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ShowsDancing with the StarsSeason 27
Aired fall 2018 · Live-vote and judges'-score tension ran unusually high

Fall 2018

Season twenty-seven put the format's central tension on full display. The gap between judges' scores and live audience votes was wider than most seasons manage, pushing competitors up and out of the competition in ways that kept the weekly drama genuinely unpredictable.

Filmed
Los Angeles, California
CBS Television City, Los Angeles
Premiered
Sep 24, 2018
ABC · September 2018
Episodes
11
Format
Celebrity ballroom · 11 episodes
Pronounced live-vote divergence from judges' scores throughout
Host
Tom Bergeron, Erin Andrews
twenty-seventh 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 2018.

Artistry versus popularity: the format's core conflict ran more openly here than it had in years.
02The shape of the season

A rhythm worth tracking.

Season twenty-seven made visible what the DWTS format keeps mostly in the background: the gap between what the judges reward and what the audience votes for. The live-vote dynamic diverged from the scorecard more sharply than it had in years, pushing the competitive frame in unexpected directions through the middle episodes. The cast covered a solid range of entertainment and athletic backgrounds, and the back half delivered clean choreographic arcs. Of the era's fall runs, it is the most format-honest.

03Where it sits in the canon

The #24 slot.

Slot #24 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 · #24
Dancing with the Stars S27 — Fall 2018 — tiered.tv