‘Dancing with the Stars’ week 10 slugfest: What did we think of the shocking Semi-Finals NON-elimination? [WATCH]

“At the end of the show I was a little annoyed,” admits Gold Derby editor Daniel Montgomery about week 10 of “Dancing with the Stars.” “I was very happy for every single one of them, but that they played that dirty trick at the end on Ariana and Xochitl, making it seem like one of them would be eliminated.” But it turns out no one was eliminated at the end of “Semi-Finals,” which means five celebs will compete in the finale for the first time in the show’s history. Watch Montgomery’s penultimate slugfest with contributors Cordell Martin and Jeffrey Kare above.

When “DWTS” host Alfonso Ribeiro announced the results at the end of the night, he first revealed Alyson Hannigan was safely through to the finale, then Jason Mraz and Charity Lawson, leaving Ariana Madix and Xochitl Gomez to wait for the bad news. But after the usual pregnant pause he revealed that all of the celebs had advanced to the finale and that the “Semi-Finals” scores and votes would be combined with the finals to determine this season’s winner.

Martin is “very curious as to what was the rationale behind having five contestants.” He wonders “if the producers probably felt like it was a fan favorite going home and probably were like, you know what, let’s just change the rules and pick five contestants. Something just seemed a little fishy about that in my opinion.” Kare “had this feeling that things weren’t gonna go according to plan, and so when Xochitl and Ariana were announced for the bottom two, I was like, we’re probably in for a big shocker, and I did not expect the big shocker to be no elimination at all.” That said, “I’m glad that all five of them are in the finale because I think this is probably one of the strongest lineups we’ve had in a while.”

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