What Will Be Different About Season 28 of ‘Dancing With The Stars’
Fans have been missing “Dancing With the Stars’ during the show’s spring hiatus on ABC. However, the show has officially been confirmed as returning to its Monday night home at 8 p.m. this fall with the series officially being renewed for a 28th season and placed back on the schedule.
“DWTS” was taken off the schedule at ABC for the first time in the Spring this year, after initially receiving a shortened all-athletes edition in 2018 that wasn’t popular with fans. Though fans believed the show being removed from the schedule was because of the controversial 27th season, which saw Bobby Bones take the Mirrorball trophy, the hiatus was also because of “American Idol” being given a home on ABC’s schedule which would affect the show’s ability to air. However, now that it is officially returning, some are wondering if the series will make some of the adjustments fans have been clamoring for.
Following Bones’ win, many fans called for a change to the Voting Process, which gives equal weight to both the judge's scores and the votes cast by fans at home. Many felt that the system failed in Season 27 since Bones, who scored consistency lower than his fellow three finalists, wound up taking the title. However, while the show is reportedly making some changes, it doesn’t appear the plans are to overhaul how the votes are counted.
According to Deadline, the show is instead focusing on overhauling the casting process. During the Disney Press upfronts, head of programming Karey Burke revealed the series was going after “bigger stars than we have in a long time.”
The most recent seasons of the show haven’t seen a large number of high-profile celebrities, with the biggest names to surface in recent years consisting mainly of actor Frankie Muniz, former Fifth Harmony singer Normani Kordei, model Amber Rose and Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte. The bulk of the casts have consisted of athletes, reality stars and television actors from other ABC/Disney properties.
However, a cast of bigger names isn’t the only change in store, as Burke also revealed some top-secret format changes as well.
“We have been pitched some really fun format changes for ‘Dancing With the Stars’ by the executive producers but right now they are top secret. [Reality chief] Rob Mills and I had a meeting with them a couple of months ago and got very excited about some of the new ideas that they were talking about to freshen up the format. It’s still the show that audience knows and loves but they’ve got some good ideas in terms of how to surprise people in new ways,” she said.
Whether or not those format changes mean a change to the voting system or not remains to be seen. However, one thing it’s worth noting is that the change will not include bringing back the series’ former Tuesday Night results show, The fall schedule lineup ABC has released shows that “DWTS” only has its usual 8 p.m. timeslot on Monday, while Tuesdays are full of a new comedy block including “The Conners,” and “black-ish” as well as the new spin-off series “mixed-ish.”
“Dancing With The Stars” returns this fall on ABC. A specific return date has not been announced.
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