DWTS Season 13, Week 2 – Dancing by the Numbers

Another wack ass night of DWTS. I mean, seriously?? A two-way tie for second place and a four-way tie for third place? In what freakin’ universe is JR tied with Kristin? He should be alone at the top of the leaderboard, as much as I love Derek and Ricki. That said, it makes virtually no difference, since the top 7 couples are within two points of each other. Madness. And considering who’s in the bottom we could get a surprise. Hope (heh) there was no Chmerkovskiy vote splitting – even though I didn’t think Hope’s dance was very good, it’s too soon for her to go.

After thinking about it for a bit, I think that Len was probably right about Ricki and JR, both – Derek said out loud that he went more West Coast Swing and that flip that Karina put in their dance was definitely Lindy-ish, which knocks a point off both dances (and yes, she HAS called a lift at the end or beginning on some (Derek) but not on others (Mark)). But both pros did what they had to do to make an impact with the audience and get their partner through the dance – good for them. Add in Carrie Ann and her random lift policing deducting another point and you have JR a point down from Ricki. That said, on twitter I proclaimed JR’s dance worthy of a 27, so to say I was shocked by the scores is an understatement. At the risk of contradicting myself yet again, I do appreciate that the judges are FINALLY keeping the scoring reasonable – JR’s score is the only one I was shocked by last night, when all was said and done.

Also, according to a British friend of mine, “Me old sausage” is indeed a term of endearment, so we can’t crack on Brooke too much. 😀

I think Ricki and JR are definitely safe…after that I’m not so sure of anyone. Kristin and Chynna are likely safe. Everyone else with a 21? I’m not so sure. Let’s see how the leader board stacks up once you run some numbers.

The Judges Scores and Percentages

Okay. So, Chaz is in the bottom spot for the week and the big question is – how many people are actually voting for him??? I have no earthly idea. Is he doing better than the also controversial/quirky Carson and David?? For him to stay, he only needs about 4,500 more votes than ONE of them. How big is the LBGT community and are they vote splitting between Carson and Chaz and does that leave David safe?? For that matter, how big of a fanbase does David REALLY have?

My gut tells me that David’s star power (in Hollywood terms) outshines Carson and Chaz, but my gut’s been wrong before. I mean, Carson is HILARIOUS and how can you resist a guy who so openly drools over Maks, with Mark and Derek as backups?? I think many of us here can relate to drooling over the male pros, eh? 🙂

So, Chaz needs 4,500 more votes than either Carson or David to stick around. If he gets 4,500 more votes than one of them, that one goes home UNLESS all three of them are getting a ton of votes more than someone else. Like who? Well, who is in the next tier? Hope Solo. For Chaz, Carson and David to all stick around this week, ALL of the following things have to happen:

– Chaz has to get 8,970 more votes per million votes cast than Hope, and;
– David AND Carson both have to get 4,500 more votes per million votes cast than Hope.

If all three of the above things happen, Hope goes home. Do I think this is likely? No. Granted, that’s not a whole lot of votes, but I think Maks and Hope (or Maks at least) has the juice to stay ahead of all three of those guys. But it is a bit of a scary thing.

So, the other question I’ve seen around is, what about Elisabetta? She’s in the next level up along with Rob, Chynna and Nancy. Now, I think that those three all beat Elisabetta easily, in terms of votes, so the real focus here is Elisabetta – if you want you can substitute any of the other three into Elisabetta’s place to see what it would take for them to go home. What has to happen for Elisabetta to go home? ALL of the following:

– Chaz has to get 17,950 more votes per million votes cast than her, AND;
– Carson has to get 13,460 more votes per million votes cast than her, AND;
– David has to get 13,460 more votes per million votes cast than her, AND;
– All of her cohorts (Rob, Nancy and Chynna) all need ONE more vote than her per million votes cast, AND;
– Hope has to get 8,970 more votes per million votes cast than Elisabetta.

The question is, did all of Maks’ fans throw all their votes to Maks because of his and Hope’s lower score?? Are David, Chaz and Carson pulling in those kinds of numbers, or is no one voting for Elisabetta?? Or, worse yet, did Maks’ fans split the vote, making it more likely that Hope and Maks go home.

Beats me. This is a tough one. I kinda think it’s either going to be Chaz or Elisabetta going home, with David as a long shot. The minute I go with the safe bet and say Chaz is leaving, it will be Elisabetta. But, I tend to think that while Hope, Carson and David can get the required votes over Elisabetta, I’m not at all sure that Chaz can.

I’m afraid I’m going to have to temper my expectations of the voting audience and say that Chaz will be the one leaving us tonight, but the only actual result that would shock me is Ricki, JR, Kristin or Chynna.