Those behind Dancing with the Stars shocked fans when it was announced that the long-running competition had decided to part ways with hosts Tom Bergeron and Erin Andrews. While Andrews was once a competitor on the series (having placed third in Season 10), she began hosting relatively recently, and took over for Brooke Burke-Charvet in 2014. Bergeron, on the other hand, has hosted for all 28 seasons, so it was a special kind of not-very-good surprise for a lot of people that he was being retired from the show. Now, former winner Jordan Fisher has spoken about the "odd" decision to have Tyra Banks replace Bergeron and Andrews.
When the announcement was made that Tyra Banks would be the new host of Dancing with the Stars for Season 29 when the show returns sometime this fall, it was also confirmed that she'd be taking on executive producer duties for the series, as well. And, while former DWTS pro Derek Hough recently said he was shocked by the show's move, he did admit that he also felt it was "understandable," but it sounds like Jordan Fisher has an entirely different take. Here's what he told Entertainment Tonight:
It's odd. Tyra is very talented, and ABC, I would say, most of the time knows what they're doing. It's really just a matter of seeing it actually happen. . . . I'm curious... the tonal quality of the show is so family-oriented, and I think that Tom and Erin have played a large part in cultivating that feeling for fans at home. So their absence, I think, is... I mean, it's evident based on social media and all that stuff how people feel in terms of their absence from the show.
Jordan Fisher, who also hosted 2018's Dancing with the Stars: Juniors with former Malcolm in the Middle star Frankie Muniz, is correct that fans of the show have been stunned into some less than pleasant reactions to the news that Tom Bergeron and Erin Andrews had been replaced. But, when you have a host like Bergeron who started with the show's first season, helped it become popular, and who was even nominated for nine Emmy Awards (winning in 2012) for doing said work, you don't just get rid of him unless you're looking to make some serious changes to what viewers see every week.
Fisher seems to think that DWTS will no longer be looking for a "family-oriented" tone when it returns this fall. While that might be true, it's not like Tyra Banks, who previously hosted her own daytime talk show for five years (and won a Daytime Emmy Award for doing it) as well as hosting America's Next Top Model and America's Got Talent, is known for showing up to host a show and saying / doing wildly inappropriate or suggestive things that would turn families off.
Banks has already said that she's been a fan of Dancing with the Stars since the beginning, and seeing as how she's coming on as an additional executive producer along with hosting, it's unlikely that she's looking to make radical changes which would lead to nip slips or f-bombs getting dropped.
More than anything, it sounds like the show is simply looking to shake things up after Season 28 (which aired last fall), managed to average fewer viewers than any of its seasons before. On top of that, fans have been complaining about the voting system for the show for several seasons now, and changes made last time around not only didn't seem to help, but actually made the outcry worse.
Until we get a look at the new, Tyra Banks-led DWTS, I'm sure many fans will be echoing the thoughts of Jordan Fisher, who also said:
She's an EP on the show as well, so I don't know. I don't know what that's gonna look like or sound like or feel like, or anything along those lines. So, we'll see. We'll see when the show comes back up.
Dancing with the Stars is set to come back sometime this fall on ABC, so be sure to stay tuned to CinemaBlend for the latest. In the meantime, check out what you can watch in the coming weeks, with our summer TV guide and fall premiere schedule!
