FOUR DANCING WITH THE STARS PROS WILL NOT BE ELIMINATED

Dancing With the Stars will return to delight fans in late March, but with four fewer professional dancers than last season. And rumors are flying that former American Idol judge Paula Abdul may slide into a new fourth DWTS judging chair.

Last year DWTS opened the season with a highly touted largest number of celebrity and professional pairings ever, but this year dancing couples will be sliced back from 16 to a dozen couples. The math computes that that four fewer couples means that four of the professional dancers will not be gliding across the shows stage this season.

The professional dancers are all anxiously waiting to see who wins and who loses in the executive decision of which dancers will be back and which will not.

Professionals signed for last season were, for the men, Derek Hough, Alec Mazo, Dmitry Chaplin, Louis Van Amstel, Maksim Chmerkovskiy, Jonathan Roberts, Mark Ballas and Tony Dovdani -- and ladies, Anna Trebunskaya, Edyta Sliwinska, Anna Demidova, Chelsie Hightower, Karina Smirnoff, Cheryl Burke, Kym Johnson and Lacey Schwimmer.

The pro dancers expect to learn their fate on February 8th -- and, in keeping with tradition, in early March the names of celebrity dancers will be revealed to the public.

And amid the anxiety surrounding the fate of favorite pro dancers is the return of rumors, which also circulated last season, that Paula Abdul will join the show as a dancer or judge. It has been reported that Abdul has been offered a $1 million deal to accept a judging stint -- and last year Abdul met with show execs to discuss joining the show at that time.

However, it has also been reported that Abdul may be slated for a spot on Simon Cowell's new The X Factor show, which will begin next year, -- and there seems to be no chatter addressing whether a regular appearance on one show might affect a contract to appear on a second show. So folks are questioning where Paula will actually show up -- on DWTS, So You Think You Can Dance, The X Factor or possibly even on more than one of the shows.

So fans of DWTS have lots of questions on their minds -- which professional dancers will return, who will be the new celebrity hoofers and will Paula actually sit as a judge this season? The waiting and wondering turns a reality entertainment show into a "mystery" show as well, at least for the moment.