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!

[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.

[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.

[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.