The Cheryl and Terrell dance segment was truly the only well-done portion of the entire Countdown 2025 Chicago program. It was polished including editing, and the choreography was good.

The on-the-scene multi location portions that followed were painful to watch, in my wife’s and my opinions. Unscripted, and not in a good way. Many awkward moments. The couple hosting at the Salt Shed had to deal with a psycho (possibly drugged out!) salt shaker mascot who kept freakishly “dancing” and was uncooperative with the hosts. Commercial load was, not kidding, over 50%.

Sad to say, ABC7 is now the only choice for any dedicated Chicago countdown program. I think they should cut the whole program down to 13 minutes, spanning 11:50 to 12:03. Roll local commercials, do the polished dance production, put *two* hosts on from a *single* location who use some form of script, couple more commercials, count down 30 seconds before midnight and roll another 30 seconds after, last few local commercials and switch back to ABC network feed.