On Strictly Come Dancing 2014 - Week 2 - The First Elimination

[danieldwilliam]

So the first elimination has come and not even a fetish fueled Charlston could save Pudding Loving Geoff. He goes at the first time of asking. I had him going out in week 8. I think that fundamentally my bottom half is sound except for Can’t See The Wood.

Can’t See The Wood turns out not to be as wooden as I thought he would be. Following last weeks decent Tango he impressed with a Salsa garnering three nines in week two. Despite the cognitive disonance of having picked him for an early exit even I was impressed by his salsa. His combined score sees him top ranked over the two weeks.

Pixie and Frankie look pretty nailed on for a semi-final place with good dances in both weeks. On combined scores they are ranked second and third.

In terms of the public vote Not Jennifer Grey would have hoped to avoid the Dance Off. Her score of 37 had her ahead of four other contestents. Perhaps her legions of fans thought she was safe. Perhaps her legion of fans have read the same reviews of Mrs Brown’s Boys that I have.

I’m going to have a look at the average scores by week. I have a feeling they are higher than at this stage in previous years.

7 is the most popular score over the two weeks with 36 appearances or 30%. Last year over the first two weeks 28 7’s had been awarded, 23% of the total scores. 7 was still joint favourite mark. Last year the scores 5,6 and 7 accounted for 67% of scores awarded. This year 79% of scores are in the range 5-7. This is something I’m going to delve into more over the coming weeks. I’ll also be looking at any gender bias in the scoring.

Comments

[alitheapipkin.livejournal.com]

I called Jennifer being in the bottom 2 - there's a strong history of non-British celebs going out in the first week. Greg was awful though, I don't mind the chap but am relieved not to see him dance again!

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

Aye - it's happened a couple of times. Martina Hingnis and Jerry Hall (?).

He was having fun and it was enjoyable to watch him having fun but I think that would wear off a bit after, I don't know, about two weeks.

[hano.livejournal.com]

yeah, Greg was shockingly bad, even worse than Rachel Riley last year. I reckon the antique dealer chap next, probably in a dance off with either Scott Mills or Jennifer Gibney.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

On form it ought to be Unfortunately Named Tim but I have a sneaking suspicion he has a bit of a following who will vote to keep him out of the bottom two for a few weeks.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I've taken ages to get back to you on this.

I can't keep up with your nicknames for the most part, so am going the conventional route.

OK. There are four types of contestant.

(1) Dead certs. I think only Pixie and Frankie currently fall into this category. Something will have to go very wrong for one of them not to make the final. Caroline might fall into this category, although I am less sure about that because they must be working very hard not to have a female-dominated final. Previous dead certs have included Susanna Reid, Natalie Gumede and Sophie Ellis Bextor (2013), Denise van Outen and Kimberley Walsh (2012), all the 2011 finalists (Harry Judd, Chelsee Healey and Jason Donovan), and all the 2010 finalists (Kara Tointon, Matt Baker and Pamela Stephenson Connolly). Of these, I'd back Kevin over Trent and Pasha as a strategic advantage. He got Susanna to the final last year and she's fifteen years older than Frankie and less immediately relevant for Strictly's core audience, I think.

(2) Dark horses. I think this year's dark horses are Steve, Thom and Jake. They could end up anywhere. It's too early to tell how they're going to dance and what their journey is like. (I think Jake is being overmarked. I'm not seeing the dancing skill of P and F.) Previous dark horses include Abbey Clancy (2013; eventual winner), Lisa Riley, (2012), Dani Harmer (2012), Louis Smith (2012; eventual winner). Some of these guys are going to do artificially well because Darcey they are attractive, likeable and there will be a strong desire to promote male dancers after last year. It's also worth looking at the partners - Ola has been phoning it in for a little while, whereas Iveta has form in getting a bad dancer (Mark Benton) a surprisingly long way. Janette is too new to tell, I think. She's more than happy to get her kit off. I don't know how sexy she is; both Iveta and Ola have personal followings, I think.

