On Strictly Come Dancing 2014 - Week 4

[danieldwilliam]

Unfortunately, Unfortunately Named Tim goes out but he goes down fighting and then delivers perhaps the most gracious and moving valediction in Strictly history. Whoever wins this year Unfortunately Named Tim is my favourite.

I thought he and Hey Judy might enough public backing to get through a few weeks. Sadly, Tim didn't and ended up in the dance off with Mark The Pro Wright. In a dance off with one couple averaging about 18 points and the other couple averaging closer to 27 there was only one way that it will end up. Barring a significant accident or Denise Van Outen’s boob popping out it’s game over for the lower ranked couple.

That said I enjoyed Unfortunately Named Tim’s Paso. I thought he danced with enthusiasm and joy. I thought he and Natalie performed better in the dance off than they had in the heat. I think Mark and Karen didn't dance as well in the dance off as they had in the heat. On effort and improvement Unfortunately Named Tim deserved to go through. On dance ability the right choice was made.

Which is a demonstration of why I think the Strictly Come Dancing electoral college works well. The judges have the final say. They will usually pick the couple with the best long term performance. Eventually popular but not great dancers are going to come up against one of the top ranked dancers and be put out. The finalists are going to be the best dancers in the show.

The result probably wasn’t unexpected for Unfortunately Named Tim but looked like a surprise for Mark Wright. He’d scored okay in the heat. His score of 29 being a Donny Adjusted personal best and ranking 8th . He has a huge Twitter following (who as one of his followers and fans wryly noted in a tweet re-tweeted by Mark seemed to have forgotten to vote for him). More worrying for Mark is the fact that both Hey Jude and Scott Mills in the AfternooOOoon leap-frogged him from bottom and third from bottom on the leader-board through the power of the public vote. As with Simon last week mid-table is not safe.

How did the odds move?

Reality Hammond has moved out considerably. Looks like a reaction to her actual dancing. Big movement in for Ohh Sunetra, again it looks like it reflects her dancing ability.

Mark the Pro has moved out. This looks like a reaction to him being poorly supported (this week) by the public. The fact that the market has movement out suggests that Mark’s poor support was news to the bookies. This in turn implies that either the bookies don’t have sight of the results of the public vote or that the public vote for Mark has shifted significantly and surprisingly this week.

This in itself is not conclusive evidence that my Efficient Market Hypothesis based theory that the bookies are getting intelligence on the public vote is wrong but it does look like the evidence might be there to be gathered.

Twitter Followers

Bit of a blow to the hypothesis that Twitter followers are indicative of popularity at large and the ability to Get Out The Vote as the top ranked Twitterer Mark Wright ends up in the bottom two. It may be that the theory is cobblers.

On the other hand Twitter followers probably is indicative of popularity & reach. However, in widely contested elections votes are diluted & small swings & tactical voting can have a surprising effect. Scott Mills, with his 1.2 million followers, on the other hand avoided the dance off.

Looking at the movement in Twitter followers this week’s biggest change looks like That’s Your Lott and The Flack Jacket with 10,000 each. This is probably more to do with the way twitter profiles round twitter followers once you have millions. Highest percentage move is Unfortunately Named Tim at 22.4% with Dangerous Steve second on 18.6%.

Trent Whiddon picket up the biggest percentage movement of the pro-dancers up 14.6% from 9.4k to 10.8k. Ola The Baby Faced Assassin has the biggest absolute movement of 3,000. She’s just a whisker away from breaking the 200k followers barrier.

So far my original predictions don’t look that far out apart from Jake Can’t See the Wood. Perhaps a lesson in the irony of moniker selection there.

Comments

[alitheapipkin.livejournal.com]

Tim's leaving speech was lovely, I had a little tear in my eye by the end and was then in absolute hysterics at his 'last dance'!

I think Mark is probably in trouble both because his main fans probably aren't Strictly fans and because I suspect a lot of people hate Karen. Which is a shame because I think she dropped the stupid attitude she brought over from the US show really quickly and is actually a pretty nice person. Then again, maybe some people hate her because she's engaged to Kevin...

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I also was moved by Tim's speech. To the point where I tweeted him to say so.

I am uncertain how much support the pro-dancers carry. Some weeks I think enough to make a difference. Other weeks I think not very much.

How could Mark achieve some cross over between his fan bases?

[alitheapipkin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think the pro-dancers contribution to the voting is quite situation dependent but combined with Mark's seeming general lack of support, I suspect having Karen as his partner may continue to make finishing mid-to-low table with the judges a dangerous position for him.

I have no idea on that front, Kev reckons they are all watching the X Factor instead...

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

More later but re pro dancer support: I don't see how Judy still avoiding a dance-off can reflect anything other than Anton's support. This is not unequivocal as he was out second with Jerry Hall, but stayed a lot longer than anyone could possibly have expected with Nancy dell'Olio. Can't say re Fiona.

[alitheapipkin.livejournal.com]

Except there was a general feeling the first week up here that Judy would not get votes due to general anti-Scottish feeling post-referendum so I think a lot of folks north of the border are voting for her solely as the only Scot in the competition.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I certainly remember talk of her being penalised for the referendum and for Andy's late public conversion to Yes.

I wonder if what is going on is that she's picking up the Scottish vote, a small number of people who are voting for her because she the only Scot. If so, this should carry her through a few weeks until the votes start clumping up as folk get eliminated.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

At least one thing that happened is that Mark was notably overmarked. Do you think viewers respond to perceived injustice? (in either direction.)

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I think they probably do, a little, if they notice it but I'm not sure how many of the voting public are watching Karen Hardy midweek.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

I don't understand the relevance of that.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

Karen Hardy and her choreography corner explains what the judges are (supposed) to be looking for.

If X has been over-marked to mean anything it ought to relate, at least in part, to a view that the dance was technically less good than the technical marks.

To understand what the technical mark ought to be one would have to refer to e.g. Karen Hardy.

I'm not sure many people do.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

I think that people (1) hold their own internal view of how dances should be scored, and (2) are able to compare two dances and decide which is the better. So they will form a view on who is overrated or undermarked regardless of Karen Hardy. We see this happening on Twitter all the time.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

Yes but there is a difference between “my marking criteria are different from the judges” and “the judges have incorrectly applied the standard judging critieria”.

E.g. “illegal” lifts.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

Don't disagree but doubt it is relevant to voting patterns. Are we talking at cross-purposes?

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I think we might be.

For the record when I hear someone use the phrases under or over marked I interpret it as " The judges have mis-applied the standard criteria" rather than "I enjoyed that more or less than the judges did."

I think people probably react more to the second sense of under or over marked than to the first.

I don't think it's a particularly strong effect e.g. no right thinking person could express the view without fear of ridicule that Scott Mills is being routinely under-marked and yet, each week, there he is.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

I have just found out that Charles my office crush is great friends with Tim Wonnacott.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

Excellent.

Tim was on It Takes Two last week being very gentlemanly and informed and open.

I think he'd make a good correspondent for the peripheral shows.