‘Dancing with the Stars 23’: Does Ryan Lochte stage-crashing ‘attack’ improve odds?

We’re still reeling to a certain extent from what happened on Monday night’s new episode of “Dancing with the Stars,” especially since it may be the craziest thing that we have seen on the series since the infamous moment where Marie Osmond passed out following a performance. In this case, it was even more combative in that two protesters apparently tried to go after Ryan Lochte following his performance with Cheryl Burke.

While ultimately Lochte and Burke were fine, and received the score of 24 for their efforts in the ballroom, the question still has to be asked: Will this end up being somewhat of a net positive on the show itself? Obviously, he probably wishes it never happened and producers feel the same way, but it turns the Olympian, in the heat of scandal, into more of a sympathetic figure to some. We’ve seen that impact on other Stars on this show over the years.

Going into this season, we felt like Lochte was certainly a wild card. From one vantage point, he’s an accomplished athlete, and typically that ability does translate well into getting some good scores in the ballroom. However, at the same exact time he has more skeletons than the average performer, and some of the biggest ones via that Rio scandal. Some people will never vote for him as a result of that, and there were others who despised the show for even casting him.

Seeing how he handles this adversity and moves forward this season will be one of the more interesting stories to watch now. Regardless of our feelings on Lochte’s history, it makes for compelling television.

If you missed it, head over here to watch the video for what exactly happened. Meanwhile, sign up over at this link to score some other TV news on everything we cover via our official CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: ABC.)