The musician and his partner Britt Stewart went home after Yacht Rock Night, as the ballroom competition dropped its first non-perfect scores two weeks running.
Taylor Hanson is out of the ballroom. The Hanson frontman and his partner Britt Stewart became the fourth couple sent home from Dancing with the Stars Season 35 on Tuesday night, following a Yacht Rock Night that had the surviving 13 couples working through Fleetwood Mac, the Doobie Brothers and Luther Vandross instead of anything from this century.
Hanson's foxtrot to "What a Fool Believes" pulled an 18, solidly mid-table but not enough to keep him in the running once the audience vote came in. Hosts Alfonso Ribeiro and Julianne Hough delivered the news at the end of the live broadcast, closing out a night the show had built entirely around what Just Jared described as smooth grooves and soft-rock classics from the yacht rock era.
The judges weren't exactly handing out gold stars, either. Nobody hit the top of the scale. Two couples shared the night's high mark at 24 — Olympic figure skater Amber Glenn with Pasha Pashkov, whose foxtrot to Toto's "Hold the Line" kept them at the top of the leaderboard, and actor Harry Shum Jr. With Jenna Johnson, whose jive to Hall & Oates landed just as well.
A cluster sat right behind them. Reality star Maura Higgins scored 22 with Mark Ballas on a quickstep, while Tatyana Ali, Jenna Dewan and Ezra Frech all posted 21s across a foxtrot, a samba and another foxtrot respectively. Julia Stiles, at 19, and a run of 18s, Guillermo Rodriguez, Ciara Miller, Jackson Olson, plus Hanson himself. Filled out the middle of the pack. Tyler Cameron's jive with Sharna Burgess drew the lowest score of the night at 17.
Hanson's exit follows last week's double departure of Alan Bersten and his celebrity partner, chef Giada De Laurentiis, the season's third elimination. Going into Yacht Rock Night, three couples had been tied at the top with 21 points apiece, Dewan and Val Chmerkovskiy, Frech and Daniella Karagach, and Glenn and Pashkov. So the field was already tight before Tuesday's scores reshuffled things again.
What's clear three weeks in is that this season's judging panel isn't grading on a curve. No couple has cracked the upper end of the scale yet, and the show seems happy to let the field thin out on genuinely close margins rather than runaway favourites.
Twelve couples remain, and the format shifts again next week for a night built around Mariah Carey's catalogue, a considerably bigger stylistic jump than swapping yacht rock for salsa. Whether the judges finally loosen up for pop's most decorated diva, or keep holding the line at sevens, is the open question heading into Week 4.
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