DWTS Season 16, Week 7 – Dancing by the Numbers

I think this is probably the stupidest thing that DWTS has EVER done. Seriously – these dancers had to learn FOUR dances this week?? Some can barely do ONE dance. So, as a result, we see a bunch of weak dancing and some horrendous dancing. The top 3 – Kellie, Zendaya and Aly – were not nearly as good as they could have been. I saw a whole bunch of Derek Hough choreography from half the pros NOT named Derek Hough (but who were named Mark, Karina and Val) – can’t say I blame them, given the lack of time.  Dear lord – I think about what Kellie, Zendaya and Aly (and Jacoby) could have done with just ONE dance it just pisses me off. All could have been brilliant instead of just….good. In a couple cases, quite good.

To top it off – come on. That scoring was SO pre-determined and, in terms of Kellie, Aly and Zendaya, totally irrelevant. When you give Andy a 17, you have made your agenda clear. He was NOT that much worse than either Sean or Ingo, but you have your goals, don’t you judges.  The added benefit was, of course, Zendaya’s fans are pissed and highly motivated.  As I’ve come to call it, “Scenario #2” – the one that we discussed where they give Zendaya a 27  or 28 so when she kills the challenge she ends up with a 30 or higher – was likely part of the plan. Sooo freakin’ safe it isn’t even funny. Same for Aly. Oh, and speaking of the challenge – congrats Val, you earned the Chmerkovskiy name by being a total dick (sorry Andy) by saying you’re going to “pick on someone your own size”.   By the way – you are NOT a good Paso choreographer. That point has been made pretty strongly. Too much empty space…and, although not your fault, Zendaya’s age showed in her softer limbs. You should not talk them up ahead of time – it will always come back to bite you.

Karina? Foolish for letting Jacoby pick Jive – a Rumba would have been awesome.  Awesomely squicky which would have added a bit of ….something….to tonight. But something tells me that TPTB weren’t going to let that happen. Someone pre-determined that – either the pros or the producers.

Okay, I’m almost done ranting. I do wonder how they will work the cumulative score after this. Are they counting the three points? Because that would hose Kellie and Derek. But since half the cast got hosed last night, may as well include them.

Okay, now the questions: Derek apologized to his grandparents for taking off his shirt and said he didn’t want to – so….that begs the question: Why did he? Are the producers that into it that they asked him to? Also, how badly did they explain this immunity thing to the pros?? Derek looked shocked after the first challenge dance when he heard Tom say that they couldn’t be eliminated. Maybe he was just overly tired (Um, see the video from The W, in addition to his touring with Kellie – LOL), but Mark also looked like he didn’t know what the hell was going on, prior to doing their challenge dance. I sense….weirdness. To say the least.

:::sigh::: Anyway, the leader board looks like this. I left in Kellie and Derek’s score because I think they are likely included in the total since they were points awarded by the judges.  I just won’t talk about them in the contest of possible eliminations. If I don’t get too tired, I will look and see what difference those 29 points make in the spread.

week 7

So, as you can see, the immunity is likely not the least bit necessary when you have people in the 30’s and Andy with a 17.  Kinda ridiculous. As I said in an earlier post about this whole Immunity thing, it’s unlikely that it has any real impact on the top three ladies – the spread is too huge. It’s always possible that Zendaya’s fans aren’t voting in huge numbers, or Kellie/Derek’s fans have said “fuck it” after last season…or that Aly just got started too late…but with a 13 point spread (at minimum), it is unlikely that Andy is a threat to either Zendaya or Aly.

So why do it?? ADHD?? Andy getting too many votes? As I said way back when, I tend to think it has more to do with who’s getting too many votes, not who isn’t getting enough. But I guess you never know.

Anyway, what has to happen for Andy to be safe? He needs ONE of the following things:

–        Andy needs 38,100 more votes per million votes cast than Sean, OR;

–        Andy needs 43,500 more votes per million votes cast than Ingo, OR;

–        Andy needs 54,400 more votes per million votes cast than Jacoby, OR;

–        Andy needs 70,700 more votes per million votes cast than Zendaya, OR;

–        Andy needs 82,000 more votes per million votes cast than Aly.

NOW do you see why the immunity is unnecessary??  Those are HUGE numbers. Seriously, even to get past Sean will be a stretch for Andy. And I think this is what they wanted all along. Sean and Ingo are both family, Jacoby is popular and the ladies can all dance really well. Andy has served his purpose. Next week is week 8 and he’ll be back in week 10. People will barely have time to miss him. Or so they think.

But what if all the Kellie fans who were voting for Andy had an impact? How much danger is Sean in? For Sean to be safe, he needs ONE of the following to happen:

–        Sean needs for Andy to NOT get the 38,100 more votes per million votes cast than him, OR;

–        Sean needs 5,500 more votes per million votes cast than Ingo, OR;

–        Sean needs 16,400 more votes per million votes cast than Jacoby, OR;

–        Sean needs 32,700 more votes per million votes cast than Zendaya, OR;

–        Sean needs 44,500 more votes per million votes cast than Aly.

Sean and Andy have both been in the bottom two. Sean was in the bottom two with Victor even though Andy had lower score…but Andy only needed 8k votes to get past Sean.  This week the spread between Andy and Sean is as large as it was between first and last place last week – that’s huge. We have no idea if Andy has that kind of juice. He did get an assist from Kellie, who asked her fans to vote for him. We’ll see.

It’s going to be either Sean, Andy or Ingo – no question to me. I think it will be Sean and Andy in the bottom two with Andy going home. Ingo could take Sean’s place in the bottom two, if Sean gets the relatively small 5,500 votes he needs to get past Ingo.

But I don’t think Andy makes it past either Sean or Ingo, so he’s headed home. And that makes me sad. This is one of those weeks where I pray I’m wrong.