Julia's Season 23 Pro Ranking

Like I did with Season 22, I'm going to rank the Season 23 pro dancers. Please remember that this list is based solely on how they did this season, so some people may be much higher or lower than they were on the last one.

13. Maks Chmerkovskiy
Season 22 Rank: N/A

I was surprised Maks even came back for this season after making such a big deal about leaving the show for good a few years ago. At first it seemed like he might be more relaxed this season after already having a Mirrorball Trophy. In some ways he kinda was, but doing things like chilling on choreography is a detriment for a pro to do to their partner. I do think he’s softened a little compared to earlier seasons, but he was still sort of harsh on Amber and didn’t seem to know how to teach her. They clearly got along and liked each other, but it probably wasn’t a very good match as a Dancing With the Stars partnership. I also wasn’t a fan of he and Val making Laurie’s trio dance all about themselves and him not even BEING in half of it. In the end, Maks is in this spot on the list for being a hypocrite: Last season he was not shy about criticizing the pros for doing the exact same things he himself ended up doing this season.

12. Jenna Johnson
Season 22 Rank: N/A

This was Jenna’s first season as a pro and I don’t think she really knew how to showcase Jake. Neither of the dances she came up with really suited his strengths and personality. She also has habit of mugging and dancing in order to stand out. I imagine she was trained this way and there is certainly a time and place for that stuff, but trying to highlight a celebrity, especially one who is an unskilled dancer is not an appropriate situation for it. She was originally going to be on the bottom of this list, but her time working with James later in the season saved her. She still mugged a bit (it worked for the Suicide Squad dance but not the others) but I appreciated her working hard with James and trying keep the focus on him as the star and Sharna as the choreographer. If there are enough female pro spots next season I wouldn’t mind seeing Jenna back, but if they have to make a choice to cut someone once they find out who is interested in returning I think she should be the first to go. I think she has it in her to be a great pro, but being sent back to the troupe might light a fire under her like it has others in the past.

11. Artem Chigvintsev
Season 22 Rank: #12

At the beginning of the season all of us on this blog said Artem probably wasn’t the right partner for Maureen, and while I still believe that to be the case he didn’t totally mess up and did get a mych better grasp on the “fun” aspect so he wasn’t the worst for me this time. I basically have the same problem with Artem as I did last season. He’s a great choreographer and is willing and able to deal with a variety of partners of varying physical abilities (Patti LaBelle in Season 20 and Terra during this season’s trio round) but he is not very good at dealing with partners who are emotional and have confidence issues. He just doesn’t seem to know what to do with them. When I did last season’s version of this list I called Artem “the least empathetic pro currently on Dancing With the Stars” and while I’m debating whether I still believe that (he was a little better this time in showing that he cared about his partner and was emotionally connected to her at several points this season) he still has a long way to go before he’s at the level he needs to be in order to be up there with the best in my opinion. In one package he questioned whether he was in the right profession and to be honest I was too. But I’m really rooting for him to grow as a pro, though, and I hope he gets a partner next season who can help him with that.

10. Allison Holker
Season 22 Rank: N/A

Allison being Babyface’s pro partner was another match-up we were worried about this season, because of their contrasting levels of energy. I think she did better than I expected in creating routines that worked for him, but for some of the dances, especially the Jive, she still had the issue of out-dancing her partner. Obviously the pros will always be better dancers than their partners, but it is key for them to match their “energy” when dancing to that of their partner. I also think the spotlight dance could have been tested more to make sure it’d work before doing it live, but it was still a creative idea. And as always, Allison showed great compassion to her partner and formed a great connection out on the dance floor with Babyface!

9. Val Chmerkovskiy
Season 22 Rank: #11

Before the season began I thought Laurie and Val were an odd match, and while I still would have preferred to see her with one of a few other pros I think their partnership turned out alright. I think Val is getting better at forming a connection with his partners and trying to do what’s best for them throughout the season. I could tell he truly cared for Laurie and understood the weight of having someone so beloved by America in his hands. As usual, he started getting a little too hard on her a few weeks into the season, but once he realized that wasn’t going to fly he stopped with that which was good. I’m going to go into more details on this when I do my post about what I look for in choosing who I want to win, but when a ringer is on the show and doesn’t seem to be challenged by anything (and by all accounts, that’s what I’m hearing was the case with Laurie) they and their partner need to challenge themselves by raising the bar every week with their routines, delivering something fresh and interesting every time. While I did enjoy Val’s Season 23 choreography more than I did in other recent seasons (and for once he managed to produce a really good Freestyle routine) I don’t think he continuously “upped the game” with Laurie like similar couples have and ended up being disappointed by that.

8. Gleb Savchenko
Season 22 Rank: N/A

I’d wanted Gleb to return to Dancing With the Stars for a long time, especially after it was announced he would not return to Strictly Come Dancing, but didn’t think it would actually happen. But it did! I was very happy he had a capable partner in Jana, and I appreciated how he allowed her to express her feelings and tell her story without complaining or telling her to stop. However, I didn’t see too much range in the tone of their performances. Almost everything was either very sexual or very emotional, and while I did hear the producers may have been pushing that angle, I wish Gleb had made more of an effort to do deviate from that mould a bit. It was great to have Gleb back this season, and I sure hope he sticks around for more to come!

