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ShowsDancing with the StarsSeason 21
Aired fall 2015 · A cast strong in personality across age groups and backgrounds

Fall 2015

Season twenty-one assembled a celebrity cast that covered age groups and public profiles more widely than the fall slot typically managed. The result was a season with a distinct cast personality — one that gave the live-vote dynamic real texture across twelve episodes.

Filmed
Los Angeles, California
CBS Television City, Los Angeles
Premiered
Sep 14, 2015
ABC · September 2015
Episodes
12
Format
Celebrity ballroom · 12 episodes
Wide-ranging celebrity cast, one of the better-received fall runs
Host
Tom Bergeron
twenty-first season with Tom Bergeron at the helm
On this page
  1. 01The take
  2. 02The shape of the season
  3. 03Where it sits in the canon
  4. 05Adjacent in the canon
  5. 06Also appears in
01The take

Fall 2015.

The cast carried the season — a range of personalities and backgrounds that made the weekly vote feel genuinely unpredictable.
02The shape of the season

A rhythm worth tracking.

Season twenty-one built a celebrity cast that covered a wider range of ages, backgrounds, and public profiles than most fall editions. That diversity translated into a competitive field with genuine unpredictability — the live-vote dynamic shifted week to week in ways that kept the elimination stakes alive. Twelve episodes gave each partnership room to develop, and the back-half choreography reflected a cast that had committed to the process. Among the single-abc-era fall seasons, it holds the strongest claim.

03Where it sits in the canon

The #14 slot.

Slot #14 of 34 in the Dancing with the Stars Editor's Canon. The seasons on either side show what I ranked it against.

No spoilers. Every page is reviewed before it goes live.
06Also appears in

Cross-references.

Dancing with the Stars — Editor's CanonEditor's Canon · #14
Dancing with the Stars S21 — Fall 2015 — tiered.tv