Season 35 of Dancing With The Stars premiered on September 15th, and so much has happened since then. This season features 16 couples (now down to 13 after eliminations across the first two weeks), making it one of the largest casts in Dancing With The Stars history.
Recap
This season’s opening week featured the 16 couples dancing across two nights, with the male stars dancing on Tuesday night and the female stars dancing on Wednesday night. This resulted in a double elimination, with one couple being eliminated each night.
Tuesday night was a tech nightmare, with the constant comments about running behind schedule, confusing instructions on voting for Conner Leavitt (husband of Whitney Leavitt, who was on the show last season) versus comedian Connor Wood (we can’t handle two men with the same first name, apparently), and the ABC voting site breaking to the point that only text votes could be counted. The performances were pretty on par for Week 1, but Paralympic gold medalist Ezra Frech and his partner, Daniella Karagach, pulled off a tango that was incredibly cohesive despite the challenge of adapting the dance to accommodate Frech’s prosthetic leg. Judge Derek Hough accidentally called reality TV star Tyler Cameron “Dylan,” seemingly confusing him with season 34 finalist Dylan Efron (which is now a running bit that I find funny about 50% of the time). Actor Harry Shum Jr. and his partner, Jenna Johnson, ended the episode with the highest score of 21 points. Conner Leavitt and his partner, new pro Adele Zaikman, were eliminated after a mildly disappointing salsa to “Whoomp! (There It Is)” despite not receiving the lowest scores of the night from the judges.
Wednesday night had fewer tech issues, and the performances were much stronger overall. TV personality Maura Higgins was an immediate standout, ending up with one of the highest scores across both nights (21 points) for a foxtrot to “Black Velvet” despite coming into the show with no relevant dance experience. Actress Julia Stiles had my favorite costume across the premiere nights and performed a solid quickstep to “9 to 5” with her partner, Ezra Sosa. Wednesday also featured two dances by the pros/troupe to songs off of Madonna’s “Confessions II,” which I absolutely feasted on as an avid enjoyer of “Confessions II.” Sarah Jane Nader and her partner, new pro Hailey Bills, were eliminated after a slightly out-of-sync jive to “Sk8er Boi”, ending their very short-lived arc as the third same-sex pairing to ever appear on Dancing With The Stars.
Week 2’s theme was “Viral Hits Night.” This episode was packed with performances, but not all of them were particularly memorable, and the night itself seemed to miss the mark with inconsistent scoring from the judges and, at times, confusing choreography. Ezra Frech and Daniella Karagach were standout performers again, but Olympic gold-medalist Amber Glenn and her partner, Pasha Pashkov, improved enough with a tango to “All The Things She Said” (shoutout to Heated Rivalry) to meet them at the top of the leaderboard with 21 points. Both Maura Higgins and Harry Shum Jr. had slightly more unstable performances compared to the week before and scored lower, though they are both still strong contenders to make it far in the season. At the end of the night, celebrity chef Giada de Laurentiis and her partner, Alan Bersten, were eliminated after a clunky dance to “Bella Ciao” by Becky G (which I don’t remember ever having gone viral, but I’m just going to go with it).
Reactions
My main takeaways from these first two weeks are mostly drenched in confusion. Like, were those two nights really necessary? The whole broadcast might have flowed a bit better as a single night three-hour long show instead. But that would have deprived us of seeing host Julianne Hough’s Paris Baguette-sponsored dance (which wasn’t bad, but wasn’t fantastic, either). Why was there a Paris Baguette-sponsored dance? To promote the new Paris Baguette-Dancing With The Stars latte collab, of course.
We also got a special dance from Derek Hough that was very good and brought some wow factor to the episode. But it came with a healthy side of reminders to get tickets to see his live tour. And let me tell you about the brand-new Sephora glam room, where we can conveniently get the inside scoop on how contestants are feeling before and after their performances. The very first episodes of the season truly left the sweet, sweet taste of consumerism in their wake!
Sarcasm aside, this season has really felt like it’s trying to get me to buy something and interact with brand deals. This isn’t really a new concept. Dancing With The Stars has always been network TV. Sponsors give network TV shows the money to run. My issue is that everything feels very obvious right now. I feel like everything is being shoved down my throat. I’m glad that Dancing With The Stars is getting its money up (so to speak) because I really do love this show and sponsorship money gives it the opportunity to do more. I just wish it wasn’t so front-and-center.
