DWTS Season 10, Week 5 – Dancing by the Numbers

The judges are giving me whiplash. It’s like they can’t make up their minds if they want to be hard asses or if they just want to try for rational. It’s truly bizarre. You want examples? I’ll give you examples; Len gives Erin and Maks a verbal pass for not only using a prop, but Maks slowing the tempo of a JIVE for the first however many bars AND using that menu to an extreme. Len then proceeds to rip Damian a new one for having Pam sit at the table for too long. Hey, I agree Len – Damian shouldn’t have done that. But how about, instead of seeming to give Maks a pass then dinging them with a low score so they’re confused, you tell them that they, like Damian (and Derek) broke the rules. Derek broke hold in a Quickstep and got hosed for it, Maks slows the tempo and used a menu and still gets a 7 but with no useful critique, and Damian gets a tongue lashing for using a table and chairs. Dude, your enforcement of your rules and “commandments” seems pretty freakin’ random to me. At the end of the day, any pro who says, “ya know what? We knew we would get dinged, but we went for the audience” has my complete sympathy this season. But no faux confusion (Dmitry), own it.

Dang, sometimes I can nail it. I so totally called “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” for Evan and Anna’s Rumba. It took me a bit to remember what the movie was that immediately sprang to mind when I heard “romantic song in an action movie” – but that is like the ultimate in bizarre theme song for a movie. Anyway…

The MATH.

Here are the Judges Scores:
Dancer/Score
Nicole/29
Evan/27
Jake/23
Erin/22
Pam/21
Chad/18
Niecy/18
Kate/15
Total Judges Points Awarded = 173

Three point spread between Niecy and Kate? I don’t think that’s enough to save Niecy. I hope and pray I’m wrong, because Kate? Was a total beyotch last night and shamelessly brought her kids into it (moreso than before). Poor Tony. Kate was winning me over, slowly, but that was too much last night. And do I have my numbers right? Jake is now in third place? How the hell did that happen?

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

Dancer/Percentage of Total
Nicole/16.76
Evan/15.61
Jake/13.29
Erin/12.72
Pam/12.14
Chad/10.4
Niecy/10.4
Kate/8.67

Nicole and Evan score higher, and Kate and a couple other stay the same, plus there are fewer dancers – the end result is larger percentage spreads between the top and bottom and even between the bottom and the middle. Will it be enough? I hope so, but I’m not confident.

Dancer/Votes
Evan– Still the ringer of the season based on fanbase and ability, although I think Nicole might start catching him in votes. Very good Rumba, although his hips weren’t all that. Evan is a dichotomy – very bland seeming during the show, but so cute during the rehearsal packages, and then not that exciting during his dances. He’s a good dancer, for sure, but he’s not excited me thus far. Nice chest, though, when he was with Anna in the red room pre-dance. And his twitter activity is annoying the living shit out of me.

Nicole – vastly improved from last week, for sure, although I thought that move at the end was kinda strange. Props to Derek for coming up with an actual, flashy Tango to Pretty Woman. I had my doubts. I’m so ashamed. 🙂 I am crazy, but the thing that I still find fascinating about these two is how in sync they are, even when not dancing. That bit when Carrie Ann said they were “Superstaaaaars” and they both immediately mimic her, in sync? Very telling, IMO. These two are pretty tight – although I don’t think she needs to hit him quite so hard. 🙂 As tempting as that may be at times. Even I am tempted to give him a good smack at times – but don’t bruise the merchandise.

I have no clue how the votes are stacking up for the remaining contestants. I don’t even know if I can make a good guess. I think that Evan and Nicole are up there, possibly followed closely by Chad due to his football player status. Below is my pseudo attempt to put them in order.

Chad – Backsliding this week, I think. I’m not sure what the problem is here. I don’t even know what to say about this dance. I think I was distracted by the whole “Jungle Book” deal. And I had a headache, so I didn’t take notes. Calling him safe, either way.

Erin – I’m with Courtney 100 percent on Erin. What started off as charming and fun, is now becoming quite tiresome. I’m just…over it. Just dance, would ya? That said, I personally loved Maks’ temper tantrum, including the jumping. I won’t say more and save it for the “Cheesiest” awards. I have a huge soft spot for Maks, I must confess.

Jake – Dude, why did you have to go the tighty whities route? Why? And if you’re going to do that, lose the freaking band aid on the knee. Other than groaning loudly at the white shirt and lack of pants, I got nothing. He did a passable ChaCha, but he looked better in rehearsal footage I’ve seen.

Kate – I think she also backslid like Chad, but I have to agree with John (via Twitter) that I have seen improvement. That said, she’s still awful and far too awful to stay in the competition. But she will. :::sigh:::

Niecy – I think Niecy is on her way out, unfortunately. While I really like her personality, and she’s no where near as bad a dancer as Kate, she’s also not up to par with the rest of the pack. Not only that, but they gave her a crap dancing spot and she’s surrounded by bigger things – no pun intended. You’ve got Jake in his underwear, Erin fake fighting with Maks, Nicole and Evan killing their dances…and Kate. I don’t think The Insider and Entertainment Tonight pimpage is going to help.

A note about voting – online voting was seriously screwed up on the east coast last night. Most every Derek fan I see on Twitter was complaining about not being able to on-line vote. Since the issues occurred BEFORE you even got to the page to vote (i.e. it wouldn’t let you log in or took forever and got hung up), I’m sure it wasn’t just aimed at Derek fans. They just happen to be the ones who I see most on twitter after the show. I believe the reason for this was seriously heavy traffic – lots and lots of people voting. I believe it was traffic because about an hour after the show was over, it started to improve. This is my caveat – when you have LOTS of people voting, and lots of trouble voting, the results could be…interesting.

Okay, revisting the bottom four dancers in terms of judges scores, we have:

Pam/12.14
Chad/10.4
Niecy/10.4
Kate/8.67

I think this is actually pretty easy. Niecy and Chad are tied and I would bet that Chad is getting way more votes than anyone in the bottom four. So, call him safe. Kate is at the bottom and is 1.73% behind Niecy, which means that she has to get about 17,400 more votes than Niecy per 1 million votes cast to stay. Can she do it? I say yes, she can.

Are Kate and Niecy both getting more votes than Pam? Kate would have to get about 34,700 more votes per 1 million and Niecy would have to get about 17,400 per 1 million for them BOTH to pass Pam and have her be eliminated. Are both those things (and Chad getting a ton of votes) happening? This I find doubtful. Kate and Chad might get more, but not Niecy. I think Pam has won herself a bunch of new fans (like myself and Courtney) and along with that, a bunch of votes. I think she’s safe.

Keeping in my mind the voting caveat above…I think Niecy is going home and I’m not happy about that. Now, off to watch Bergeron’s twitter for clues.