‘Dancing with the Stars 21’: Maksim Chmerkovskiy to return as guest judge

Remember when there was talk before this season of “Dancing with the Stars” that there would be no guest judges this season? Well, we’re kind of laughing about that now.

On “Good Morning America” Tuesday it was confirmed that former pro Maksim Chmerkovskiy would be returning to the show to judge for the second time on Monday’s episode, which means that we’ll probably get that oh-so-great combination of quality critiquing and ego. The thing is that Maks is a ballroom expert, so when it comes to getting people with insight on the panel, he brings that way more than Alfonso Ribeiro did during his stint last week.

However, at the same time do we really need another voice? It’s mostly a time issue, since these shows have had to shorten some routines in order to accommodate doing performances and results within the span of two hours. Trying to make the judging longer than the routines is not something we endorse.

As for the fact that Maks’ brother Val is in the competition with Tamar Braxton, that’s not a big deal to us in the slightest. She’s a great dancer, so she’s probably going to get great scores regardless of who is on the panel. Also, Maks is probably not the kind to score based on nepotism; he’ll probably be harder on his brother than anyone else.

Last night, Gary Busey was officially eliminated from the competition, which brings us down to just nine contenders moving into the next show and the infamous Switch-Back. Right now Bindi Irwin is at the top of the leaderboard with a 28, including the first 10 of the season.

Want to get some other TV news sent right to your email every weekend? Then be sure to sign up over here for our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: ABC.)