(3) Middle-rankers. Some of the middle-rankers will do unexpectedly well. Some will do unexpectedly badly. In 2014 I think the middle-rankers are Alison, Mark, Sunetra and I'm going to stick my neck out and put Simon in this category. Partners here are Aljaz (pretty but dull), Karen (not super-popular, I think, but that might be unfair), Brendan (old timer; not sure whether that's a strength or a weakness here) and Kristina, who has a will of iron and will make Simon work forty-hour weeks, but is not as young and pretty as she used to be.

(4) Also-rans. Quite a big group this year: Gregg (now gone), Judy, Jennifer, Tim and Scott. I think these are likely to be the first five gone, unless one of them turns into a John Sergeant phenomenon. I think Tim is the only possible candidate for that - none of the others are sufficiently likeable or interesting. Tim is also a little bit of a dark horse because he has Natalie as his dance partner, and she has form in getting poor dancers quite a long way (notably Michael Vaughan, who was truly dreadful).

So I am predicting that the also-rans will be the first five to go - I don't have a view on the order. I think that Sunetra will be next - Mark is the best dancer of the middle-rankers, although Alison is startlingly good and I think she will have the "journey" factor. I have no idea who she is and therefore can't gauge her support. Thom should be an early exit if he doesn't get better, but I think he might outlast his ability - if his relationship with Iveta does take off then that will give him public appeal, plus Darcey he might also benefit from "journey" factor.

I think my current pick for the final is Pixie, Frankie, Jake, Caroline. But I could easily replace Jake or Caroline with Mark, Steve or Thom. Jury's out on Simon. Alison might just make semis.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

Agree with your taxonomy. That's more or less how I categorise the celebrities.

I think your assessment of the Also Rans is right.

Agree re Tim being the only potential one with enough crowd pleasing potential to not be in the first five to go out. I notice that he has gotten out from the bottom place a couple of times so far.

I think you are right about Pixie and Mmmmh Frankie being dead certs. I'm also unsure about Caroline Flack. She's getting decent scores.

I am unsure about Jake. I'm tempted to put him in the Dead Cert category. This may be because my initial assessment of him was very wrong and I'm over compensating. I don't know that I agree that he's being over-marked. I thought his Tango benefited from him being stompy but I was surprised by how good his salsa was. Genuinely not sure.

You are right about Steve and Thom - could go either way.

Agree re Middle Rankers. I'd have had Simon in as a dark horse until I checked his twitter followers and found he had fewer than Ola.

I think your picks for the final are right.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

Occasionally dead certs get exhausted by the semis and are out earlier than expected. Scott Maslen is a classic example. He was a really excellent dancer and looked like a dead cert week after week, but he was filming EastEnders at the same time and he's not young (older than me!) and he just lost it. I'm backing Steve (naturalist) and Thom (athlete) over Jake (actor) for stamina, and I'm probably backing Thom over either of them because I think he's younger. But he might have a portrait in the attic. (That said, Darcey likes muscles more than beauty. Bruno is pretty much good with either, I think.)

Caroline has a lot of Twitter followers and might be a dead cert. I don't think she is in Pixie and Frankie's league, but those two are obvious ringers and might be skewing my judgment. We're still only in week three.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I hear you on the stamina thing. Steve is the type of naturalist that gets a lot of exercise. His show Deadly 60 is a family favourite.

I think Jake is also filming a lot with Eastenders.

It's not just the exhaustion. There is the risk of fatigue related injury.

Thom is 29.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

Yes, and I suspect it isn't just stamina but the difference between what your body is used to doing and what it's now being asked to do.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

Based on Saturday's show, which I hadn't seen when I'd written this, I've overestimated Alison. I thought she danced wonderfully the previous week but she was poor and overmarked this week. I suspect she will get tired very easily - Aljaz was notably choreographing to save her energy.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

She's a large lady - there's a lot of her to move around. She might, like Lisa Riley, find the exercise gives her a fitness boost that keeps helping her to improve. She should have a few weeks or longer in the show to work on her fitness.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

I agree on all counts.

