"Dancing With the Stars" is back for Season 35, and it came back swinging. The two-night premiere event that began Tuesday and continued Wednesday revived a format the show hasn't used since 2018: eliminating a couple on both premiere nights instead of easing the cast in. Sixteen celebrity-pro pairs — tying the largest cast in the show's history — were split by gender, with the men dancing Tuesday and the women following Wednesday, and one pairing sent home at the end of each night, according to Wikipedia's season overview.

The cast is stacked for the occasion: actress Julia Stiles, musician Taylor Hanson, Olympic figure skating champion Amber Glenn and Paralympic gold medalist Ezra Frech — the first Olympian and Paralympian to compete in the same season — are joined by chef Giada De Laurentiis, actress Jenna Dewan, model Tyler Cameron and "Glee" alum Harry Shum Jr. Pro dancer Witney Carson is also competing while pregnant, a franchise first.

Word of the elimination twist leaked before ABC officially confirmed it, first surfacing on Hulu's "Get Real" podcast ahead of the premiere, per E! News. The early reveal irritated fans who weren't thrilled to lose a couple before the season had a chance to build rivalries or favorites — a format last used during Season 26's shortened, athletes-only cast back in 2018.

Even insiders were split on the fairness of dividing eliminations by gender. "It's not an even playing field, right? It's like the cast is split in half and someone's going," pro dancer Mark Ballas said on the podcast, per E! News.

"I HATE 16 PARTNERSHIPS FOR THIS REASON. 14 IS THE PERFECT AMOUNT." — a fan on Reddit

The grumbling reflects a familiar tension for the 20-year-old franchise: bigger, starrier casts make for a splashier premiere but a more brutal opening week. Judges Carrie Ann Inaba, Derek Hough and Bruno Tonioli handed out scores during the men's night, with Tonioli dubbing Harry Shum Jr. "Dr. Steamy" after he and partner Jenna Johnson topped the field with a 21-out-of-30 cha-cha, according to The Hollywood Reporter's live coverage. Fan reaction to the twist was tracked in detail by Closer Weekly.

Hosts Alfonso Ribeiro and Julianne Hough are expected to confirm which male pairing was eliminated before the women take the floor for the second half of the twist. From there, Season 35 settles into its regular weekly rhythm, with the surviving pairs chasing the Len Goodman Mirrorball Trophy on ABC and Disney+ through the fall.