Dancing with the Stars‘s 29th season is lower than three weeks away, and, as you may’ve observed, it is arriving whereas the nation continues to be struggling to get COVID-19 underneath management. Manufacturing on most scripted tv reveals continues to be both on hiatus or solely simply starting to crawl again to life, however for the juggernaut that’s DWTS, the present is completely occurring. With the professional dancers in place and the celebrity cast stretching their limbs for an intense few weeks, the one factor left to do is definitely get the present on the highway. However how, precisely, when COVID-19 stays an actual menace? New host and government producer Tyra Banks defined in a name with journalists Thursday that a number of the precautions the present is taking.
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“There will likely be no studio viewers,” she mentioned, describing one of the important adjustments to the present she mentioned are outlined in a thick binder of guidelines and protocols. “Judges will likely be far-off from one another. There are masks, fumigation…we now have three married {couples} and they are going to be going by very robust protocols. They won’t even be dwelling with one another.” Professional dancers and celebs will likely be in their very own “pods,” she mentioned — not an official time period from DWTS manufacturing however her personal terminology to explain the methods teams will likely be separated. Dancers, she mentioned, is not going to put on masks.
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Whereas COVID-19 precautions are exhaustive and intense, these make up only one portion of the various issues going into the season. “We’re actually attempting to determine incorporate Len [Goodman] within the season,” she mentioned, addressing rumors that Derek Hough can be changing him. That is not the intention, she mentioned, however the staff is in actual fact bringing Hough again. “He’s doing one thing that is going to be revealed. He is Dancing with the Stars royalty.”
Banks, who is not simply the host of Season 29 but in addition an government producer, mentioned that whereas she has quite a lot of enter on the present, she didn’t come to Dancing with the Stars “with a sledgehammer” trying to make enormous adjustments. “That is an American icon of a showcase. [Executive producer] Andrew Llinares does the heavy lifting, the showrunning. I’ve are available in so as to add pixie mud.” She didn’t have a say in casting, she mentioned. Banks mentioned she sees her function as one to “spice it up,” and convey younger audiences in addition to new viewers to an already well-oiled machine.
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She’s conscious, although, that some followers have been lower than happy her becoming a member of DWTS meant the departure of Tom Bergeron and Erin Andrews, and he or she is conscious that her hiring — coming after months of protests over racial injustice — might have seemed to some like an try to diversify this system. Bergeron himself refuted that claim in an Instagram post.
When requested about her ideas on these perceptions by TV Information, Banks needed to set the document straight. “I will be a hundred percent clear. The choice to deliver me on the present was earlier than any of the unrest. The announcement got here after that. ABC was not reacting to [Black Lives Matter protests.] I knew precisely what individuals would assume, however that is not what it was.” Change of any form, she mentioned, might be onerous for individuals to simply accept, however at this stage in her profession, she is used to overcoming detrimental perceptions and challenges.
“I’ve created TV reveals, I’ve hosted Emmy-winning reveals. I am succesful. I’ve at all times liked having the wind in my face. It does not hassle me,” she mentioned. “My job is to endear America to this present they know and love. I will deliver pleasure and oomph. I am assured we’ll present individuals time.”
Dancing with the Stars Season 29 premieres on Monday, Sept. 14 at 8/7c on ABC.
Tyra Banks