Thanks to a voting flub last week, no one got the ballroom boot on Monday night's "Dancing With the Stars" — and the stars were happy with the unexpected reprieve.
"I give kudos to the producers of this show,” Bill Engvall told TODAY after the show. “They did the right thing, and not just because Emma (Slater) and I are still here, but for everyone on the show. If they hadn’t, there would be been an asterisk (in the record books) by the eliminated couple’s name."
That's because a mix-up last week caused the wrong phone numbers to display during the live broadcasts in the Eastern and Central time zones.
Others who walked the post-show press line agreed with Engvall's enthusiastic response — mostly.
"You don’t want to see anyone go home,” said Corbin Bleu, who had performed a crowd-pleasing (but not judge-pleasing) Viennese waltz with Karina Smirnoff to the “Game of Thrones” theme. "This was a wonderful solution. But it does make it scarier for next week."
Smirnoff shared that concern.
“We’ll probably have a double-elimination next week, and we had (one of) the lowest scores, so that makes it scary,” noted Smirnoff.
An ABC rep told TODAY that an upcoming episode will have two couples exiting the ballroom on the same night, but that that double-elimination won't necessarily happen next week.
While there were rumors of a non-elimination circulating among the cast before Monday's show, Smirnoff said she didn’t get her hopes up.
“You never know,” she insisted. “The plan changes five times a day. By the time you hear the old plan the new one is already in place.”
TODAY asked pro dancer Sasha Farber if he had heard any speculation that no one would go home in light of last week’s voting snafu.
“No, I didn’t have any idea,” Farber replied.
But Farber’s star partner, Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi, didn't back him up. She reminded him on the press line that he actually did have an idea about it.
“You whispered in my ear, ‘No one is going home,’” Polizzi pointed out.
Bleu got a hint when he heard a certain intonation in host Tom Bergeron’s voice when revealed the status of Engvall and Slater, the last couple standing.
“This joy washed over me,” Bleu recalled. “They’re staying!”