1. Season 25 may not have been the first season to have a married couple compete as celebs (Alexa and Carlos) or as pros (Jonathan and Anna when they were married) but it was the first to have BOTH of these rivalries...AND they ended up competing against each other! Married couple Nick and Vanessa Lachey were respectively partnered up with newlyweds Peta Murgatroyd and Maksim Chmerkovskiy to compete in Season 25.
2. Speaking of marriage, there were a lot of weddings on the horizon for the Season 25 cast: Sasha Pieterse, Nikki Bella, and Drew Lachey were all engaged during the season, and Scott's pro partner, Emma Slater was fiancee to fellow DWTS dancer Sasha Farber. That makes FIVE people who were engaged for the duration of the season!
3. You read that right: we had TWO Sasha's this season: one as a celebrity contestant and another as a troupe dancer. We also had two Linds(a)(e)y's, also as a a contestant and dancer, respectively. Sasha and Sasha marked the first time two people of different genders with the same name participated in the same season (even though dancer Sasha's is technically a nickname :P).
4. If the first name similarities weren't enough for you, Season 25 was also the first to feature two non-related celebrities with the same last name: NBA player Derek Fisher and actor/singer Jordan Fisher.
5. #TeamHotProperty - aka Drew Scott and Emma Slater - are both twins, but they weren't the only people on this season with that distinction; Nikki Bella is also one, and, like Drew, stars in a reality sibling with her twin, sister Brie Bella. That adds up to THREE twins to dance on Season 25 (four if you count Jonathan Scott's guest appearance in his brother's Jive!).
6. We've seen people with a rough start prevail and make it to the end before, but Drew Scott was the first celebrity in over five years to receive "5" paddles for a dance and still wind up in the Finals!
7. For the past three years or so there was a trend of the eventual champion being either 10th or last to dance in the Premiere episode. However, this season bucked the recent norm when Jordan Fisher performed sixth on the first night and went on to win the Mirrorball Trophy.
8. Not an official statistic, but another trend of recent seasons was focusing on the hardships the contestants had faced in life, with a "tragic backstory" of some form and level being a big part of the edit the eventual winner received. In Season 25, however, the majority of these packages were kept to "Most Memorable Year" night and the focus of most contestants' packages - including the eventual winner's - was dance ability and their journey and improvement on the show. Refreshing!
9. Another aspect of the typcial "winner's story arc" on the show has usually been the eventual champion being a frontrunner at the start of the season, being knocked down a bit by the judges during the middle weeks, and then making a comeback at or close to the end of the competition. Lindsey Stirling's arc was the one to most closely resemble this pattern, but she ended the season as Runner-Up while Jordan Fisher - who was actually at the top of the leaderboard more often than not, even in the middle weeks - took home the trophy.
10. DWTS has become known for it's over-the-top theme nights. Usually we see one or two of the off-the-wall ones per season, but in Season 25 we had THREE...in a row! "Disney Night", "A Night at the Movies", "Halloween" were done back to back to back and the majority of the performances saw the contestants playing characters vastly different from themselves and involved elaborate costumes and makeup.
11. Musicians Lindsey Stirling and Mark Ballas were paired together for the season, and BOTH the celebrity and pro dancer got to dance to their own music! They did a Paso Doble to Stirling's "Roundtable Rival" and a Contemporary to "Head Held High" by Alexander Jean, a musical duo Ballas is one half of. (Jordan Fisher also danced to his own version of "You're Welcome".)
12. Season 25 saw a double elimination during the Halloween episode, with Vanessa Lachey and Nikki Bella being the unlucky duo of contestants to get the boot that night. This was actually the first time both celebrities to be ousted together in a DWTS double elimination were female.
14. Lindsay Arnold became the first female pro to reach the Semi-Finals five seasons in a row in Season 25.
15. Mark Ballas became the second pro to reach the last week of the competition 10 times, tying the record for most appearances in the Finals with Derek Hough.
16. Season 25 was the first time since Season 21 (two years) that none of the Chmerkovskiys reached the Finals.
17. Charlestons have become more common on the show in recent years, but Season 25 featured a whopping FIVE Charlestons, AKA the most ever in a single season of DWTS! Drew Scott, Terrell Owens, and Victoria Arlen performed one each, while the other two were danced by Jordan Fisher and Lindsay Arnold.
18. The Season 25 Finals were jam-packed with dancing; we were treated to the usual Redemption Dances, Freestyles, and 24-Hour Fusion Challenge and with the addition of the scored Redo Routines on the second night of the Finale, we ended up with a total of 14 scored performances, the most ever in a DWTS Finale week!
19. In recent seasons, the couple last to be called safe on the first night of the Finals went on to place second in the competition. However, in Season 25 Frankie Muniz and Witney Carson were the last ones to be told they were moving on to the final show, and they ended up placing third.
20. Usually the couple who dances the Freestyle that ends up with the most YouTube views before the last night wins the competition, but as of November 21 2017 (Season 25 Finale night) winner Jordan Fisher's Freestyle had approximately 70k views, while Runner-Up Lindsey Stirling's had about 125k.
21. Mark Ballas broke the record for number of second place finishes; he has now finished as Runner-Up four times, with Katherine Jenkins in Season 14, Sadie Robertson in Season 19, Paige VanZant in Season 22, and Lindsey Stirling in Season 25.
22. Not only did Jordan Fisher and Lindsay Arnold win the Mirrorball Trophy, they also finished the season by breaking the record for number of perfect scores, with 9/16 of their performances receiving one!
23. Jordan Fisher is also now the youngest male celebrity to win DWTS at age 23, a record previously held by Season 5 Champin Apolo Anton Ohno.
24. Jordan's victory also marked the first time Disney Channel star won DWTS!
25. Lindsay Arnold set a very special record over the past few seasons, including this one: she was the first DWTS pro to finish in fourth, third, second, and first place in order, all in a row!
END NOTE: This article was the first installment in "Blogmas" a blogging streak which will entail me posting on a bog every day for the entire month of December! (Or at least until Christmas. :P) I'll be back on here with more fun posts throughout the month, but I'll be switching up where I'll be posting each day; sometimes it will be here on DWTS Interact, sometimes on my Tumblr, and sometimes on Pure AGT. (I'm working on launching a new general blog as well.) I'll be setting up a masterpost with links to all of the Blogmas entries within the next couple of days (it'll be updated throughout the project) and I'll be sure to link that here soon!
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