Julia's Thoughts On Antonio and Sharna

Antonio Brown and Sharna Burgess were eliminated from Dancing With the Stars last week in the second double elimination of the season. It was never announced whether they came in fourth or fifth but based on overall scores I'm going to say they came in fifth.



This couple was my original pick to win the season. (They were Jimmy Kimmel's too!) Not in the sense that I necessarily wanted them to win, but that I predicted they would. Antonio seemed very excited about being on the show, posting not-so-subtle hints on social media about his involvement before the cast announcement. I'd also heard he was a good dancer so I had high expectations for him in the ballroom. He also went into the game with one of the biggest pre-existing fanbases of any of the contestants. There also seemed to be a recent trend of the shows producers trying to get pros who had been on the show a long time without a win to get the trophy, and having failed that with Sharna last season, I thought they'd try even harder to make it happen this time around.

For the reasons stated above, I predicted they would be able to pick up a lot of support from the general audience, something that is key to winning on this show. However, Antonio seemed very quiet and reserved for much of the season which made it difficult for me to connect to him the way I was able to with other contestants, and I think many others had the same trouble.

Antonio was a good dancer who had a lot of potential. However, from what I gather he didn't put very much work into rehearsals for the first half of the season and the result was a bunch of okay-to-decent performances that could have been great ones. I was very upset Antonio tried to pin the blame on Sharna for his lack of work ethic when she was clearly trying to get him to work harder, and I was even more upset when the producers took his side and played it like Sharna was the one not fully committed to the team.

I was glad when Antonio finally started to turn things around and put more work in, but it felt like it was too late at that point since he still came across as being a few weeks behind the other contestants in terms of skill level. For that reason, it upset me to see others who were performing well and working hard be eliminated before him, but I was happy that he finally got to tell his story and let people get to know him better in the Semi-Finals episode. The "Hall of Fame" Contemporary was my favorite dance of his and finally allowed him to showcase his strengths.

Let me know your thoughts on this couple, and I'll see you soon for my thoughts on the other pair eliminated in last week's Semi-Finals!