Danielle Fishel still doesn’t fully understand if there’s a method to the judges’ madness on Dancing With the Stars.
“I am gonna say the scoring on this show does confuse me. It is a little confusing,” Fishel, 44, said on the Wednesday, November 5, episode of the “Pod Meets Twirl’d” podcast. “I do think that maybe they could benefit from halves. Like an 8.5 and an 8 and then 9 or a 9.5.”
Fishel explained that part of her confusion stemmed from the scoring around the team dances — where she and partner Pasha Pashkov plus three other couples faced off against the other four pairs. (Fishel’s Team Chicago ultimately received a higher score, earning a 40 out of 40 from judges Carrie Ann Inaba, Derek Hough, Bruno Tonioli and guest judge Flavor Flav. Team Kool, meanwhile, received a 38 out of 40.)
“Even when I think about the team dance scores and I think about — I think, mainly, my main question would be, I guess, for Derek, when he gives a critique to Team Kool about the dance, but then says, ‘I think the first dance was better,’ but then gives us both the same score. I’m like, ‘Hmm, OK,’” Fishel said.
She continued, “Some of that stuff is a little confusing to me. I don’t think that’s out of line to say. People are entitled to do whatever they want and pick the scores that they want but it is a little confusing as both a person on the ballroom floor and also, I think, as a viewer, sometimes those things are a little confusing.”
Fishel and Pashkov were ultimately sent home during the Tuesday, November 4, episode after earning an individual score of 34 out of 40 for their contemporary to “Dream On” by Aerosmith. Days before Fishel’s exit, her former Boy Meets World costars defended her performances despite not being at the top of the leaderboard.
“Carrie Ann has her favorites, and she’ll have two or three that no matter what they do, they could walk on the stage, trip, hit their face, and she’d be like, ‘You tried so hard, 9!’” Will Friedle said on the Saturday, November 1, episode of the “Pod Meets Twirl’d” podcast. “Danielle does the best thing where she’s doing triple flips and she’s like, ‘You’ve got to hold your shoulders different too,’ and it’s like, ‘What the f***?’”
Rider Strong, meanwhile, echoed Friedle’s sentiment. “I’m with you, man. I held back the anger. I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt. At this point, it’s starting to feel like a personal vendetta,” Strong, 45, shared. “Are you guys open to the potential that Danielle might be working her ass off?”
Fishel, for her part, shared that she had a “wide range of emotions” after leaving the competition.
“I’m obviously very sad to be leaving the competition. I’m sad my day-to-day life is going to so drastically change now. I have literally woken up every single day and looked forward to rehearsal and looked forward to what dance we were learning that week, and to seeing Pasha and collaborating with him and hanging out with him,” she said on Wednesday, while getting emotional. “Talking about not seeing him every day is going to make me very sad. We had the most dream-like partnership you could possibly ask for with someone that you get thrown together with.”
Dancing With the Stars airs on ABC and Disney+ Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET, with new episodes streaming the next day on Hulu.
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