Dancing With The Stars Was Last Year's Surprise TV Sensation — Can The Show Do It Again In Season 35?

This time last fall, the broadcast-TV networks were preparing to unfurl their usual handful of new shows — some scripted, some not — in the annual hopes that a fresh series might break through in the pop culture conversation. Or, more helpfully, in the ratings.

But fall came and went, and by November, no new shows had caught fire quite like perennial staple "Dancing With the Stars," a series that had been on the air for 20 years, yet rode a wave of surprising buzz in its 34th season.

According to viewership numbers provided by ABC, the reality competition's Season 34 finale became the top entertainment telecast after the 2025 Oscars, with the episode capturing a 53% audience share in the pivotal 18-49 demographic. On the audience engagement side, fans cast 72 million votes for the finale, according to co-hosts Alfonso Ribeiro and Julianne Hough during the broadcast — more than double the number of votes received in the previous year's finale.

"Usually, there's a kind of hammock with ratings. With the premiere, people tend to tune in, and then it'll soften a bit, then build back up to the finale," executive producer Conrad Green tells TVLine. "And last season, it just kept going [up]."

TikTok recreations of the contestants' most memorable moves flooded social media. Routines posted to the show's official YouTube account racked up thousands — or, in the case of eventual winner Robert Irwin's performances, millions — of views. And the finale match-up between Irwin and social media influencer Alix Earle was one of the most hotly debated winner/runner-up pairings in recent memory.

But the confetti from Irwin's victory has long been swept up, and it's now time for "Dancing With the Stars" to embark on Season 35 (premiering tonight at 8/7c on ABC). Heading into a fresh cycle of sambas and sequins, the question lingers: Can lightning strike the ballroom twice?

One of the ratings stats above bears repeating: The "DWTS" Season 34 finale managed a 53% audience share in the 18-49 demo — the largest share of available viewers for any broadcast entertainment series since the "Friends" series finale in 2004, per Variety.

As Conrad Green explains to TVLine, "Dancing With the Stars" has long tried to capture the interest of younger viewers, and Season 34 hooked that demographic "partly by design and partly by good fortune," he shares.

"Really, it was about people in the social media generation, Gen Z, deciding this was one of their shows," Green says. "If you're chosen in that way, you're very fortunate. But we've actively tried to court that, because 'Dancing With the Stars' should work on TikTok, right? People remember TikTok for dances, and guess what we do? We were trying to work out a way that we can engage that new audience, while also — and this was particularly important to me — not alienating our old audience."

In some ways, the answer has seemed obvious: Cast Gen Z-friendly contestants. The show has done just that in recent years, with Green citing TikTok stars Charli D'Amelio and Alix Earle, as well as reality TV personality Harry Jowsey, as particularly savvy recruits made by casting director Deena Katz. (D'Amelio went on to win Season 31, while Earle finished in second place last year; Jowsey, despite a lack of technical dance skill, managed sixth place in Season 32.)

But even though the aforementioned trio "have got that thing, that charisma that connects with a younger audience," per Green, he says he wants to "make the tent ever wider" when it comes to casting: A teenager should recognize some of the contestants on the roster, but so should their parents.

"Our older audience wants to watch good dancing. Well, not necessarily good dancing in Harry Jowsey's case," the EP adds with a laugh. "We look for range. Most people, when the cast is announced, will recognize two or three contestants, but for every individual, the two or three people you recognize are different. It depends on your age, it depends on what you follow."

And though Green agrees that "last season, it just felt like everything fell into place" with the capture of key demographics, he doesn't feel Season 34 was the show's only successful cycle in that area.

"Ironically, [Season 33] had not as dramatic a trajectory, but we had similar improvement [in the ratings]," he counters. "And I was thinking then, 'Are people gonna come back, or was that a summer-of-Dancing-With-the-Stars kind of thing?' And then they did come back, and it kept growing."

"Dancing With the Stars" is, at least on paper, an unscripted series — but the Season 34 arc for Robert Irwin and his pro partner, Witney Carson, felt like something out of a movie.

Irwin was the first cast member announced for Season 34 in April 2025, and there was reason to believe he'd go far: His sister, Bindi Irwin, competed on Season 21 a decade earlier and won the Mirrorball. If Robert had similar dance skill (he did) and support from the home audience (he did), he could very well win that Mirrorball 10 years after watching from the ballroom sidelines while his sister performed. (He did!) It was a potential storybook ending that fans of the show couldn't seem to pass up, contributing to Season 34's particular alchemy.

But it was also a pivotal season for Carson, a longtime "DWTS" veteran who had reached the finale in six of her 10 most recent seasons as a pro. She fell short of the Mirrorball each time, though — most notably in Season 27, when a controversial finale result put her and Disney star Milo Manheim in second place behind country radio DJ Bobby Bones. (Bones' polarizing victory even led to the creation of the Judges' Save for Season 28, but that has since been scrapped.)

"It makes you feel like you're not worthy, in a way," Carson admits to TVLine. "We all have different successes throughout the season. Just because you win [the Mirrorball] doesn't mean you're a great pro or not. A lot of pros are so talented and haven't won at all. But even though I know that's not the measure of success, it does start to get to you a little bit [when you come up short]. Me not winning with Milo definitely hit my confidence a little bit. I didn't know if I was good enough."

