DWTS 15, Week 5 – “Guilty Pleasures Week” Schedule

Ok, I was getting hit with a lot of questions about this on Twitter last night, and as many times as I repeated myself – there still seemed to be the same questions over and over again…apparently people don’t know how to navigate Twitter and look back on my timeline.  And you guys know how I just LOVE to repeat myself ad infinitum < /sarcasm>.  So here it is, all in one place, and the next person that asks me about next week’s schedule on Twitter is going to get a link to this post along with the message “Read this, asshat.” 😛

First, here’s why next week is funky: the 3rd and final presidential debate is scheduled for Monday night between 9-10:30 PM EST…which basically kills the prospect of our usual 2-hour performance show Monday.  They can’t possibly cram 8 individual dances and 2 team dances into 1 hour, so instead of one 2-hour performance show next week – we’re getting TWO 1-hour performance shows, on Monday & Tuesday.  Consequently, there is no results show – and thus no elimination next week.  Yippee hooray, we get two weeks of everyone who made it through last night’s elimination! Good for some, not so much for others.  But I digress…

From what I’ve been told, there’s going to be 4 individual dances and 1 team dance each night – and each couple will be dancing both nights.  However, they’re going to alternate what nights the team dances are done, and what nights the individual dances are done.  Let me explain.  Let’s say that Team Shawn does their team dance on Monday night – then the couples on Team Shawn will be doing their individual dances on Tuesday night.  Likewise, if the couples on Team Gilles do their individual dances on Monday night, they will be doing their team dance on Tuesday night.  Make sense?  I kind of wish we could see the team dances on the same night (because I think seeing them back-to-back tends to deter the judges from lowballing/overscoring each team relative to one another), but I understand why they’ve done it this way – it ensures that we get to see ALL of the couples dance each night, and probably eliminates the need to rush, rush, rush to get everyone’s costume changed after their individual dance.  Remember, they’ve only got one hour – and they were cutting it AWFULLY close with the team dance picks on the results show last night (I blame Gilles, who felt the need to give a grandiose speech as to why he was picking each couple.) And before you ask – no, I don’t know which team is dancing what night…yet.  I have a feeling that will be determined after TPTB have had a chance to look at how the rehearsals are going, and determine which one fits better with what night, in terms of logistics (props, how much the judges will likely comment on a dance, how “buzzworthy” each dance is).  We should know for sure on Sunday, after camera blocking.  And please, don’t ask me to speculate as to whether going first or second is better for the team dance – I’d normally say 2nd, but with the schedule being as funky as it is, I don’t know that that’s necessarily the case this time.

And now here’s the big question I keep getting – and it’s unfortunately the one I don’t have a lot of information on yet: the voting. I don’t know if there’s still going to be voting or not, and if there is, what time the voting is going to start/end and how it’s going to get tabulated into week 6’s results – which, by the way, will be another double elimination.  And “country week”.  😯 I know the scores given in week 5 will just get added to the scores given in week 6, and the percentage of points share will be calculated using the combined total points awarded in weeks 5 & 6.  If you’re thinking “Wow, that’s a lot of points!” you are correct – and we all know that more points = tighter margins.  So I daresay week 6’s double elimination will ultimately come down to fanbase more than any other elimination, and we’re going to get a good idea of who’s really getting the votes and who isn’t.  And as for the voting – I’m guessing there will indeed be voting, and like the points from week 5, the votes will just get carried over and combined with week 6’s.  Not sure what the voting window will be – if it were up to me, voting would commence at the beginning on Monday night’s show, and continue all day Tuesday, and then end at 11 AM EST on Wednesday morning.  I think that would be the fairest thing, because it wouldn’t give preference to either night – if there happens to be more viewers on Tuesday and we only see the members of Team Shawn doing their team dance on Tuesday, then I think voting that only happens on Tuesday would give an unfair advantage to the couples who danced individually that night, since they’d have more screen time.  Make sense?

If I get any further information, I’ll update this post in RED – so you might want to bookmark it, because I don’t know how long I’m going to keep it stickied to the front page.  I would advise everyone to go ahead and take a look at your DVR’s now, though, and make sure you’re set up to record for 1 hour from 8 – 9 PM on both Monday & Tuesday.  I have AT&T U-Verse as my cable provider, and my DVR made the time adjustment and captured last night’s show without a problem; but I’ve heard that those with Brighthouse have been having some issues recording the show this season, so some of you may have to manually go in and program your DVR to pick up the show.  Just a friendly PSA from the folks here at Pure…cause PureDWTS cares 😉

ETA #1: Next week’s arrangement just got a lot fairer for everyone 🙂 The show will only be live on Monday – Tuesday’s show will be pre-taped.  The way I had it explained to me, the couples from Team A will do their 4 individual dances, Team B will do their team dance, they’ll roll the credits, keep the audience where they are, take a short break for Team A to change into their team dance costumes and Team B to change into their individual dance costumes, and then shoot Tuesday night’s show ahead of time.  That way, everyone has the same amount of time to rehearse, and the judges will be seeing the team dances the same night – which (god willing) will keep the judges (semi)honest.  Another update? Double elim moved to week 8.

Questions?