I don't think it was stamina that took Lisa out at the semis. I think it was just that the other guys all got so good that they looked like pro dancers, whereas she still looked like a great amateur.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

Yeah - she was never going to win. She was always eventually going to end up in a dance off against one of the eventual finalists and that was always going to be that for her.

And I think the same logic applies to any of the dark horse contestants this time round too. I don't see Dangerous Steve or Thom Dripping Evans putting Mmmmh Frankie out

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

Public vote could potentially have got her all the way. I guess the bottom line is that no matter how popular an individual celeb might be, people do want to see good dancing and that's what gets the votes in the end.

Frankie isn't going to be in a dance-off!

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I think each celeb starts with a natural constituency of existing fans who are also SCD fans. And, if your natural constituency is large enough this will carry you quite a long way even if you are not the best dancer. Also, if, like Lisa or Jon Sargeant, you attract a strong personal vote for whatever reason this will also carry you a long way.

But as each celeb drops away there personal support becomes radicalised and will look for a new home which I think is going to be disproportionately based on who had proven to be the better dancers.

So, your core vote remains but the better dancers start picking up transfers from other ousted celebs.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

That sounds about right. Certainly explains Louis Smith, whose celebrity had great currency.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

But only 220k followers.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

How many did he have in 2012? Also, how much does he tweet? I don't think he's a particularly talky person.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I don't know how many he had in 2012.

He as eight thousand tweets since 2009. That seems about average.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

Is he any fun?

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

Not especially that I can see.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

I have no idea what drives Twitter following. Absolutely none. I curate my tweetstream quite actively and quickly unfollow people who annoy me, which is nearly everyone. I suspect the world divides into people who haven't used their Twitter account for years and those who use client apps to manage their tweets in a much more sophisticated way than I do. So on reflection I'm not liking my hypothesis that he used to have more. I suspect he's never had that many.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

My guess is that twitter followers tend not to drop off.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

That's the point I'm trying to make. I think there'd have to be a very good reason (was Chris Langham ever on Twitter?)

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I think he tweeted twice, last decade.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

That doesn't really help then.

Actually I suspect that even negative publicity would add to followers, not decrease them. This is a very extreme case but there aren't a lot of very extreme cases.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

Ola can phone it in to me any day of the week.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

I'll let her know.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

That would be good of you.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

I'm doing it for her benefit, not yours.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I know, you're a good woman. She's lucky to have you looking out for her.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

She's lucky to have you on the other end of the phone :-)

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

Like Jeeves, I shall endeavour to give satisfaction.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

That's the spirit.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

I have also been wondering about tracking twitter followers as a measure of likelihood of success. Pixie currently has c.1.7m and Frankie has c.1.2m which is not as big a delta as I'd expected. It would be really interesting to track changes in this week by week. I don't know whether all the celebs have Twitter accounts. I bet anything you like all the pros have Twitter accounts. This would be quite labour intensive though.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

Good shout. Not as labour intensive as you might fear.

Right that’s that set up to collect the data on a weekly basis. I’ve gone for numbers

You nearly lost your bet but it turns out I can’t spell, but then I think we knew that already.

Will put my notes on the initial data gather in a separate post.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

Why can't you spell?

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I don't think my brain is wired in a way that works well with spelling. I wouldn't go as far as dyslexia although I appear to have a number of the correlated indicators.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

Do you mind?

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

It occasionally bothers me but there doesn't seem to be anything I can do about it except to remember to triple check anything important.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

I guess that's right. I don't have a clue whether this is learnable. I don't really have a good sense of whether the things I'm rubbish at are learnable either.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

So far it's proven stubborn.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I'm sure some dedicated practise would improve my ability to pick up errors whilst writing or doing a first edit but I doubt it would improve things sufficiently that I'd not have to do a full check, or get someone else to, for really important things.

Speaking of which I have deployed my CV.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

O RLY.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

YES RLY