The 33rd season of Dancing With the Stars was a memorable one, from showmances, to felons, to record-high votes, to pure talent. 

Thirteen celebrities danced for the chance to win the Len Goodman Mirrorball Trophy. The finale aired Nov. 26 and named Joey Graziadei and Jenna Johnson the winners. 

Besides the naming of the winner, the season finale made series history. Actress Chandler Kinney and her partner Brandon Armstrong were the first Black couple in 33 seasons to compete in the series’ finale. The Bachelor star Graziadei also made history as the first Bachelor to ever compete and win the finale. 

The final ranking of the stars caused outrage among many viewers. Despite earning the highest cumulative points of the season, Kinney and Armstrong finished third place behind runners-up Ilona Maher and her partner Alan Bertsen. The winner, Graziadei, performed a freestyle that was called “underwhelming” by judge Carrie Ann Inaba, while both Kinney and Maher’s performances received high praise. 

Many fans condemned the show for giving Anna Delvey, a convicted felon, a spot in the competition. The discussion only continued after she stepped out on the dance floor with a bedazzled ankle monitor. Delvey and her partner Ezra Sosa only lasted until the second week of the competition, when she was eliminated. When asked what she would take away from the competition, she said, “Nothing.”

Besides Delvey’s elimination, the second week was also notable for the total number of votes. The episode had over 14 million votes, the most in the series’ history. The record broke again only seven episodes later, with the semifinals bringing in over 20 million fan votes. Nothing compared to the finale, which brought in a total of 32 million fan votes, cementing the record for the show. 

The fourth week of the season hosted Gene Simmons, former bassist and lead singer of the band KISS, as a guest judge. Simmons ended up facing backlash after some questionable comments to the contestants. 

“You moved me, not just with your gyrations and so on, but your beautiful face and how you were into the emotion of it,” 75-year-old Simmons said to 24-year-old Kinney. 

The show known for dancing also had some talks of “showmances” both behind the scenes and for the camera. Model Brooks Nader and her partner Gleb Savchenko’s showmance kept audiences questioning what was really going on between the two. The pair posted videos on social media following their elimination hinting at what happened between them, but it eventually came out that Savchenko ended things between them in a text message.

“Sometimes you can be mixed up in a conversation,” he told TooFab on why he went the text message route. “So I always like to write everything down. When I wrote that down, it felt like it was perfect, because the moment you start a conversation, you might get lost, he added, so it’s better to just write it down.” 

Nader and Savchenko weren’t the only romantic pairing this season. Fans pointed out the chemistry between former Bachelorette Jenn Tran and her partner Sasha Farber. Tran and Farber were eliminated during the seventh week of the competition, and their social media content surged as a result. Tran has posted TikToks appearing in what is speculated to be Farber’s house, and the pair have appeared close in multiple Instagram posts.  

Many viewers held strong feelings about the scores the contestants were receiving each week. This was most apparent on the seventh week of the competition after one of the three judges, Inaba, gave five out of the seven contestants left on the show a score of 10. Fans were quick to point out that the two contestants that did not receive a 10, rugby player Maher and actress Kinney, were the only women left in the competition.  

“Carrie Ann giving these men who just did lifts and barely any dancing 10s but robs Chandler of her perfect score…she will always be a woman hater,” said a commenter on Instagram.

The judge spoke to Good Morning America a few days after the episode aired and gave her thoughts on the criticism.

“Sometimes people come after me about my opinion… it’s okay, they can come after me. I’m a judge. I’m used to it,” Inaba  said.

ABC has yet to confirm if Dancing with the Stars will return for another season, but if the viewership and social media engagement say anything, the renewal is likely.