DWTS Season 25, Week 1 – Dancing by the Numbers!

Welp. Here we are again. It’s still summer, so I’m going to keep this brief – hopefully – then I’m going outside.

Overall, I thought the show was really good this past Monday – I don’t have any real gripes other than I think TO was underscored by a point or two.  I wonder why they seem to do that on purpose? It’s got to have been pointed out to them by NOW that they really almost always low ball the first dancer out of the gate, not just in week one, but in many/most weeks. WHY??? Seems stupid and artificial.

But other than that, I thought we had a pretty good night. No one really sucked. That happens from time to time, but usually week 2 is a real eye opener. We’ll see how it goes this week with two dances.

Anyway, here’s how the leader board stacked up:

I think that stacked up kinda how I expected it to, with a couple exceptions. Vanessa did far better than I expected her to do, as did Frankie, while Debbie and Drew didn’t do as well as I expected or hoped.

In looking at the cast, they all seem to be on a somewhat level playing field. That, combined with no one who was really crappy, does make it a bit challenging to determine which two might be going home.  My inclination is that – with some exceptions – the eliminations will go in order starting at the bottom of the leader board. But let’s take a look at it a bit closer and see if my initial thoughts hold out.

Barbara is at the bottom of the leader board, so she is naturally at the biggest risk of elimination.

Now, I like Barbara and I threw a few votes her way, but there are enough misogynists in this country – STILL – that I suspect that she might not stick around. That would be a shame, as we need the lighthearted fun people on this show to counteract those who tend to get too into it and competitive.  But Barbara has the nerve to find her partner – who is a black man – attractive, and as many people realize thanks to our current POTUS, that just won’t fly. It’s a damn shame, and the combination of racisim and sexism I’ve seen in reaction to Barbara is quite upsetting. But perhaps it’s good to realize that that mentality is still out there so that we can work towards change.

Anyway, mini-rant over. Barbara only needs 4,200 more votes per million votes cast to be safe over TO. That’s nothing. But…I don’t think Barbara can get past the TO/Cheryl combination, or the Drew/Emma combination. For that matter, Debbie is above her as well – it’s a tough row to hoe. (Inside Joke).  If it were Sasha that were immediately above her, I think that Barbara might be safe. I don’t think Sasha really made an impact on the competition – she’s the person of the season who I have a tendency to forget. Never a good sign.

But, on the off chance that Barbara is safe, TO is the next person on the firing line.

I honestly don’t have a feel for how popular TO might still be. I know he was a controversial figure at one time, but is he popular? No idea. This is partly why I think the leaderboard order might be the way it goes. TO could be really popular, but so are Drew and Debbie.

Let’s break it down another way: there are some folks who are fairly obviously safe on Monday night. Who are they? Jordan, Lindsey, Vanessa and Nikki are almost certainly safe on Monday night. I don’t see any way that any of them are eliminated.  Derek, Frankie and Nick are also almost certainly safe via a combination of fanbase and scores. You’ll note that I left out Victoria – I don’t think she has a guarantee of safety, although I don’t think she’s in danger this week. Val has his fans and she’s probably high enough on the leader board to be good for a bit. But she and Sasha cannot afford a bad dance. In Val’s case, I seriously doubt they would give him a bad score even if they deserved it because they can’t want him to leave too soon.

That leaves us with Barbara, Terrell, Drew and Debbie. Of the four, Barbara has the lowest score combined with possibly the smallest fanbase. Unfortunately, I think that combination will mean the end of the road for her.  There is always a possibility that she got a lot of votes because people liked her, but I’m afraid I don’t have that much confidence in the audience. And if they did, who would go?  I think it would be between Terrell and Drew and I’m leaning toward Terrell.

So, that’s my conclusion for Monday. As for Tuesday, I’m working on the assumption that Monday night’s scores and votes will determine who goes home on Tuesday, then Tuesday’s scores and votes will determine who goes home next Monday as usual.  As a result, I’m going to close it here and you can look for a new DBTN on Tuesday afternoon.