Dancing with the Stars Season 10, Week 1 – By the Numbers

I’m such a nerd. I will say that now and get it out of the way. And I don’t much care that I’m a nerd. I claim nerd-dom because I have this urge to do the math on the dancing. 🙂

First, let me say that this is going to likely be my favorite season of DWTS. Not because Derek is dancing with a Doll, but because I think this cast has given us the best, out of the gate dancing in several seasons. The only boring person on the show is Jake, and even he’s not that bad. There is no one on the show that I out and out dislike – even Kate! Every dancer kept me engaged for one reason or another. The bad news is for Aiden – dude, you are HOT, that’s for sure. But when I, a heterosexual female, am more mesmerized and impressed with your smokin’ hot partner and her dress – you got problems. Sorry – you seem like a very nice guy. 🙂

Based on what I saw last night, and my thoughts on Aiden, here’s how I think the math shakes out – keep in mind that the math for the scores is set. What I have to GUESS at, is how many votes each couple will get. To simplify the math, I kept those numbers small. You can multiply by a thousand, or ten thousand, if you want.

Here are the Judges Scores:

Dancer/Score
Nicole /25
Evan /23
Pam /21
Erin /21
Jake /20
Chad /18
Niecy /18
Shannen /18
Kate /16
Aiden /15
Buzz /14
Total Judges Points Awarded = 209

Dividing the individual scores by the total points awarded gives you the following percentages:

Dancer/Percentage of Total
Nicole /11.96
Evan /11
Pam /10.05
Erin /10.05
Jake /9.57
Chad /8.61
Niecy /8.61
Shannen /8.61
Kate /7.66
Aiden /7.18
Buzz /6.70

Based on this, you can see that Buzz is 5.26% out of first place. Remember, the percentage of total points awarded is added to the percentage of total votes cast to determine the dancers rank. So, Buzz only needs to make up that 0.48% in votes to catch Aiden. Do you think he can do it? I sure do. The question is – can Aiden catch any of the people ahead of him?

Anyway, let’s say they were eliminating someone tonight. Here’s how I think the voting might go, in tens of thousands (or thousands, who knows?):

Dancer/Votes (in thousands)
Nicole /15 – yes, she danced great, but she’s really not well known compared to some of the rest.

Evan /30 – this margin might even be higher. He could have fallen and still done this well.

Pam /10 – Very entertaining, but I don’t know it will get her votes. Was she drunk?

Erin /15 – She did well – not as well as Nicole and a tad leggy, but she’s got some sympathy working for her.

Jake /15 – He just came off the Bachelor, had Gia in the audience and he didn’t totally suck. Nuff said.

Chad /15 – He came off as charming, so he’ll get the football vote, but not sky high since he didn’t do as well as I expected.

Niecy /10 – Again, entertaining as hell, but I don’t think she’s as well known as some of the others.

Shannen /15 – Pretty stiff, but hell, she had me crying with her Dad sitting there and looking so proud. She’s around for a while.

Kate /15 – Very polarizing figure, but also way in the media – I’ve put her up with the other 15’s.

Aiden /10 – Gorgeous, but lost in a sea of characters and much better dancers.

Buzz /25 – Horrendous dancer…but he’s *80*!!! And an Astronaut!! And most of the voters (but not this writer) remember when he stepped foot on the freakin’ MOON!!! Consider him safe for a bit. But not as long as Cloris.

Now, if you do the same math as I did above for the Judges points – add up the total and then divide into each individual score to get a percentage – then add the two percentages together, you get the total following points. I’ve reshuffled so that the high scorer is at the top and the low scorer is at the bottom.

Evan/28.15
Buzz/20.98
Nicole/ 20.53
Erin/18.62
Jake/18.14
Chad and Shannen –tie/17.18
Kate/16.23
Pam/15.76
Niecy/14.33
Aiden/12.89

Note: Buzz had to get about 5.71% more votes than Nicole to make it to second place. Also note that next week’s dancing counts, so Aiden could save himself with a great Foxtrot, compared to the disaster that Pam’s and Niece’s are likely to be. For that matter – Kate and Jake doing a Jive? Yikes. While I think Shannen, Erin, Nicole, and Chad will likely get better with their next dances, the ones I mentioned have train wreck written all over them. Aiden has a chance if he can pull off a good Foxtrot. Can Buzz?