DWTS Season 12, Week 9 – The Bonus Dance???
At the risk of getting outraged over nothing, I thought I would do a post examining the possible impact of this “bonus dance” that Tom Bergeron (or was it Brooke?) alluded to – very casually – last night. Keep in mind that this post is only my opinion and that I am GUESSING entirely at what they might have planned. We’re just hypothesizing here and won’t likely know until the press release or the show itself what is going to happen. I’m also kinda hoping that if I write this post and people get pissed about it enough that the producers WON’T DO IT. 🙂 If that doesn’t work, then all the fan groups will know to be prepared with lots of accounts – which is probably what the producers want, but there you have it.
THEORETICALLY, it is a winner-take-all dance, and a Cha Cha at that. Courtney tells me on Twitter that this info is gleaned from the Wiki page. Everyone knows to eye Wikipedia with suspicion, but the person doing that entry seems to have their crap together. Also, Vogue tells me that Kym Johnson (in a video posted earlier) says the words “winner take all”. If you watch the Ralph and Karina video, you will get an explanation of how it’s going to work. In a word? Stupid. So, that is the theory we will go with. In addition, in order to construct this post with no dancing, we will give the dancers scores similar to what they earned this past week, i.e. they will reward Chelsea heavily and try their dammdest to get rid of Ralph. If you are worried about your favorite, you should be – just switch the names around to get different results. IF they are doing this simply to protect Chelsea (and really, why else would it be needed?? Anyone can smell fish emmanating from this scenario), then any of the remaining three will go home over her. Most likely. 🙂 Always gotta add the qualifier with this show. One never knows for sure.
So, here is our hypothetical scenario:
The Theoretical Judges Scores and Percentages
Place | Celebrity | Score | Percentage |
1. | Chelsea | 73 | 31.33 |
2. | Hines | 57 | 24.46 |
3. | Kirstie | 53 | 22.75 |
5. | Ralph | 50 | 21.46 |
Just looking at those numbers should give everyone the heebie jeebies. It does me. It also pisses me off. So, if this is what happens, you can see that Ralph is down by typical numbers from Hines and Kirstie, but Chelsea?? Not so much. Here’s what Ralph would have to do to stick around:
– He would have to get 12,880 more votes per million votes cast than Kirstie, OR;
– He would have to get 30,050 more votes per million votes cast than Hines, OR;
– He would have to get 98,720 more votes per million votes cast than Chelsea.
You understand how ridiculous this is yet? No? Okay, well, let’s look at Kirstie’s numbers. She needs the following to stick around if Ralph is taken out of the equation:
– She would have to get 17,170 more votes per million votes cast than Hines, OR;
– She would have to get 85,840 more votes per million votes cast than Chelsea.
Hines would then have to get 68,700 more votes per million votes cast to pass Chelsea. That is almost 3 TIMES the number of votes that Ralph had to get the other night to stay over Romeo and we thought that was big??
I can cast a whole lot of aspersions on why they feel the need to do this, but at the end of the day the motivation seems clear – someone ain’t getting the votes they want him/her to be getting OR someone is getting a tremendous number of votes that the producers are trying to overcome. One or the other. Or both. If, for some reason, they want Chelsea in the final (she does work for Disney, which owns ABC), she will need this kind of boost in order to stick around. If Ralph can get more votes than Romeo whom he was 6 points behind, he can probably beat Chelsea in a similar situation.
But it’s not just Ralph – she would be vulnerable in a normal scenario to ANY of the other three remaining celebs. Like I was trying to explain on Twitter last night, Chelsea is up against an iconic movie Actor, a very likable, very well-known actress and a football player with a Steeler Nation behind him – a guy who is fresh off the Superbowl. Chelsea is the female version of Kyle – but not as likeable and with much stiffer completion than Kyle had. Kyle was up against Brandy, Jennifer and Bristol. I think Brandy and Bristol were a piece of cake for Kyle to beat – the same cannot be said of either Kirstie, Ralph or Hines. I get the feeling that all three are powerhouses in their own rights. Ralph kinda proved it the other night.
So, you still not seeing the picture? If this ends up close to reality, what would it take for Chelsea (or whoever gets the 15 points) to be eliminated?? ALL of the following would have to happen:
– Ralph would have to get 98,720 more votes per million votes cast than her, AND;
– Kirstie would have to get 85,840 more votes per million votes cast than Chelsea, AND;
– Hines would have to get 68,700 more votes per million votes cast than Chelsea.
How likely do YOU think that is?? Not bloody likely in my book, unless the only people voting for her are Mark’s fans and everyone else knows how this game is played. I believe the largest vote margin ever overcome since I’ve been keeping track is when Kurt got 48k more votes than Audrina – and we were all stunned by that, if I remember correctly.
So, let’s assume for a moment that the judges aren’t all harshed out on Ralph and are not determined to see the backside of him. Although if you watched their faces when Romeo got eliminated last night you may find that hard to believe. Anyway, let’s say that Kirstie and Ralph get the same scores of 56, while Hines and Chelsea keep the same scores as above – mighty generous, right? Eh, not so much. What that means is for Chelsea to go home over one of the other three, ALL of the following needs to happen:
– Ralph has to get 70,250 more votes per million votes cast than her, AND;
– Kirstie ALSO has to get 70,250 more votes per million votes cast than her, AND;
– Hines has to get 66,150 more votes per million votes cast than her.
How possible is that? Well, thanks to the voting numbers being kept secret, we have no real clue. But I have to think that it’s NOT possible, otherwise, why do this at all? Just to make the audience nuts? To engineer a “shocking elimination”? Well, it’s possible. But this is a game with severely diminishing returns – how long before the audience decides they have no say, the show is rigged and just tune out all together?? You can do stunts like this occasionally, but if you continually over reach because you think you can get away with it, you may suddenly find the tipping point. And it’s over. The audience isn’t stupid – at some point they will see the man behind the curtain.
What is possible motivation for this? Well, it makes some of the audience outraged and they will write blogs like this or chatter all over the net and basically create a stir similar to what they got for Bristol making it to the finals. Ratings. Plus, everyone could vote extra hard with many, many accounts; I have to believe that there is revenue attached to on-line voting. Probably A LOT. All those hits combined with all those ads? Yup. Money. If they do what I think they will do and give Chelsea 15 extra points, they have the Disney kid (the company that owns ABC and DWTS) in the finals. She doesn’t need to win, but she’ll have been on every single week of the show. And if she goes back to Disney, well enough said. Winning the show has been pretty kind to Nicole Scherzinger – she is now one of the hosts on The X Factor. Just sayin’.
Possible drawbacks? Well, good ratings NOW could spell ever dwindling ratings down the road. You can only screw fans over so many times before they just throw in the towel. Also, if the spread is TOO high between all the couples, you could have people just give up and not vote as much. Then there’s all that lost revenue. Any other possible drawbacks? I can’t think of any right now, and that’s not good.
So. NOW what do you think?