I love to dance. Play a beat and I can't stay in my seat. That's probably why I love watching reality TV that features dancing. This type of programming has actually broadened my appreciation for the art. So it is with great anticipation that I await new seasons of my faves, including Dancing With the Stars.
Well, at least until its producers started pushing the envelope for ratings.
No doubt, DWTS has always focused on popularity just as much as dancing skill. Nobody is ever going to convince me that Season 2 runner-up Jerry Rice beat third-place finisher Stacy Keibler based on talent. Ditto Shawn Johnson over Gilles Marini on Season 8. But in its early days, the show for the most part featured contestants known for having some sort of skill, usually acting or athletics, even if it wasn't always star-caliber.
Along the way, ABC has tried to spike the ratings by throwing in competitors whose achievements were questionable. The show's first contestant list (can you believe there were only six on it?) included Trista Sutter, best known for snagging a husband as ABC's first Bachelorette, and actress-model Rachel Hunter, whose celebrity has more to do with being Rod Stewart's second wife.
But those non-starters were rather benign. In fact, I almost pitied ABC for not being able to attract bigger names. That is, until Season 4, when the show's producers seemed to initiate what I call the Bitch Factor.
It works like this: Let's bring on a woman that the public dislikes so much, they'll tune in just to see her voted off.
Enter contestant Heather Mills. Mills' skill was charity fund-raising to ban the use of land mines. But everyone knew she really was chosen because she was in the midst of a bitterly contentious and 
highly publicized divorce from Paul McCartney. Hiring Mills-McCartney was a PR agent's double dream. The soon-to-be former Mrs. McCartney had also lost part of her left leg when she was hit by a police motorbike 14 years earlier. And she was going to be dancing! Suddenly, the show seemed to be about the publicity and not about the dancing. I was so turned off by the sleazy scheming -- let's face it, the producers didn't book Mills to celebrate the handi-capable -- that I boycotted Season 4. I was heartened when the scheme backfired: Ratings for Season 4 were lower than Season 3.
Things quieted down Season 5. Great, I thought, the show is refocusing on dancing, with an occasional side order of distraction -- i.e., Marie Osmond's fainting spell. Was it staged? We'll never know, but it got people talking about the show and generated publicity.
Season 6 was even more about the dancing, Watching Kristi Yamaguchi nail every dance every week was amazing -- except in the ratings. The performance show fell to No. 8 in the rankings for the 2007-2008 season, the results show to No. 12. Time for the Bitch Factor to return.
Season 7, all eyes were on reality star Kim Kardashian. Kim, along with sisters Khloe and Kourtney, has proven that you don't need to have any talent -- just a notorious deceased daddy -- to be entitled to a reality show or a spot on DWTS. If the O.J. Simpson murder trial had never taken place, would we ever have known that these Kardashians existed? Thankfully, America voted Kim and her booty off on Week 3.
Perhaps sensing the need to stir the pot even more in Season 8, the producers presented a trio of females who could attract animosity: reviled tabloid lady of the moment Denise Richards, accused of stealing BFF Heather Locklear's husband, Richie Sambora; rapper Lil' Kim, who had served time for lying to a jury about a shooting; and Playboy model Holly Madison, whose main accomplishments seemed to be disrobing and breast augmentation. Richards and Madison were dispatched quickly. Lil' Kim [photo at top] was the ninth contestant cut, but deserved to last longer.
The Bitch Factor seemed to have hurt her but not the ratings. By the end of the 2008-2009 season, DWTS had returned to No. 3 for the performance show and No. 7 for the results.
The two females with buzz for Season 9 were Kelly Osbourne and Joanna Krupa. Osbourne, whose fame derives solely from being the progeny of Ozzy and Sharon, surprisingly turned out to be rather insecure -- yet charming and far less crude than expected. Her dancing was never hot, yet she came in third. Krupa, a sometime model and actress, was fierce in every sense including dancing. Finishing fourth, she should have been first or second, but her lack of connection with the audience outweighed her footwork.
I thought the show's nadir would be would be Season 10, with the triple threat Bitch Factor bookings of Pamela Anderson, Shannen Doherty and Kate Gosselin. Again, I boycotted the show. Stars? All that Gosselin and her former husband had proved was that they were efficient at reproducing. Doherty was the first contestant to fall, even though most accounts I read agreed that stiff, awkward Gosselin was the worst. That enough people saw value in her to vote her back three more times scares me deeply. More frightening was that DWTS frequently began beating top-ranked American Idol.
Never underestimate the power of the Bitch Factor.
As the new season of DWTS rapidly approaches (premiering on ABC Monday night at 8 p.m. ET), I am conflicted over whether to watch or just give up on it completely. I abhor the idea that teenage mother-abstinence spokeswoman (talk about an oxymoron) Bristol Palin, who gets paid to tell teens "Do what I say and not what I did,'" is scheduled to appear. The publicity and rumor machines have been churning nonstop since the announcement, building up her Bitch Factor with pronouncements that Palin is already acting like a diva and not showing up for rehearsals, or that fellow contestant Mike '"The Situation'" Sorrentino, whose chief skill is showing off his abs on Jersey Shore, wants to get jiggy with Palin because he thinks she's hot.
Maybe it is finally time to take up abstinence -- from Dancing With the Stars.