Derek Hough stepped in on Sept. 17 to defend the unusually low marks given to Guillermo Rodriguez and Witney Carson on the Dancing With the Stars Season 35 premiere, saying the judges were trying to reset how the lower end of the scale is used. Rodriguez and Carson finished with 10 out of 30 for a cha-cha to Jean Knight's Mr. Big Stuff, a number that immediately drew boos from the ballroom audience and pushed the conversation beyond the dance itself.
The reaction is coming now because the premiere did not just hand out a low score; it handed out two 3s, a 4 and a result that put Rodriguez in rare company. Under the three-judge, 30-point format, only Steve Wozniak had previously landed on 10, while Master P still holds the overall low mark with an 8 from Season 2. That history is why the score landed so hard, and why Hough is now trying to explain it as a choice, not a mistake.
Hough said the goal is to make the lower half of the scale feel real again, so that early weeks do not flatten everything into the same few numbers. In his view, if judges start lower now, then an 8 later in the competition will actually matter, instead of being lost in a range where contestants are essentially fighting over two numbers. He said the placements across the premiere felt pretty accurate, and he also said stronger marks later in the season will carry more weight if the floor is not spent too soon.
That explanation did not soften the response from Carson. She called the original scores lame after the premiere and later said the two 3s were a little mean, which put her on the opposite side of Hough’s view that the placements felt pretty accurate. The split matters because the argument is no longer about whether Rodriguez danced a flawless cha-cha; it is about whether the judges should be using 3s and 4s this early at all, or whether that kind of scoring is now part of the new baseline.
There is some evidence that the approach is already spreading beyond one routine. On the second night, Tatyana Ali and Jan Ravnik received 12 out of 30 after all three judges gave their jive 4s, and Jackson Olson and Emma Slater picked up three 5s for 15 out of 30 after Hough told Olson that expectations were super high. Hough also said contestants will have to earn every single point, a line that suggests the judges are not treating the opening scores as an exception.
What remains unanswered is whether that patience for low numbers will last once the field settles in and the dances improve. If Hough is right, the early sting is the point: the judges are trying to protect the top of the scale before it loses its meaning. If he is wrong, Rodriguez’s 10 will be remembered less as a hard lesson in scoring and more as the night the season showed its hand too early.
