Bristol Palin Goes Home on 'Dancing With the Stars'

ABC

Dancing With the Stars handed out its first real surprising elimination of the All-Star season, though it wasn't shocking in the usual ways.

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When the broadcast drew to a hasty close -- it nearly ran into coverage of the presidential debate -- the two couples on the bottom were the season's lowest scorers, as they had been during their initial runs on the competition.

But during their previous seasons, each had made it all the way to the finale thanks to wildly supportive fan bases. It seemed the same might be happening this time around, until the choice came down to Kirstie Alley or Bristol Palin.

Palin and partner Mark Ballas, who had a well-documented tiff during the previous week's rehearsal, had earned praise from the judges for their improvement from season to season. They even bested the lowest scorers (Alley and Maksim Chmerkovskiy) by two points during this week's performance. But they got the boot.

With no time to spare left in the broadcast, not much commentary was offered, but neither seemed surprised by the news.

The CBS Studio where Dancing With the Stars films was targeted by a suspicious package just two weeks ago. It reportedly contained a letter threatening the BBC Worldwide Production for keeping Palin on the air.