DWTS Season 14, Week 5 – How Did We Get THAT Bottom Two??

Back by a little demand, I’ve written a little retrospective on how Jaleel and Gavin ended up in the bottom two…or more accurately, how Gladys and Melissa *didn’t* end up in the duel.  Again, I tend to believe that it’s not that Melissa and Gladys are getting a ton of votes, but they are getting a good number of votes and Jaleel was getting very little votes. In other words, a combination of factors. Gavin is pretty obvious, I think. His score was low enough that he just couldn’t beat the margin. Of course, it’s possible he beat Jaleel…but we’ll never know for sure.

Anyway, Melissa needed roughly 13,400 more votes per million votes cast to beat the margin between her and Jaleel and clearly, she got it.  This I would expect, since Jaleel doesn’t seem to be coming across well to ANYONE, not to mention that she, like others before her, is a TV icon.  I doubt very much she has the fanbase of Kirstie Alley or Jennifer Grey, but she still does have one. She’s also pretty personable and she’s bringing out a good side of Maks.  I didn’t find this surprising in the least.

Gladys?? The woman was third from the bottom – there was no way that Gavin was catching her.  He had a 19 and she had a 22. Here’s what happened for Gladys to be safe; BOTH of the following:

–          Gavin didn’t get 13,400 more votes per million votes cast than Her, AND;

–          Gladys got roughly 8,950 more votes per million votes cast than Jaleel.

Really, it’s that simple. Note that this says nothing about how Melissa is doing against Gladys, because we don’t actually know.   For Jaleel to end up in the bottom two with Gavin, BOTH of the following happened:

–          Melissa got 13,400 more votes per million votes cast than Jaleel did, AND;

–          Gladys got 8,950 more votes per million votes cast than Jaleel did, AND;

Again, this is not terribly surprising to me. We still have no clue about how Gladys and Melissa are doing compared to each other, OR compared to the rest of the celebs, with the possible exception of Roshon.

What about Roshon? How did he escape the bottom two this time after being in the bottom two the week before??  Well, this is where it gets interesting.  At least to me. When Roshon was in the bottom two with Sherri it meant that all of the following happened:

–              Gladys got at least 25,752 more votes per million votes cast than Roshon, AND;

–              William, Jaleel and Melissa ALL got at least 17,167 more votes per million votes than Roshon, AND;

–              Gavin got at least 12,875 more votes per  million votes cast than Roshon, AND;

–              Katherine got at least 8,583 more votes per million votes cast than Roshon, AND;

–              Maria got at least ONE more vote per million votes cast than Roshon.

This past week, Jaleel clearly didn’t cover the spread between him and Roshon, and the spread this past week was 8,930 more votes per million votes cast.  So the spread between them was cut in half and Jaleel is no longer beating Roshon.  So the question is, is Roshon’s stock rising or is Jaleel’s falling. Or is it both? I think that Roshon got a bump from being in the bottom two with Sherri…but I also think that Jaleel is wearing out his welcome.  Jaleel also got a whole bunch of media love this week, from GMA to Wendy Williams to The View. Will it work?? Beats me.

Also keep in mind that this week Gavin needed 31,500 more votes per million votes cast to stay over Roshon. You’ll note, above, when Roshon was in the bottom two the spread between him and Gavin was only 12,875 votes per million votes cast, which Gavin beat to put Roshon in the bottom 2.  So, while the tendency some would have would be to say, “Wow, we did it!! We voted enough to save Roshon,” I would respond and say…not necessarily.  Gavin could have still been getting more votes than Roshon, just not enough more.  He couldn’t beat the spread.

Look at it this way – Roshon gets 40,000 votes, Gavin gets 53,000 votes and Jaleel gets 48,000 votes.  Gladys gets 57,000 votes and Melissa gets 61,000 votes.  Who goes home??  Roshon is the low vote getter, right? But he’s not even in the bottom two in this group.  In this scenario, Gavin and Jaleel are the bottom two (with Gavin going home sans dance duel) – and Gladys and Melissa’s vote totals aren’t that much better, but they are beating the spread needed to beat Jaleel, and Jaleel wasn’t getting the votes to beat Roshon. This is why the bottom two is so misleading. You can easily be the low vote getter and still be safe – it depends on the judges score.

If that sort of scenario continues to play out, and Roshon keeps getting higher scores than Melissa and Gladys, but is lower in voting…he can force Gladys and Melissa into the bottom two by virtue of them not being able to cover the spread.  Roshon’s 40k votes versus Gladys 57k and Melissa’s 61k with similar scores?? Means that one of them is in the bottom two with Jaleel next week.  But ONLY if the votes are similar in scale to what I’ve written above. We don’t know that’s the case – both Gladys and Melissa could be getting more votes than the top four dancers. We’ll find out this week, I imagine.  If there is a double elimination, a real bottom THREE will have to be revealed…so it won’t just be Jaleel and Roshon.  Who will the third person be??

Clear as mud??  🙂