On October 13th, 2026, at 8 p.m., Dancing with the Stars aired a theme night never before done by Dancing with the Stars. As someone who never watches the Super Bowl, this night was my Super Bowl. The night included the dancers dancing to songs that were once sung at the Super Bowl. All songs chosen were incredible, but the one missing was Katy Perry. Katy Perry’s halftime show is probably one of the first halftime shows I remember watching as a kid, and to see no one dance to Fireworks by Katy Perry was pretty surprising. Some of the songs include “Hips Don’t Lie”, “Mi Gente”, “Hot in Here”, “Titi Me Pregunto”, “Yeah!”, “Bad Romance”, “Jenny From the Block”, “Only Girl (In the World)”, “Squabble Up”, and “This Time (Dirty Bit)”. The dances include samba, jazz, tango, salsa, and paso doble. The top of the leaderboard went to Paralympic gold medalist Erza Frech and his partner Daniella Karagach, who got a 36/40 for performing their salsa to “Hot in Here”. The Rookie Star Jenna Darwin and partner Val Chmerkovskiy tied for the top, getting a 36/40 as well, dancing the paso doble to “Bad Romance” by Lady Gaga. Every dance was a lot of fun to watch, and I enjoyed all of the dances and had such a blast watching the show. The guest judge was sports commentator Joe Buck, and he honestly did such a good job at judging the dances. His wife is a dancer, so he knows a little bit about dance, but he mostly scored based on the performance. He gave some people scores that were higher than the judges who know a lot more about dance then he does, but overall he did an incredible job judging and gave good feedback when needed.
The night was going great until Carrie Ann Inaba had a lot to say to the pro dancer Jenna Johnson after dancing the samba with her partner, Grey’s Anatomy and Glee star Harry Shum Jr. Carrie Ann started with good feedback, saying the dance didn’t have enough samba contact, but then proceeded to say there was a lift in the routine. Jenna, confused, said “a life,” which prompted Carrie Ann to pull out a piece of paper and read the definition of a lift. The world was annoyed at this comment; I was upset, too. This same incident happened before with Jenna a couple of seasons ago. After the show, a fellow pro on the show and Jenna Johnson’s husband, Val Chmerkovskiy, went on Instagram and put a note saying something along the lines of: she is glad the Fresh Prince of Bel Air did not come out tonight. This is in reference to when Will Smith smacked Chris Rock after he made a comment about Will Smith’s wife. This obviously upset Carrie Ann and she was like “we do violence now?”. Val did apologize, and the drama has ended. It has been a rumor that Carrie Ann can be biased towards Jenna, just based on the scores she gives the pro each season, a lower score than she deserves. Overall, I enjoyed Super Bowl night and cannot wait for dedication night on October 20th.