how Katherine would stammer and laugh and blush when confronted with her "naughty bits." She didn't like showing them, she didn't like dealing with them. If there was one thing she was roundly consistently criticized for was that her dances "lacked fire."

William Levy was graded (perhaps too much by salivating Bruno) for being "sex on a stick." Katherine didn't own her sexiness enough. I am convinced that kept her from the trophy.

My take on it is that Mark Ballas, knowing what it takes to win this thing, was pushing her to give more fire, to get outside her comfort zone. She didn't want to, she didn't want to, then finally she did, in this dance.

Look at this picture. The man on the left is totally comfortable in his own body, and with his own sexuality. He owns this dance. Look at the woman on the right. She is not at all comfortable with the amount of skin she's presently showing (even though, as a DWTS costume goes, this is very chaste; still it was the most skin Katherine showed all season).

At the end of this dance, she "had a back spasm." Her uptightness over her costume made her pull out her back, and it was also the moment when she unconciously decided, "You know what? Second place is good enough for me. I'm really OK with that."

Don't believe me? Here are her costumes for the final.

This:

And this:

She had white shorts on under her flapper dress. SHORTS.

Makes me sad. But that's why she got second, though her choreography was stunning and executed flawlessly.

Now, by contrast.

When you want  something so bad you can taste it...

I had Katherine and Mark in my initial picks. I had Derek and Maria. I didn't know anything really about Peta and Donald Driver (though I've always been suspicious of athletes, they do tend to win a lot).

I was blithely going on, at the beginning of the season, picking my Favorite Dance of the Week (which you can see on my Pinterest board: http://www.pinterest.com/michebel). Mark and Katherine, then Derek and Maria. By week four though (Rock Week), it was (shockingly to me) Donald Driver and Peta Murgatroyd who had captured my "Dance of the Week" honor.

Their Purple Haze was not to be denied. And it was just so far above all the other competitors.

Look at this, you can already see a championship team at work.

Both competitors are owning that stage.

Or this:

Or their Viennese waltz. Or their story-filled "Mr. Big Stuff":

 What you see in these pictures are two people, singular of purpose, who both really want to win.

Peta because it was her second season as a pro, and in her first season, she was voted out first. Donald because he loved Dancing with the Stars.

This turned out to be their secret weapon. He loved the show. He loved it so much that he watched it, every season. Knew every player, watched every dance.

Where this came into play was the end.

In finals week, Donald was the one who came up with, "...well, back in Season Two..."

And they pulled a move that a similar champion had done. They danced their freestyle to country.

Dudes, it's America. America loves country music.

This was the dance that won the Mirror Ball, I promise you.

Donald Driver knew, from studying the tapes of past seasons, what it took to win. And he wanted that, badly.

And, I have to say, I am happy that they were the ones who won. They wanted it, they deserved it, and they done America proud.

Congratulations to Donald Driver and Peta Murgatroyd, our new Mirror Ball champions.

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