DWTS Season 16, Week 1 – Dancing by the Numbers!

Hello folks (Hi Cheryl!!!)! 🙂  It’s time once again to take a look at the numbers for a week of dancing. Of course, since there was no elimination this week, this is just an exercise to show you where the dancers stand going into week two. Is it possible for D.L. to overcome his extreme deficit? Well, I kinda doubt it, but you never know. Next Tuesday will either reveal that there are some seriously weak fanbases (by someone other than D.L. getting the boot), or it will reveal nothing at all.

Anyway, I think that the judges didn’t screw the pooch too badly this week, but there’s still plenty of time. What did I agree or disagree with? Well, I’m a proponent of a LOT more use of the 3 and 4 paddles in week 1 and they don’t seem to have that in them unless you don’t practice as much as you should. 😉 As much as I LOVED Wynonna, I think they were a bit kind to her – which is SOP for them when it comes to older, dance-challenged ladies.  I think Kellie got screwed by going first – also typical for these judges. There’s no way that Dorothy and Aly deserve the same score as her. That said, 21 is a good score for both, I’m just thinking that Kellie deserved a point or two higher.   Zendaya? Awesome. Loved the dance and I have high hopes for Val. That said, I think 24 was a bit of a stretch – but only by a point, really. The question on these ladies is – can Kellie keep it up (I think so), can Dorothy loosen up (I hope so) and can Aly ever even HOPE to match up to Shawn (doubt it). No, it’s not fair to compare her to All Stars Shawn – but if you think I’m the only person doing that, yer crazy. It’s how the brain works, whether you want it to or not.

LOVE Andy. Love him. I think he did a better dance that Wynonna did, actually. I certainly enjoyed him FAR more than the cheapo Foxtrot put on by Sean and Peta. What the hell was that, anyway?? But, since Sean is a member of the family, I expect him to be overscored right to the semi-finals. The imaginary scenario…

ABC Exec: :::cough::: Ahem. You know, Conrad, if Sean stays around until, oh, I dunno, week 8 or so, that would tie in perfectly with his and Catherine’s wedding, to air right after DWTS at 9 pm, that week. Whaddaya say?

Conrad: :::sigh::: I’ll see what I can do.

Expect nipples. Just sayin’.

As for the rest of the gang that I haven’t mentioned? Well, there’s a reason for that, I suppose. Jacoby I have no real opinion on, other than him being the odds on favorite to win. Shame, that, since his dance wasn’t all that and there are at least four better dancers than him as of this moment – all women, in case you’re wondering. I loved Donald and Hines right off the bat, and immediately predicted both to win. The fact that I don’t instantly love Jacoby – and often forget about him when thinking/talking about the show, gives me pause – but I think he’ll end up pulling it out and lots of people will be pissed. And to think that the big complaints are previous dance experience!! You wanna ringer, dance with a footballer – they are just as likely to win as anyone with previous dance experience (Mya, Sabrina and so on).

ANYWAY, here’s how the numbers shake out:

Week 1 Scores

So, for the newbies in the room, here’s how the elimination on DWTS works – long form. Each dancer is given a score. At the end of the night, all the scores are added together for a total (Monday night it was 229). Each dancer’s score then has 229 divided into it to get their percentage of the total scores. For Zendaya her score worked out to be 10.48% of the total. The votes are handled the same way. The number of votes for each dancer is added to get a total number of votes. You then divide the total into each individual dancer’s votes to get a percentage of the total. You then add the two percentages together. The dancer with the lowest combined total gets eliminated. Easy peasy.

What I do every week is take the Score percentage of that equation and figure out how many more votes per million votes cast each dancer needs to be “safe” for the week. Then I make a guess based on what I know of them – or what I think I know of them. The vote totals are a complete guess, so there’s no guarantee that I’ll be right. Some seasons I have a great record, other seasons? Not so much.

So, after all that, it’s almost a sure thing that D.L. would be eliminated with these scores, if it weren’t for having a chance at redemption…but we’ll talk more about that later. What would have to happen for D.L. to be called safe with these scores??  ONE of the following things:

–          D.L. would have to get 21,850 more votes per million votes cast than Andy, OR;

–          D.L. would have to get 26,200 more votes per million votes cast than either Lisa, Victor or Wynonna, OR;

–          D.L. would have to get 30,600 more votes per million votes cast than Sean, OR;

–          D.L. would have to get 35,000 more votes per million votes cast than either Ingo or Jacoby, OR;

–          D.L. would have to get 39,300 more votes per million votes cast than either Kellie, Dorothy or Aly, OR;

–          D.L. would have to get 52,400 more votes per million votes cast than Zendaya.

Now, in DWTS land those are pretty big margins. In Season 14, for example, the largest margin week 1 was 22K. Week 2 it was 27K and in week 3 it got up to 30k. Those were the LARGEST margins – like from first place to last place. Here the span from last to first is more than 50K. I think it’s safe to say that neither Zendaya, Kellie, Dorothy or Aly are going anywhere on Tuesday.

It is possible for D.L. to make it past someone, but I find it to be unlikely. I think Andy charmed and got enough votes of his own. If D.L. is going to beat anyone, I would guess it would be Lisa or Victor. Now, if he beats Lisa or Victor in votes, they don’t automatically go home – they could beat someone else in votes. The most likely scenario, if D.L. were to get the votes to beat the two of them, is that one of them would have 1 more vote than the other and get to stick around.  If you look at the dancers around Lisa and Victor – Wynonna, Sean, Ingo and Jacoby – I don’t see either of them having the juice to get past any of them. So, they can only get past each other.  What is the spread? For Lisa or Victor to be safe (or Wynonna for that matter), they need ONE of the following to happen:

–          D.L. doesn’t get 21,850 more votes per million votes cast than any of them, OR;

–          Andy doesn’t get 4,400 more votes per million votes cast than any of them, OR;

–          Two of them beat the other one by ONE vote, OR;

–          One or all of them get 4,400 more votes per million votes cast than Sean, OR;

–          One or all of them get 8,700 more votes per million votes cast then either Ingo or Jacoby, OR;

–          One or all of them get 13,100 more votes per million votes cast than either Kellie, Aly or Dorothy, OR;

–          One or all of them get 26,200 more votes per million votes cast than Zendaya.

As it stands right now, I don’t think D.L. passes anyone to stick around. If he passes someone, I think it will be Lisa and/or Victor.  If he beats one, he beats both, since they have the same score. In that case, I think Andy easily beats Lisa, if not both Lisa and Victor. If he does beat both of them, then I think Victor gets one more vote than Lisa does…although I could certainly be wrong.  Lisa at least has her dog going for her.

But remember – we have to add another score on Monday night before anyone goes home. Unfortunately, D.L. would need to be near perfect AND he would need someone else (Andy, Lisa or Victor) to fail badly to give him a better shot of sticking around.