What We Hope To See From Dancing With the Stars' "New Creative Direction"

New Kinds of Contestants  

Why do they keep casting celebrities with no dancing ability? That’s the question we end up asking ourselves every season as we watch some celebs who are barely able to shuffle through a single routine. They don’t get the time to truly get better, and other dancers end up having to hold themselves back (see: the lift rule). Scores are also skewed, since there are only 10 points in a score, and only so many points you can improve before you’re just perfect every time. 

But if a celeb with no dancing ability starts out getting fours, then the good dancers start out getting sevens or eights, and they can only get to 10, while worse dancers can appear to improve much faster.

We also complain when contestants are already professional dancers, because that seems to make it unfair, but there has to be a happy medium, like a minimum requirement of dance skill in order to compete. Why would you even sign up to do the show if you know you can’t dance, and you’ll be out in the first or second week? A more even playing field would make for a more exciting competition. 

Actual celebrities (who are not politicians) would also be a good rule for the casting department to have.