Series Description

Dancing With the Stars is a 60 minute competitive reality series series on ABC where celebrity contestants team up with professional dance partners to perform dances of all types from the Cha Cha to waltzes, tango, sambas, disco, the foxtrot and the usual favorite, freestyle. The couples' performances are scored by a panel of three judges and are voted on by fans throughout North America. The couple with the lowest combined score goes home. Professional celebrity singers and dancers also perform on the show.

Dancing With the Stars Cast

Hosts:

Tom Bergeron .... (2005-)
Brooke Burke .... Co-host (2008-)
Samantha Harris .... Co-host (2006-2009)
Lisa Canning .... Co-host (2005)
Drew Lachey .... Co-host (2007)

Judges:

Bruno Tonioli .... (2005-)
Carrie Ann Inaba .... (2005-)
Len Goodman .... (2005-)

Professional Dancers:

Cheryl Burke .... (2006-)
Driton "Tony" Dovolani .... (2006-)
Maksim Chmerkovskiy .... (2006-)
Derek Hough .... (2007-)
Edyta Sliwinska .... (2005-2010)
Kym Johnson .... (2006-)
Karina Smirnoff .... (2006-)
Mark Ballas .... (2007-)
Louis van Amstel .... (2005-2011)
Anna Trebunskaya .... (2006-)
Julianne Hough .... (2007-2009)
Lacey Schwimmer .... (2008-)
Jonathan Roberts .... (2005-2009)
Alec Mazo .... (2005-2009)
Chelsie Hightower .... (2009-)
Dmitry Chaplin .... (2009,2011)
Ashly DelGrosso .... (2005-2006,2010)
Anna Demidova .... (2009)
Damian Whitewood .... (2010)

Others:

Harold Wheeler .... Musical Director (2005-)
Alan Dedicoat .... Announcer (2005-2007)

Dancing With the Stars Trivia:

This series was inspired by the British series "Strictly Come Dancing" that airs on the BBC.

As of the end of season eleven, seven contestants have withdrawn from competition on Dancing With the Stars. Lil' Romeo dropped out prior to the season two premiere due to a basketball injury and his dad "Master P" took his place. In week six of the 3rd season, Sara Evans left due to personal complications caused by her divorce. Prior to the premiere of season 4 Vincent Pastore ("The Sopranos") quit after just one week of training. He said that he underestimated the physical demands of the competition and was replaced by John Ratzenberger ("Cheers"). Misty May-Treanor was forced to leave Dancing With the Stars in Season seven when she tore her Achilles Tendon during a rehearsal session and had to have corrective surgery. Both Jewel and Nancy O'Dell had serious injuries during rehearsals prior to the premiere of season eight. Jewel was replaced by Holly Madison ("Girls Next Door") and Melissa Rycroft ("The Bachelor") stood in for Nancy. Tom Delay reluctantly left the show in season nine after ongoing problems with his feet developed into a full stress fracture.

Season 11 of Dancing With the Stars saw a huge controversy when Bristol Palin remained on the show while other contestants that were generally considered to be better dancers were eliminated from the competition. Bristol's critics felt that her mother's political supporters voted for her regardless of her performance. On several occasions, Tom Bergeron stated that the judges scores are just one factor in determining who remains on the show and that the audience's votes were the other factor. He went on to state that the method being used would not be changed. There were also accusations that Palin's voters were voting more than the number of times allowed and ABC stated that they had security procedures that prevented that possibility but could not elaborate on what they were without giving information that might aid cheaters in defeating their security.

Fans can vote by toll-free telephone number, on the ABC web site and by text message. Votes are limited per person to the number of couples performing using each of those methods or five times per method, whichever is larger. So if there are eight couples performing, each person can cast 24 votes for their favorite if they use all three methods. It was revealed in season 11 that voting online did not require a valid email address so fans could vote unlimited times. That is what ABC was referring to when they said that they had security measures that prevented that possibility. Several commonly known methods are available that could be used to determine that votes are coming from the same person even though an invalid email address is used. Only ABC knows whether or not they use methods that really work. If they didn't before, it's likely that they do now due to the controversy.

The actual way that eliminatees are determined is that each couple's judge's score is determined by the percentage of the total points that each team receives for their performance. For example, if the judges award 250 total points and a couple gets a score of 25 points then their judge's score is 10%. The audience voting score is simply the percentage of the total votes that a couple receives. The two percentages are added together and the couple with the lowest combined score is eliminated.