I imagine the blogosphere is burning up this morning with fans complaining about Brazilian race car driver Helio Castroneves' surprise win on Tuesday night's finale of Dancing with the Stars.

Once Castroneves had finished his final dance last night, it was painfully obvious he couldn't match the power and grace of Spice Girl Melanie Brown, whose mastery of all the dance styles covered by the show has been awesome to behold.

So why isn't this critic complaining that he beat Brown when all the votes were totaled? (hint: It's not because this was a win I predicted)

As I explain in a story for today's newspaper, Dancing's voters seem to reward those who make the biggest transformation. And Scary Spice, as proficient as she has been, made a living for many years singing and dancing onstage. Castroneves, as a cute, charismatic neophyte, distinguished himself by plunging into the competition with gusto -- something the fans often reward.

Castroneves also lucked out because he aced Monday's night performances -- which sparked the audience votes leading to his win. Had the fan vote been based on Tuesday night's final dances, I think Mel B.'s perfect mambo might have wiped the floor with the indy 500 champ.

As it was, I do think the judges punked out a bit by giving both finalist couples perfect scores for their final dances, leaving the decision mostly to the audience vote. Even though Brown ate up the dance floor in her final performance, the experts turned away when their expertise was most needed -- likely to avoid looking like spoilers.

In the end, I was just happy that Marie Osmond got cut 30 minutes into last night's finale.  Between the fainting, the endless grinning and the non-stop jokes about her age, Osmond was wearing out her TV welcome faster than Rosie O'Donnell at a Young Republicans' dinner.