DWTS Season 27, Week Four – Dancing by the Numbers RETROSPECTIVE!

As I promised during the live blog, we’ll take a look at exactly what led to Tinashe’s elimination this past Monday. Beyond just a lack of votes, that is.

Of course, that’s what it all comes down to – she wasn’t getting the votes. It’s not necessarily that Joe was getting a ton of votes, it’s just as likely that she wasn’t getting votes.  Yes, there is a difference there. We have no way of knowing if Joe is next in line to leave or if he’s going to make it to the end – this elimination is in no way predictive, no matter what his sadly misguided fans like to claim. 🙂  And before you go crazy and try to tell me that the show is a popularity contest, not a dance contest – just stop. The show is whatever the viewer wants or needs it to be – it’s not up to you to make that determination for other people. The clash comes when the Bachelor Fan’s wants don’t coincide with other viewers wants. I WANT the show to have great dancing. I want the show to show someone who might not have been great to start grow into someone really good or great (see Bindi Irwin, for one).  I like a fun journey. And sorry kids, Joe doesn’t provide any of those things for me. Tinashe did. So quit your bitching about how some of us want Joe gone – deal with it. We certainly have to deal with JOE, so suck it up.

Anyway, Joe had to climb a serious hill in order to stay on the show over Tinashe.  We’ll really only look at Joe and Tinashe to start with, because he was the very bottom of the leader board, while she was the one who was eliminated. No, this is not the first time this has happened and it’s unlikely to be the last.  Audrina, Chynna, Brandy, Sabrina….the worst of all being Audrina who was way in the lead and got beat by Kurt Warner…who was eliminated two weeks later.  Kurt Warner had to get 48,400 more votes per million votes cast than Audrina and he did it. She went home.  Tinashe is in second place in the hardest elimination of all time. Joe had to get 47,415 more votes per million votes cast than Tinashe. And he clearly did.

Does that mean he’s killing it in the votes? Nope. This is hard to explain…let’s break it down and see if you can follow my logic, and the math. First, who got what scores?

Tinashe got the same score she got the week before, when people were casting their votes – a nice 26. Why is what she got last week important? Well, because that’s what people were voting on (which is why this season is rather screwed up). She had a good score – so there could be an element of over confidence there. “She’s safe, I don’t need to vote for her.” Conversely, Joe had an 18 last week, which is pretty bad – making his fans vote harder, most likely. Combine the two and it’s a recipe for disaster…sometimes. Not always. Depends on the fanbase. If the fanbase is small to start with, combined with probably not being comprised of the average DWTS viewer who knows how the show works, and you’re going to be in trouble. Joe has fans that ARE in the demo and are likely voting to make up for his scores. He doesn’t have to be getting tons of votes for this to work.

Here’s the break down of the votes needed by Joe against each competitor:

Okay, why is it possible that Joe isn’t getting a ton of votes like his fans claim since he was safe over Tinashe?  Well, she’s just ONE person that he beat. We have NO idea how he currently stacks up against the others.  To complicate matters, she was not in the bottom six in week 1.  Alexis and Mary Lou both were.  Alexis was tied with her in week 1, while Mary Lou was four points down.  Since Alexis was a point down from Tinashe this week but was still safe, either she’s next to go, or she’s growing on people. Hard to say. But I digress.

Purely hypothetically – Let’s pretend that there are only two million votes cast to make the math easier.  Here’s how Joe can be getting the lowest number of votes of everyone except Tinashe:

Now, if these votes are anything close to reality, Joe would be the next one to leave because he’s got lower votes than everyone else. That won’t work:  he needs to BEAT a bunch of people by a lot of votes in order to stay. And in this scenario, he’s not that far off from a couple people, but he’s not beating them by any stretch.  I’m not saying this is anything close to reality, and Table 3 is just a guess – not necessarily my preference.  But Table 3 pretty clearly illustrates what I mean when I say that it’s not necessarily true that Joe is getting a ton of votes, that it’s possible that Tinashe just wasn’t getting hardly any votes.  Thus, she was eliminated.  Clear as mud?

I will say that if Joe survives this coming Monday, it’s most likely that Alexis is his next victim. Maybe Bobby. Those two are the least well known of the people remaining. As the weather has turned colder and it’s definitely not as fun to be outside any more, you might see an uptick in same day viewing and voting. That could spell trouble for Joe himself. We’ll have to wait and see.

I would go on and try to be more analytical on who might go home Monday, but that is next to impossible to do when the scores haven’t been handed out just yet.  We’re at the mid point of the season and this is my preferred boot order, starting with who I want to leave the most:

Joe
Bobby
Mary Lou
JP
John
Alexis
Evanna – top 3
DeMarcus – possible winner
Milo – possible winner

I’m not silly enough to believe I’ll actually get my way. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. What do I think will actually happen? Scores are just as important as votes, despite what many fans like to claim. It’s always been that way. If DeMarcus doesn’t start getting higher scores, Milo will probably win. And I would be okay with that. 🙂 Next to go? I want it to be Joe, but it could easily be Alexis, Bobby or Mary Lou.

What do you think?