7. Cheryl Burke
Season 22 Rank: N/A

The return of Cheryl was another surprise we got in Season 23, and also as the fact that she actually volunteered to be on the show with Ryan specifically! I loved her enthusiasm for the challenge, and that she was able to give Ryan a positive experience learning to dance. The only problem I had with her this season was that in some of the dances she had Ryan just stand there while she danced around him. That was awfully lazy to me. I think she was the right partner for Ryan, though, because she was able to strike a balance of allowing him to be himself while also keeping him in line!

6. Derek Hough
Season 22 Rank: N/A

I honestly thought Derek was done as a pro on DWTS, but I thought it was nice that he decided to come back when his Broadway show got postponed! We don’t often see Derek partnered with contestants on the older side, so his pairing with Marilu was quite intriguing and refreshing. I liked that he managed to devote as much time to her as she needed despite his other commitments this season, and that he took the time to sit down and talk with her about any issues either of them were having. I do think that Derek may have had some difficulty with helping Marilu not second-guess herself or lose confidence during the live performances, though I certainly appreciated that he put in the effort to try to do so. I think some of the choreography he gave her may have been a bit too complicated for a contestant with a tendency to get “in their head” when performing, but I know he meant well and was trying to showcase her talents. On another note, I know I’ve said this before but I really didn’t like the type of edits the producers kept giving Marilu and Derek, and that they seemed to get less airtime than other couples. Derek was certainly not at fault there so I didn’t factor it in for this list, but I just wanted to mention both he and Marilu deserved to be treated better by the show.

5. Witney Carson
Season 22 Rank: #10

I know a lot of people expected me to rank Witney a lot lower than this, but I think she did a great job with Vanilla Ice this season! I liked that she went along with his attitude of not gunning for the win but just having fun, while still working around his busy schedule to ensure he became the best dancer he could be. The only negative thing about this partnership that stood out to me was Witney barely putting any Cha-Cha content in his Week 1 dance. I loved Witney’s attitude throughout this season (including the week she was part of Calvin and Lindsay’s trio!)  and I hope that this is the Witney we see on the show next season and beyond.

4. Emma Slater
Season 22 Rank: N/A

I was so happy to see Emma return this season and that she had a good time being a part of it, even if she did more hosting on All-Access than dancing on the main show! Even though Rick and Emma were only in the competition for three weeks, I can’t think of one thing Emma did this season that I disliked. I believe she gave him an appropriate amount of content he could handle instead of going overboard or saying “screw it” and letting him just do whatever until they got eliminated. She actual treated him like an important and capable partner, unlike in some previous instances of pros being partnered with less-than-stellar celebrity dancers.

3. Sasha Farber
Season 22 Rank: #4

This is the point where it’s going to get pretty tricky for me, because these last three pros went above and beyond this season, and took their craft to a whole new level. They raised the bar for pros on Dancing With the Stars, and I’m excited to see even more from them going forward. Sasha got an intriguingly difficult assignment in Terra; one that many people thought wouldn’t work out too well, but of course they ended up being spectacular! While I do think he dragged her around a bit too much in a few of their routines, having this assignment really pushed Sasha creatively. I also loved how much compassion and understanding he showed to Terra (as he did with his previous partners) allowing her to be herself and talking with her about her feelings. Unfortunately, since I’m not allowing myself to do a cop-out and have any ties on this list, I put Sasha in third, and the reason for that was because of the incident during team dance rehearsals when he started speaking in Russian so Terra couldn’t understand what he was saying. That made me feel sad and disappointed, moreso than anything my top 2 pros did this season, so that’s why he’s here. Of course, I loved Sasha the rest of this season and really hope to see him back in Season 24 for even more fun!

2. Sharna Burgess
Season 22 Rank: #6

Sharna is another pro who raised the bar this season. She took someone with no dance or performance experience and made him into a star (well, a kind of star he wasn’t already!) and they actually managed to give the people everyone said would win from the cast announcement a major run for their money. Sharna’s choreography was the best it’s ever been this season, and she tailored it to fit James perfectly. She worked so hard all season, making sure every dance was the best it could be, and when she got hurt she continued to do so while getting treatment to heal her knee so she could get back to dancing as soon as possible. I’ll be discussing this couple more in two upcoming posts on this blog, but this is another one on my “greatest of all time” list and I think Sharna did an amazing job this season. Again, I didn’t want to have any ties on this list so she’s second because of some very minor things. Like I said earlier this week, I think she made a mistake with the aesthetic of James’ Freestyle because the costumes and set made it look like a lot of other Freestyles we’d already seen in the past, and while I appreciate her downplaying it compared to how certain other pros acted when they were in this situation but I believe she played the “I haven’t won yet” card at least once this season and that is something I cannot STAND. But yeah, this was one of the greatest partnerships of all time in my eyes and I truly believed they deserved to win. But more on that later.

1. Lindsay Arnold
Season 22 Rank: #1 

Lindsay had a partner that could have easily faded into the background this season. Calvin was nice but quiet and didn’t have an especially “big” personality. However, she played to his strengths and because of that they delivered some fantastic performances. She knew he could lift, so whenever they were given a dance where they were permitted to incorporate that stuff she not only included them, she raised the bar every time, pushing Calvin to do things he never believed he could. Lindsay tried other new things in the dances too, like the conveyor belts in the Freestyle. She always maintained a positive attitude and was also extremely supportive of other contestants and pros throughout the season. Lindsay was just so great this season and I can’t think of one thing from this season she did that I had a major problem with, which is why she is on the top of this list once again.

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