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

[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.