Watching Season 1 for the first time

I've watched all I can of season 1 now and happily it still holds up!

Things I noticed:

Just six couples in that year.

Remarkably more primitive in those days. Much smaller dance floor. Smaller judge's table. Lighting is basically two spotlights following the two dancers, with some footlights, sometimes colored, often not. At times the footlights shine right into the camera so you can't see what's going on.

When they interviewed them after the dance it really was in the backstage area. That's why you can see the other dancers hanging around. Nowadays they use a sort of fake backstage.

During the dances sometimes they would show the faces of the competitors. Trying to make it look more competitive I guess. We don't see that anymore.

No production numbers, just two people dancing. What they do these days is nice, but the pure dancing from back then is nice also.

Amazing amounts of acting from John O'Hurley, who played a sort of suave, debonair character in most of the dances. We don't see that level of acting anymore. That helped him a lot in putting over the dances.

Lots more wardrobe malfunction issues back then. I guess the wardrobe folks have by now really figured out what works and what doesn't. I had forgotten how revealing Edyta's costumes were back in those days.

Cameo by Patrick Swayze helping with lifts was really cool.

Carrie Ann looked more Japanese in those days, somehow. Bruno had more hair. Len pretty much the same. Tom didn't have as much gray.

Bruno hadn't yet started the habit of doing a fist explosion when he gave a 10.

Lisa Canning was the second announcer. She seemed good; not sure why she would have left.

Kelly Monaco just barely managed to defeat O'Hurley in the final. Even from the start they had the freestyle.