‘Dancing with the Stars’ week 4 review: Julianne Hough returns; was Valerie Harper eliminated?

Tonight marked a non-themed week on “Dancing with the Stars,” but perhaps the theme instead was “the return of Julianne Hough,” who was replacing Len Goodman. You see, Len and Bruno Tonioli also do “Strictly Come Dancing” in the United Kingdom, and occasionally he does take some time off so that he doesn’t have to travel cross-country every week. (That is quite a long flight.)

So was Julianne a decent judge? Sure, but we imagine that this was really awkward for the contestants for a number of reasons. For one, you had her judging pros in Cheryl Burke and Tony Dovolani who were on the show before her, and only because she found fame away from the show as a singer and sometimes-actress. Also, her brother Derek is on the show, while it was not necessarily suspect that she gave him and Amber Riley their highest score of the night (since the other judges contributed, as well), it’s still something that does not feel altogether right.

Also annoying? The judges gave everyone the same scores all night. Seriously, what’s the point of there being three of them if they are all in agreement? Just give Bruno his screen time and call it a day.

Eliminated tonight was someone that we had in last on our rankings going into this in Valerie Harper and Tristan MacManus. The two seem like great people, and in the end, this was the perfect time for her to leave. It’s before it becomes too obvious that everyone there is a better dancer, and she will get the utmost sympathy and support from this. The other person in danger was Brant Daugherty with Peta Murgatroyd, and they are going to be in trouble again next week after this. He doesn’t have the following to support getting a low score.

Do you think that the right person was sent home this week, and what did you think about Julianne’s judging ability? We want to hear some of your thoughts on the subject below!

Photo: ABC