DWTS Season 25, Week 2 (Tuesday Night) – Dancing by the Numbers!

Well, what to say about last Tuesday night? The scoring, combined with Who’s Dancing What, seems to indicate that Nick, Vanessa and Sasha are the current producer favorites.  Although I don’t think most dances are handed out last minute, I do think their favorites are picked pre-season, so there you go.

That said, I don’t know how much of a favor you’re doing Vanessa by giving her Jazz when it’s fairly well documented that her pro can’t hang in the non-ballroom/latin dance styles. He would certainly benefit from some classes if he’s going to continue on DWTS. Or at least get a ghost. Nick, on the other hand, may fare better because I don’t remember Peta sucking at Jazz or contemporary. Gleb? I don’t remember his choreo for either Jazz or Contemporary – I guess that’s not really a bad sign, since I don’t remember anything truly awful. 🙂

Notes about dance order and scoring for this week: the formula holds true that if you dance in the first half, you’re more likely to get a crap score versus in the second half when you’re almost certain to do a bit better. If you draw the line at the exact halfway point, the second half scored a total of TEN more points than the first half. First half dancers averaged a score of 20.33 while second half dancers averaged 22.17.  These feel like pretty significant numbers to me.  And it’s not because they’re putting all crap dancers in the first half and all the good dancers in the second.  Check it out.

Note that, technically, Jordan is in the first half – and he had a 24. Even with counting him in the first half, their average and total scores were lower. That’s a pretty big deal. If you stick him in the second half…well, you know what happens.

So, is anyone consistently getting stuck in the first half or second half??  Yep. This is a bit fluffier because the people hanging around the middle could, in reality, fall in either the first half or second half of the show, depending on how long the opening takes, etc. For example, Nick is solidly in the first half in Week 2, but at 5th in the running order, he’s pretty close to the top of the hour – meaning in audience votes he likely benefits from that slot, but his judges score? Harder to call.

Anyway, Debbie and Barbara were in the first half every time they danced. Nikki was near the beginning of the show on both nights 1 and 2 this week, so if she is eliminated odds are good that played a role. Sasha has been in the first four dancers 2 out of 3 times and those two times she did score lower.  Jordan has been in that middle ground twice and gone last once, but seems relatively immune to dance order – at least with the judges. Lindsey has been in the last half of the show 2 of the 3 times they’ve danced and her lowest score was…wait for it….when she danced in the first half of the show.

Vanessa and Frankie have been in the second half of the show ALL THREE dances thus far. They are the only two dancers with that distinction, although Nick comes very close by virtue of his consistent middle spot. I would have to check to see where he falls in actual show time to see where the break actually is.  I see no reason for them to be pimping Frankie – I think he’s truly popular. My gut says he’s going to stick for a while even if they start underscoring him. Vanessa and Nick…well, you know my thoughts on that. I’ll be curious to know if Sasha starts getting consistent second hour slots, now that her (ABC family) show has been confirmed.

Now about that leaderboard. Nikki is on the bottom, but not by much. She has a score of 18 and there are three people above her with a score of 19. As is often the case, it’s not the fact that there are three people only one point above her, but who those people are.

They are Nick, TO and Derek.  This is the reverse of what happened to Debbie. Debbie was in the group of three that was one point above the bottom dwellers of Nick and Derek. This is a very small number of votes, which makes it even harder, sometimes, to know who’s going to be leaving.

So, in order for Nikki to be safe, she needs about 4k more votes per million votes cast than either Nick, TO or Derek. Both TO and Nick have been in jeopardy. Jeopardy is either a warning shot that someone is going home before too long, or it is used to stimulate the voting for the person in jeopardy. Question is, is Nikki doing well enough in votes on her own to be safe over two guys who have been in jeopardy before? It’s hard to say, because she’s always had at least five people below her on the leader board.

Let’s back up for a minute. By virtue of point spreads and/or perceived popularity, I’m going to say that Frankie, Jordan, Lindsey, Vanessa and Drew are all safe, right off that bat.  That leaves us with Sasha, Victoria, TO, Derek, Nick and Nikki all clustered somewhat together at the bottom. I’m going to guess that, since Victoria is paired with Val, she’s safe for this week at least. I’m also going to guess that Nick is safe, due to his fanbase coming into the show being arguably one of the largest. Those remaining are Sasha, TO, Derek, and Nikki.  IMO, one of these four will be going home.

With that in mind, for Nikki to be safe she needs ONE of the following things to happen:

  • Nikki needs 4,000 more votes per million votes cast to beat either Nick, TO, or Derek, OR;
  • Nikki needs 15,700 more votes per million votes cast to beat Sasha, OR (for the sake of argument):
  • Nikki needs about 8,000 more votes per million votes cast to beat Victoria.

Like I said, I don’t think Nikki and Artem can beat Victoria and Val, but I had to put it in there to show that it is a relatively small margin…and just in case. 🙂  I still have the feeling that Sasha isn’t getting the votes, but I’m not all that sure that Nikki is either. If the margin were smaller by half or more, I would guess that Sasha would get eliminated. But it’s not, so she’s probably safe.  That leaves us with Nick, TO or Derek that Nikki has to beat.

Tough call. I sure like Nikki better than Nick or TO, but both have survived being on the bottom, while Debbie (who was above them on the leaderboard) got eliminated.   How are Nick, TO and Derek doing relative to other couples besides Nikki??

As you should know by now, in order for TO, Nick or Derek to be safe, they each only have to get ONE more vote per million votes cast than the remaining two. Who is the high vote getter in that trio? :::sigh::: Don’t know who’s the highest, but TO should be the lowest. SHOULD.  As I said before, I think Nick is safe, but we’ll include him here just to be…inclusive. 😉  Let’s break it down: in order for Nick, TO or Derek to be safe, ONE of the following things has to happen:

  • They have to get ONE more vote per million votes cast than the other two in their group, OR;
  • They need for Nikki to NOT get 4,000 more votes per million votes cast than them, OR;
  • They need to get 4,000 more votes per million votes cast than Victoria, OR;
  • They need to get 7,900 more votes per million votes cast than Drew, OR;
  • They need to get 11,800 more votes per million votes cast than Sasha, and so on.

Now, I’m inclined to believe that Nick and Derek are getting more votes that TO, which would make them safe. The question that remains is Nikki getting 4k more votes than Terrell or is Terrell getting 4k more votes than Victoria? I think the answer to Victoria is no. The question regarding Nikki is much tougher.

I think, after all this, that it comes down to Nikki and Terrell…and I’m honestly not sure which one gets eliminated. I’m kinda leaning towards Nikki, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it were Terrell or even Sasha.

What do you think??