Another issue I’ve found to be very front-and-center this season is that Dancing With The Stars feels like it’s trying too hard to go viral (and not just because of Week 2’s theme being “Viral Hits Night”). Last season had so many iconic moments, but those came mostly organically. This season, so many moments have felt manufactured and at times elicited a “chat, he’s clipfarming!” out of me. I mean, Harry Shum Jr.’s seemingly choreographed scream during his Week 2 Viennese waltz? Tyler Cameron’s Week 2 “salsa” that just ended up being a series of crazy lifts and half-successful attempts at aurafarming? Giada’s whisking step (as in a step that included the genuine miming of mixing something in a bowl, not the samba step of the same name) was hilarious out of context but detrimental to her Week 1 dance’s flow in context? The question constantly at the front of my mind was: what am I looking at?
The worst part of it all is that it isn’t really working. Most of the clips that truly go viral are either genuinely well-executed bits of choreography, like Ezra Frech and Daniella Karagach’s Week 2 cha-cha to Flo Rida’s “Low,” which ended in a stunning, almost perfectly in-sync sequence, or clips that are organically a bit of a “flop” (for lack of a better term) in a fun way, like Jimmy Kimmel Live! sidekick Guillermo Rodriguez’s roll across the floor during his Week 1 cha-cha that received a total score of ten points (also the lowest score of the night). Everything else falls by the wayside, especially when it feels fake. It’s hard to describe what exactly makes something feel fake, but something is always instinctually off, and when elements of a dance or an interview feel produced, it undercuts the entire viewing experience. There is so much incredible talent this season that feels a bit wasted so far because of somewhat dull choreography and moments that feel like they’re forcing a “wow moment.” I’m looking at pros Jenna Johnson and Val Chmerkovskiy specifically here, whose partners (Harry Shum Jr. and Jenna Dewan, respectively) have extensive prior dance experience. And yet Maura Higgins (who has no prior dance experience) and pro Mark Ballas are dancing circles around them right out of the gate. Jenna Dewan and Val Chmerkovskiy ended Week 2 at the top of the leaderboard, but their dance was so incredibly forgettable in comparison to the dances by Olympic gold medalists Amber Glenn and Ezra Frech that ended up with the exact same score of 21 points. Harry Shum Jr. and Jenna Johnson saw an overall drop in their scores between Week 1 and Week 2. Something choreography-wise is not working, and fishing for viral “wow moments” might be playing a role.
The content farming doesn’t stop there, though. There’s been such a push for behind-the-scenes content in recent years, and this season is no exception. Watch the post-premiere afterparty! Listen to the podcast! Make sure you’re tuned into the TikTok live happening during our live broadcast, so you never miss a second to those pesky three-minute ad breaks! Follow our socials! Follow all of the pros and celebs because they’re constantly posting exclusive behind-the-scenes content! There’s so much to consume, and if you’re not consuming it, you start to feel like you’re out of the loop. Dancing With The Stars is a popularity contest as much as it is a skill-based competition, which means that everyone’s social media basically turns into another way for contestants to try to win audience votes. While I do love the fun little videos that pros and stars post, it’s getting to the point where they’re so online that it starts to lean into the territory of being too much.
final thoughts
At this point in the season, it’s a bit too early to tell who will take home the Mirrorball. If I had to guess, I would say that Amber Glenn, Ezra Frech, and Maura Higgins currently have the best chances of winning the season. However, I’m keeping an eye out for Hanson frontman Taylor Hanson and his partner, Britt Stewart, because he seems to have been able to keep up with Britt’s strong choreography so far. I also have high hopes for reality TV star Ciara Miller and her partner, Brandon Armstrong, and Julia Stiles and her partner, Ezra Sosa, though this is mostly wishful thinking on my part. I do hope that Guillermo goes home soon because, as lovely as he is, his partner, Witney Carson (last year’s Mirrorball winner with Robert Irwin), is currently pregnant (the first pro to enter a season having announced a pregnancy) and deserves to rest a bit.
This semester has me watching this show dead tired at the end of a very busy day of classes, so I will pray that the troupe dances to more Madonna, hope production starts to smooth out soon, and continue texting “Amber” to 21523 no matter what. See you guys on Tuesday.
You can watch Dancing With The Stars on Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET, live on ABC or Disney+.