Dancing with the Stars (U.S. season 3)

The third season of Dancing With the Stars  premiered on September 12, 2006 and ended November 15, 2006. The number of couples expanded from ten the previous season to 11.

For this season, the scoring system was changed. Fan vote only counted for 25% of the total score and scoring was now translated directly from percentages rather than into ordinals. The judges scores were added up, and each performer was given points based on the percentage of the total points distributed among all performers. (For example, a team received a score of 25. A total of 207 points were awarded to all nine performers. The team received 12.08% of that total, so that team earned 12.08 points.) The fan vote was handled the same way, with the points based on how much of the total fan vote the star received. (So, in the same example, if the team earned 15% of the total fan vote, their grand total is 27.08 points.)

The results shows of this season featured the Slim Fast Dance Challenge, where Tysonia Sichinga and Christian Perry illustrated how exercise such as dancing could aid weight loss. Unfortunately, Tysonia wound up gaining 5 pounds from what she said, "too much Slim Fast".

The season finale brought in 27.8 million viewers, making it the highest rated Dancing with the Stars season finale to date.

Emmitt Smith, Donny Osmond, and Kelly Monaco are the only winners to ever come in last place with the judges.

Willa Ford (season 3) is the first person to ever be eliminated on a week where she came in first place.

Couples
The 11 celebrities and professional dancers that competed were:

Sara Evans' withdrawal
On October 12, 2006, Sara Evans announced her withdrawal from the competition to be with her kids after filing for divorce from her husband, Craig Schelske. In a "final appearance", a pre-taped interview with Evans about her decision was shown on the October 17 episode.

Willa Ford stated on Headline News' Robin & Company that ABC had invited her to return to the competition, but she declined. At the end of the October 18 results show, after showing the bottom two, it was revealed that there would be no elimination for the week due to Evans' departure. The scores of Week 6 were combined with the scores of Week 7 for the October 25 elimination. Evans returned for the season finale.

Fan voting influence
On weeks four and five Ford and Fox were eliminated, despite Ford having tied in first place, and Fox tied in fourth. Ford was in the bottom two along with Springer, who was tied for the lowest score. Fox was in the bottom two along with Coleman, who both performed great the previous week and tied for fourth that week. Ford's elimination was booed by the audience, and so was Fox's. This extends the theme similar to last season where dancers with higher scores were often eliminated before ones that tended to get lower scores and also had more popularity with the fan vote.

Bristol Palin gets the low scores for most weeks and higher scoring couples being eliminated.

Judges' scoring summary

 * Red numbers indicate the couples with the lowest score for each week.
 * Green numbers indicate the couples with the highest score for each week.
 * Bold black numbers indicate that the entire score board was tied
 * indicates the couples eliminated that week.
 * indicates the returning couple that finished in the bottom two/three.
 * indicates the winning couple.
 * indicates the runner-up couple.
 * indicates the couple withdrew from the competition.
 * indicates the third-place couple.