Guillermo Dancing with the Stars got an unusually tight opening-night score, and Derek Hough is standing behind it. Guillermo Rodriguez and Witney Carson finished the Season 35 premiere with 10 out of 30 for their cha-cha, a mark Hough said was part of resetting how the lower end of the scale is used.
Hough said in a Sept. 17 interview that the judges are trying to change how contestants and viewers read the numbers. “I think it's changing the value of the numbers,” he said. “And now when somebody gets an 8, it's going to mean something.”
Derek Hough and Bruno Tonioli
Rodriguez and Carson danced to Jean Knight’s Mr. Big Stuff, and the panel split the routine between a 4 from Carrie Ann Inaba and 3s from Derek Hough and Bruno Tonioli. The ballroom audience booed after the score was announced, but Hough said the placements felt pretty accurate when he looked at the field as a whole.
That defense matters because the show is not treating the premiere like a soft opening. Hough told Jackson Olson after his cha-cha that the standard would be high from the beginning and that contestants would have to “earn every single point,” then Olson and Emma Slater received three 5s for 15 out of 30.
Witney Carson on the podcast
Carson pushed back harder. On the show's official podcast, she said, “I thought that was a little uncalled for,” and later added, “I felt like the threes were a little bit mean.” That reaction fits the split-screen nature of the premiere: the judges were compressing the lower numbers, while one of the dancers involved read the same marks as a step too far.
The rarity of 10 out of 30 gives the score extra weight. Master P still holds the lowest 30-point score in Dancing With the Stars history with an 8 in Season 2, and Steve Wozniak later reached 10 in Season 8 under the three-judge, 30-point format. Rodriguez became only the second celebrity after Wozniak to hit 10 in that structure.
Season 35 scoring reset
Hough’s own explanation points to a season-long reset, not a one-night flourish. He said the lower scores should make the rest of the season’s numbers carry more value, which means the real test is whether later 8s and 9s feel earned rather than automatic. If the judges keep using the bottom half of the scale this way, every point will be harder to spend and easier to notice.
