On Monday Oct. 21, 2013 we witnessed fantastic routines from current leaders on the leader board and surprising routines from the under dogs. Don’t let me get to ahead of myself. Well first off, this season saw a line up of twelve stars raging from reality TV stars, actors/actresses, athletes, and TV personalities.

The twelve stars on season 17 were Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi, Elizabeth Berkley Lauren, Corbin Bleu, Brat Daugherty, Bill Envgall, Valerie Harper, Keyshawn Johnson, Christina Milian, Bill Nye “the science guy”, Jack Osbourne, Leah Remini, and Amber Riley. Also this years fall season saw a huge change on how the shows formatted. Instead of being on two nights it moved to a one night format. It now only airs Mondays at 8 P.M. with two hours episodes.

You would think that this change would somehow affect chances of having celebrity guest but it did not. In this new two hour format they have been able to squeeze in individual dances, musical performances, and an elimination. That to me is very impressive, because to be honest shows that are two nights in a row get really boring and then I decide to just to DVR it.

So far this season we have had to say goodbye to some great competitors. One of the first to go was ESPN commentator Keyshawn Johnson. Next to go was Bill Nye. He was my personal favorite because he danced with his heart on his sleeve. The next to go was Valerie Harper. She was something great to watch every Monday night because of her inspirational story of survival and bravery.

Last week the ballroom was mute when Tom Bergeron and Brooke Burke announced that the couple going home was Christina Milian and her partner Mark Ballas. I honestly thought that she was going to stay until the end and possibly win the whole thing. This shows that she lacked support and that it was her time to go.

Monday nights episode saw fantastic routines from Elizabeth Berkley Lauren earning a perfect score of thirty out of thirty for her “Cha Cha Cha.” She received high praise from Carrie Anne Inaba, Len Goodman, and Bruno Tonioli for her spot on performance. Corbin Bleu on the other hand received negative critiques from the judges for his “Viennese Waltz” receiving a score of twenty three out of thirty.

I believe that he should have received the perfect score of the night because of the character he played and how good he stuck to the role for the entire dance number. He danced to the theme song of “Game of thrones”,and it was in my opinion a well thought out performance that should have been positively received.

Brant Daughtery, the breakout star from “Pretty Little Liars”, gave one of the best tangos of the night that had third on the leader board solely on his individual round. The rest of the contestants stayed neutral and had no shocking moments that night. Oddly enough Monday’s show brought in a new element to this already well known dancing competition, the contestants were told a week in advance to Monday nights show that they were going to have do a group dance.

Improvise dances to songs that were going to be played, during two different groups made up of four different couples. Points for the switch up competition were as follows: first place would get four points, second would get three and so on and the last couple receiving only one point.The winners of the first heat were Corbin Bleu and his pro dance partner Karina Smirnoff.

Amber Riley from Fox’s “Glee” won the second heat of the night with both of these couples receiving four points. The main reason to why I think both these couples won was because of there showmen ship and there level of endurance and them actually enjoying what they do.

The top scores of the night were Amber Riley and her partner Derek Hough and Elizabeth Berkley Lauren and her partner Val Chmerkovskiy, both of them receiving thirty two points. The shocking moment of this weeks show was in the last five minutes of the show when it came time to eliminate someone but to the surprise of everyone in the audience and home no one when home due to the fact that during the show recap last week they gave the wrong numbers for the stars so they decide to discard the votes and have everyone be safe for another week.

Next week, the couples will be dancing two dances: an individual and a group dance. I am really excited to see how this goes for each team because they both have aces on their teams. So remember to tune into ABC at 8 pm on Monday to see the surprises that the cast of season seventeen have in store for us.