DWTS Season 14, Week 3 – Dancing by the Numbers

What do you get when you have a five way tie at the bottom of the leaderboard?  A big fat mess, that’s what. 🙂  Jaysus, the over scoring continues. I thought Sherri, Jaleel and Gladys were all over scored for sure. Katherine was as well – knock it off with the two 10’s already. She was great and beautiful (and she made me very weepy), but how can you dance so much of a waltz out of hold and still get a 29?? ANYONE else would have gotten dinged for that big time.  Donald (love him) starts off with what would have been called a lift if Derek or Maks had done it…and CAI decides she’s on vacay as the lift police. Figures. But on the upside – finally CAI decides to critique William. About damn time. Keep up the good work. The tongue bathes are ridiculous and that 10 was so not deserved.

I saw quite a few people saying they would be surprised if there was more than 10k votes between the top scorer and the bottom rung – Nah, there was more than that. Try 18k – a pretty good number, but not massive. Combine that smallish spread with SERIOUS voting issues, a real bottom two last week, fake crying this week and you got one unpredictable situation.

Yes, if you are a Derek or Maks fan, you know that voting was pure hell last night. Web site was continually saying that I used all my votes when I hadn’t even cast one – this was after an hour or two of “bad gateway” messages – meaning their servers were getting hammered, most likely. And this was at the BEGINNING of the show.  Same issue with the phones; call and get the message that you’ve used all your calls from this phone number …on the first call. Again, right after Derek and Maria danced. I saw that Maks fans were having the same issues with the online voting, so I’m assuming that was an issue across the board. So, the passionate fanbases will rule the day, more so than usual. You had to be seriously patient and/or determined to vote last night.

Let’s look at the couples and their percentages of the total:

The Judges Scores and Percentages

Place Celebrity Score Percentage
1. Katherine 29 10.36
2. William 28 10.00
3. Maria 27 9.64
4. Donald 26 9.29
5. Jaleel 25 8.93
5. Roshon 25 8.93
7. Sherri 24 8.57
7. Jack 24 8.57
7. Gladys 24 8.57
7. Gavin 24 8.57
7. Melissa 24 8.57

 

At the end of the night, I figured that Katherine, William and Maria were safe…probably. All five of the low scorers would have to get the following votes for any of the top three to go home:

–          All five would have to get 17,900 more votes per million votes cast than Katherine;

–          All five would have to get 14,300 more votes per million votes cast than William;

–          All five would have to get 10,750 more votes per million votes cast than Maria

So, of the bottom five, I only see Maria as possibly getting beat by one of them – Gladys. Even that I’m not so sure about. This is why I figured all three of them would be safe. Not only do the bottom five have to get all those votes, but Roshon, Jaleel and Donald have to get a good number of votes more than them too.

So what does it mean when there are five people tied for last?? It means that each of them only needs ONE vote per million votes cast more than the others to survive. THAT is why it’s so wacky – it could be any of them.  To make matters worse, EACH of them only needs 3,575 more votes per million votes cast in order to stay over Roshon and/or Jaleel. :::sigh:::

Some would predict Gavin based on his appearance in the “real” bottom two last week. But as we often say around here – sometimes you get a nice bump in votes for being in the bottom two. Will Gavin? Maybe, but how many votes are his main competitors getting?

If you follow me on twitter, or read the other comments on this site, you know how I felt about Jaleel’s “crying” in the skybox. There is a reason you don’t see much acting from this guy any more…he’s not that good at it. That had fake written all over it and I saw a LOT of commentary last night about it feeling very contrived. Can a fake crying jag be a nail in someone’s coffin?? I have no feel for how he was doing vote wise before last night, so it’s hard to say…but I will say it wouldn’t be a shocking elimination in the slightest.  For Jaleel (or Roshon, if you’re worried), ALL of the following would have to happen for him to go home:

–          Gavin, Jack, Sherri, Melissa and Gladys ALL get 3,575 more vote per million votes cast than he does, AND;

–          Roshon gets ONE more vote per million votes cast than he does, AND;

–          Donald, Maria, William and Katherine are all getting more votes than he is.

When I put it like that, it really doesn’t seem like much of a stretch.  But that’s still six people who have to do better than him in the voting department.  So, analyze it. Most in danger would logically be Gavin, due to being in the bottom two last week. Does Gavin have the fanbase that can rally 3,575 more votes than Jaleel?? And does he get past each of his cohorts in the bottom?  Personally, I tend to think that the other four in the bottom are doing better than him…but is Jaleel?? And what about Roshon?? He was put in faux jeopardy last week so one could guess that he wasn’t getting the votes they want him to get…but his dance last night was pretty engaging.

What about Donald?? Is he in any danger? My automatic reaction is to say NO, but let’s look at the numbers just to be on the safe side. For Donald to go home, ALL of the following would have to happen:

–          Each of the bottom five dancers would have to get 7,150 more votes per million votes cast than Donald, AND;

–          Both Jaleel and Roshon would have to get 3,575 more votes per million votes cast than Donald, AND;

–          Donald doesn’t get 3,575 more votes per million votes cast than Maria, nor does he cover the spread between him and William, and between him and Katherine.

So, after all that, I think Donald is safe as well.  The rest is a bit of a crap shoot. If the top 4 are safe, that leaves you with:

Roshon
Jaleel
Sherri
Melissa
Gladys
Gavin
Jack

So, you wanna throw a dart at the dart board?? 🙂 It really is a question of popularity AND passion of the fanbases (especially with the difficult voting). Of these 7 people, who isn’t getting the votes, keeping in mind that Jaleel and Roshon had 3575 vote cushion over the rest? I think Gavin is going home, but NONE of the others would surprise me. My second guess would probably be a tie between Melissa and Gladys…but even as I type this I am changing my mind. I’ve changed all these names about three times. I guess we will have to wait and see. 🙂

P.S. Geez…I can’t seem to hit post without saying that my gut is saying Jaleel even though my brain is saying Gavin. But my gut might be biased against fake crying. 🙂