Olympian Aly Raisman, Beverly Hills Real Housewife Lisa Vanderpump and comedian Andy Dick. They shouldn’t be in the same sentence, let alone the same room, but that’s about to change.

These mismatched sort-of-celebrities will be fox-trotting and mambo-ing toward the gold on the 16^th season of “Dancing With The Stars.” The star-filled lineup, announced earlier this week, will also feature a Disney kid, an American Idol, a boxer, a soap opera heartthrob and a football player. The competition officially starts March 18 on ABC.

The roster sounds more like a very elaborate joke setup than an actual television show. After 16 seasons, it’s simply time to let “Dancing” go.

When “Dancing” was in its prime, it was the No. 1 show in America. More than 27 million people tuned in to watch season three’s Dallas Cowboy Elliot Smith take home the gold.
But the dance competition show has been bleeding viewers for the past five seasons. This past November’s finale was down 27 percent in ratings from the year before, at 16.7 million viewers.

“Dancing” first broke onto the television scene in 2005. That same year, now-President Barack Obama began the first year of his senate career, the iPod Shuffle hit the market and Hayden Christensen still thought he could have a healthy acting career. “Star Wars: Episode III” was the highest grossing movie of the year.

Now, we’re in President Obama’s final term, Apple probably owns our brains and there are three shiny new episodes of the “Star Wars” saga around the bend. Eight years later and it’s a whole new world.

Somehow, “Dancing with the Stars” isn’t the only 2005 show still being broadcast. “How I Met Your Mother,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Bones,” “Supernatural” and “The Office” were all parts of 2005’s freshman class. And every single one is now on its last leg.

Steve Carell jumped ship from a drowning “The Office” last year. Its final episode will air May 16.

Somehow, two more of 2005’s shows will return for yet another season this fall. Both “How I Met Your Mother” and “Supernatural” will start their ninth season, thanks to early renewals. No one expected Ted Mosby to take this long to meet the mother on CBS’ aging sitcom. Most loyal viewers are waiting for him to just blame it on a dating site and wrap this whole mess up.

As a loyal “Supernatural” viewer, I’ve watched the genre go from a tight, five-season arc to seasonal attempts at keeping the plot together. After the writers took the Winchester brothers to literal hell and back, it’s hard to go bigger than that.

It’s hard to let these rapidly aging shows go. When they started, most of us were in middle school or just beginning high school. Now, we’re supposed to start acting like real adults and consider what exactly we want to do with our grown-up lives.

Just like the horrible 14-year-old fashion and crushes we left in the past, it’s time for television executives to let us do the same. The only thing older than these eight-seasoners is “The Apprentice,” and no one wants to be compared to Donald Trump.

Ariana Romero is a junior magazine journalism and political science major. Her column appears every week. She can be reached at [email protected] or followed on Twitter at @ArianaRomero17. 

Published on February 28, 2013 at 1:13 am