Dancing by the Numbers – DWTS Season 5 Retrospective!

Since they just aired season 5 on GSN, I figured I would do a little numbers retrospective – particularly because of the supposed “shocking” elimination of Sabrina and the horribly prolonged run of Marie Osmond.

I have to say, after watching Sabrina dance again, I have to agree with Len and Bruno when they commented on how she danced her foxtrot “too hard” – it was way too hard and she did miss a couple steps.  Combine that with the talent and/or name recognition of her competitors, then is it really a surprise? Perhaps so, since Jane had been in the bottom two the week before. But everyone but perhaps Helio and Mel B was much better known with the DWTS demographic than Sabrina was – and Mel B was a better dancer and Helio was a huge and charming personality. Anyway, at the end of the night, week 6, the scores looked like this:

The Judges Scores and Percentages

Now, what these scores mean should be somewhat obvious to longtime readers of this series – Sabrina was not at the bottom of the leader board and, in fact, had a pretty decent lead on Marie and Jane and was tied with Cameron.  In order for Sabrina to be eliminated, the following had to happen:

-          She didn’t cover the spread of the dancers above her, AND;

-          Cameron got ONE more vote per million votes cast than her, AND:

-          Marie got 11,150 more votes per million votes cast than she did, AND;

-          Jane got 16,700 more votes per million votes cast than she did.

Now, conventional wisdom has always said that Sabrina fans got over confident or were sure she was safe. But look at those numbers. That’s  a good bit of overconfident and I’m not sure I believe it any longer. Marie’s faint was the week before, but there is no reason that Jane should go from a bottom two situation the week before to being safe at Sabrina’s expense the very next week.  She made up a pretty big deficit.  I’m inclined to believe that, like other lesser knowns before her, Sabrina didn’t have the fanbase that many believed. And we all know by now that great dancing isn’t always enough.  And in case you still don’t agree – Sabrina was the high scorer in 3 of the 5 previous weeks. The two weeks she wasn’t the high score, she was in second place. The instant she falls out of the top 2, she’s eliminated. Coincidence?? Read more..