Dancing with the Stars will be implementing a new elimination format for its upcoming season that will give viewers the final say instead of the judges.

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Taking into account how Dancing with the Stars no longer airs a separate results show on Tuesday nights, the upcoming eighteenth season will determine each week's elimination being based upon the viewer-voting results and judges' scores from the prior Monday's performance show, TV Guide reported.

"Effectively, we will know who's going home Tuesday morning," executive producer Conrad Green told TV Guide.

"So what will happen is, every couple will compete the following week, but one of those couples will be the one who is carrying the black mark of elimination with them, as it were. And there's really not much they can do."

In other words, the couple to get eliminated on any given Monday night will already have been determined before the broadcast even begins.

The pair who had received the lowest number of votes and judges' scores from the previous week must still dance in the current performance show without any knowledge they're dead men walking -- or dancing.

That couple will be sent home regardless of what happens or how high their newest scores from the judges might be.

In response to criticism the new change will be harsh on the eliminated couples -- especially if they have a really good night but no shot to redeem themselves -- Green admitted, "None of these systems are ideal."

Last season, Dancing with the Stars combined the prior week's viewer-voting results with the current week's judges scores.

The judges had the last say because their scores were basically added on to the previously-tallied vote total, which resulted in some "anomalous results," according to Green.

"But I do think at least this way the public gets the final say and they get to vote in response to the judges, rather than the judges having effectively the final say," Green explained.

Dancing with the Stars host Tom Bergeron has also seemed to all but confirm the mysterious new "Switch Up" twist ABC's been heavily promoting will be brief.

Many viewers had speculated that once America switches up the pairings, they'd likely be permanent for the rest of the season.

"If I was the pro and suddenly I had a new partner, and then I knew that I was going to go back to my old partner later, I wonder if I'd choreograph to the best of my ability while I was with the other person," Bergeron told TV Guide.

"Which is not to cast dispersions on anybody's professionalism. I'm just thinking diabolical strategy."

"The Switch Up" will allow America to vote on how they'd like to change up the celebrity and professional partner pairings at some point in the season, reportedly as soon as Week 3. Home viewers will vote to pair up each show pro with a different celebrity partner than he or she began the competition with.

Never in the show's history have the pairings been split up during the course of a season.

"It's always a question that superfans of the show have, which is, how much is the celebrity good because they're with that partner, or how much is it because they're good themselves?" Green elaborated.

"It's a very good test of the stars, how good they actually are at dancing. And also, it's a real test for our pro dancers."

In addition to the elimination-format change and "The Switch Up" twist, Dancing with the Stars' eighteenth season will feature a handful of other alterations -- including Erin Andrews serving as the new co-host and Ray Chew as the new music director.

Brooke Burke-Charvet and former band director Harold Wheeler were fired.

"When you're a show reaching its eighteenth season and its ninth year, I think you have to keep changing things up every so often just to make sure that the experience doesn't become too familiar," Green told TV Guide.

"It's spring, so it's time for a spring cleaning."

However, mainstay judges Len Goodman, Carrie Ann Inaba and Bruno Tonioli will, once again, resume their positions on the panel.

Dancing with the Stars' new season premieres Monday night at 8PM ET/PT on ABC.


About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski

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