Thus, many "Dancing With the Stars" fans were not only championing Robert Irwin during Season 34, but Witney Carson, too, who many felt deserved a triumph after so many seasons of close calls. (Even series co-host Alfonso Ribeiro, with whom Carson won the Mirrorball in Season 19, theorized that Carson's second-place finish with Milo Manheim "broke her slightly.")

"From the beginning, I felt like [Season 34] was my season to lose," Carson shares. She says she and Irwin "had this kind of hero story where we took a dip [in scores], and we were in the middle, and then all of a sudden, people picked us back up.

"Robert really did ignite something inside of me, and really, it's been these last two years, with [Season 33 partner] Danny Amendola, as well," she continues. "Robert really helped me to find that passion and love again. It really helped me to see that I am good enough, even though winning is not a measure of success, per se. It did help me see my value." (This time around, Carson — who's competing while in her second trimester of pregnancy — is paired with "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" sidekick Guillermo Rodriguez, and she says she's looking forward to "making it fun and entertaining" in Season 35, while "pushing Guillermo to be better every week.")

Although the upcoming "Dancing" season doesn't have any storylines as potentially cinematic as Irwin's full-circle moment, Conrad Green says the real casting secret is leaning into "people who are really passionate about doing the show," regardless of their relationship with dance (or with siblings who previously won).

"On a live TV show, you can't really hide if someone's doing it because their agent told them to, and they're not happy to be there," Green asserts. "The audience doesn't engage, and they'll get kicked off the show earlier, and they'll probably be unhappy because it wasn't what they thought it'd be, because they probably weren't committed to doing it anyway. So it's really important for us to get people who are passionate."

Green again cites Alix Earle as an example of the emotional investment that the show's producers crave. Throughout Season 34, Earle told audiences how much she was enjoying her time on the series, even getting emotional in rehearsals with partner Val Chmerkovskiy.

"Who knew that Alix Earle would really love doing it? It's not something she needed to do. She was doing very well, thank you very much, without us," Green laughs. "Same for Charli D'Amelio. To them, it's just a bucket list thing to do in life. And if you get people coming into it with that passion, you get better performances, and you get a real sense of excitement and engagement and a warm, fuzzy feeling coming off the show."

Green maintains, though, that he and the producers "like when there's a good quality of dancing" on the show, "so we're a bit less shy about bringing on people with some dance experience."

Every year, "Dancing With the Stars" fans reignite the debate over whether contestants should have prior dance experience. This time around, actors Jenna Dewan and Harry Shum Jr. — both of whom started their careers as professional dancers — are at the center of the annual back-and-forth. And though Green spoke with TVLine prior to the full Season 35 cast reveal, his opinion stands: Casting good dancers only helps the series.

"As long as they're not trained in ballroom and Latin, we feel that's fair, because people like watching a good show," Green reasons.

Given last year's considerable success, it might surprise fans to realize that "DWTS" isn't making Season 35 a replica of its predecessor. Rather, there are more changes coming than you might expect from a show that just broke viewership and social media engagement records.

For one, the pro roster looks a little different: Series veteran Gleb Savchenko is out for this season, and returning alum Sharna Burgess is in. Plus, there are two brand-new pros in the form of Adele Zaikman, who won the inaugural season of "Dancing With the Stars: The Next Pro", and Hailey Bills, who's officially ready for primetime after a season in the "Dancing" troupe.

And though it has yet to be formally announced, a new dance challenge — tentatively titled the Mega Dance — could shake up one of the Season 35 broadcasts, Conrad Green teases. Think of the Mega Dance like the previously performed relay dances, in which one duo starts performing in a certain style, and a second duo takes over about halfway through the song. The Mega Dance would use the same relay mechanic, but with all of the remaining couples performing in the span of one musical track.

"It's one long song, and [each couple in the cast] picks a section of the song randomly, and [each pair] does a chunk of this one song. No rules, just dance, and that would be for bonus points," Green elaborates. He adds with a chuckle: "I like to try and invent new rounds. I don't know if it'll work. I hope our audience will forgive us if it isn't the greatest thing, but it's nice to keep everyone on their toes." (We're not sure how welcome the Mega Dance news will be for Witney Carson, who laughs that "some of the challenges they spring on us — it keeps it interesting for the audience, but it just stresses me out.")

And yet, even as Green and his team fiddle with the "Dancing" dials in hopes of creating another smash season, he admits that it's a "communal viewing experience" he's chasing. He hopes Season 35 can bridge the gap between audience demographics the way Season 34 did.

"The hardest challenge, especially with linear TV, is to not have it seem like some archaic piece of entertainment," Green says. "When these shows first started, everyone would sit and watch together, and the world stopped when 'American Idol' was on, right? To get an audience that's doing that, I want to keep them engaged and entertained. ... I imagine we're a bit of a warm bath in a cold and hostile world sometimes. There's nothing wrong with just making people happy. That's what we intend to do."

"Dancing With the Stars" returns for Season 35 tonight at 8/7c on ABC and Disney+, with Night 2 of the premiere airing Wednesday at 8 p.m.