Well, I have to say that I’m really pleased with the dancing we saw last night. The show as a whole was rather sloppy, but that’s somewhat typical for the first show of the season when it’s jam packed with people. Anyway, I just loved it. Of course, Derek is my favorite, but I can’t really pick another favorite. Love Jonathan, Sadie, Tommy, Alfonso, Randy, Lea….and of course, Bethany.
For those of you new to this blog, this is the post where I figure out how many votes the various couples need in order to stick around. The math is fairly simple: you add up the total number of points handed out over the night, divide that total into each couple’s individual score for their percentage of the judges scores. The viewer votes are handed the same way – the total number of votes is divided into a couples votes for a percentage. The two percentages are then added together and the couple with the lowest combined total goes home.
Let’s take a look at the scores and the percentages:
Now, as much as I love Sadie, I don’t think she is only 2 points back from Alfonso and 2 points ahead of Bethany and Lea. And she’s certainly not that far ahead of Randy. Nope. But she probably has the weakest fanbase on the show of those who can actually dance, so they might be protecting her a tiny bit. Although I don’t think that’s necessary.
Why? Well, while we have some absurdly high scores for week 1, we also have some really low scores for week 1. And sadly, most were deserved. Personally, I enjoyed Betsey WAY more than Lolo – and I would bet the average viewer agrees with me. But Betsey is at the bottom. Here’s what she needs to do to stick around:
She only needs, roughly, 5,400 votes per million votes cast in order to stay over Lolo. Call me crazy, but I think she gets those votes. And Lolo kinda did it to herself with the constant talking. I could certainly be wrong, but she took a dance that was hard to watch and turned it into a whole segment that was hard to watch. Thank god for Tom Bergeron. Yikes. Anyway, I think Betsey gets past Lolo. Good thing, too, because I don’t think she’s going to make it past either Michael or Antonio – Antonio, while somewhat wooden, certainly has his fans. Michael is just adorable and I want him to stay forever. But I feel that way about half the cast right now.
For the sake of argument, let’s say that Betsey is totally safe. What does Lolo have to get in order to also be safe? She needs the following:
She needs roughly 8,100 votes per million votes cast in order to beat either Michael or Antonio and honestly, I would be shocked if she got it. I feel very bad for Keo – I don’t want him to go. She needs 13,450 to get past Tommy and I don’t see that happening either.
So, without belaboring the point, I think Lolo goes home. If it’s not Lolo, it will be Betsey – it’s possible that where I saw charming, many saw trainwreck. If there’s a shocker I will do a post results explanation of what I think happened.
One final point, with all the characters in this cast, there are a couple people who need to watch out. Janel is the big one, IMO. All the hype she and Val have been putting out there and I don’t think she lived up to it. Make no mistake – she’s a decent dancer. But she got off easy – they tagged Lea as the ringer when Janel has more recent experience and got off scott free. This pisses me off…but by the end of the show I had forgotten about her. This leads to dangerous, shocking elim territory in coming weeks. Unfortunately, there are a lot of good dancers that could fall in to this trap – Lea, maybe Sadie and possibly Bethany (although with Derek as a partner, she will stand out whether she wants to or not). I love all three of them, but they are going up against Tommy, Randy, Alfonso, Jonathan and Michael?? These guys are not necessarily better dancers but they command the screen. Even if they are not the best dancers, you grow to LOVE them. So watch out, girls – this is a tough season.