Dance off!

This is a bit of a long story, so bear with me. I will get to my observation and my point, I promise!

Long-term followers of this blog will remember that one of my rants a few months back was on Strictly Come Dancing, which is probably my most favourite TV show on at the moment. If you haven't read it, have a look at the archive: it's the entry for 16 November.

Well, shortly after I wrote that blog, John Sergeant decided he was no longer having fun marching around on the dancefloor, and he resigned. As a result, the entire United Kingdom was in an uproar. After all, a lot of people had spent money (or maybe a few people had spent a lot of money) on telephone votes to keep him in, and they had now paid for nothing, causing some people to demand their money back.

Luckily, John's early demise did not upset the show too much: originally, three contestants would have gotten to the final, and now only two would get that far. Until last weekend, that is. Saturday saw the semi-final, and only three couples were left: Rachel and Vincent, Lisa and Brandon, and Tom and Camilla. Rachel and Lisa each had fantastic dances, while Tom had an off-night, and this showed in the judges' scores: Tom was last on the leader board. But here's the hang-up: Lisa and Rachel received equal points. And this is what the current Strictly controversy is all about.

You see, the ranking on the leaderboard after the judges have given their scores, is converted into points. The viewers then vote for their favourites, and these are converted into points as well. The viewers and the judges therefore have an equal input into the outcome of the show. The two couples with the lowest combined score then have a dance-off, and the judges get to save the pair who performed best in this dance-off only.

The problem is that someone at the BBC found out that, because there were only three couples left and (or so they say) both Lisa and Rachel have equal judge-points, the public would not be able to save him from the dance-off.

Let's assume (partly because she's my favourite, but it really does not matter) that Rachel is a bigger favourite with the viewers than Lisa is, but that Tom gets the largest number of phone votes.

Lisa, who has received 3 points from the jury, will then get only 1 point from the viewers, totalling 4 points.
Tom, who has received 1 point from the jury, will get 3 points from the viewers, totalling 4 points.
Rachel, who has received 3 points from the jury, will get 2 points from the viewers, totalling 5 points.

In other words, Lisa would be dancing off against Tom, even though he has received the most telephone votes. And because someone at the BBC has decided that that was not fair, they froze the votes and let all three couples go through to the final. The votes that had already been casted would roll over to next week, but it has still resulted in a big row, people asking for their money back, a complete review of the voting system, inquiries and inquests, and what have you.

Now I have a few observations about this. First of all, why should Tom not go to the dance-off? He had an awful night, and his dances were way worse than those of either of the girls. He deserved to be at risk.

Besides, both Lisa and Rachel (but not Tom!) have been in dance-offs before and survived. That is what they are for, so that the judges can save a couple. The BBC is now immunising him from elimination. And that seems blatantly unfair to me.

Also, Tom could never have been saved from the dance-off, even if the judges hadn't inadvertently given both Lisa and Rachel the same score. Let's assume again that Rachel had the higher score, but from the jury this time, and that Tom was still the phone-in favourite. That would have resulted in two possible scenario's:

Scenario A
Rachel has 3 points from the judges and gets 2 from the viewers, totalling 5 points.
Lisa has 2 points from the judges and gets 1 from the viewers, totalling 3 points.
Tom has 1 point from the judges and gets 3 from the viewers, totalling 4 points.
Result: Tom and Lisa have a dance-off.

Scenario B
Rachel has 3 points from the judges and gets 1 from the viewers, totalling 4 points
Lisa has 2 points from the judges and gets 2 from the viewers, totalling 4 points
Tom has 1 point from the judges and gets 3 from the viewers, totalling 4 points.
Result: we have a 3-way tie.

The question is what would happen if scenario B took place. Either the BBC would weigh the judges input heavier, which means Tom is still in the dance-off and which disrespects the viewers vote, or the person with the highest number of votes goes through, which would mean they might as well dispense with the judges. And this is only if Tom is indeed the favourite of the viewers, which is by no means certain.

It seems to me that it is scenario B that the BBC need to revise their voting system for. But as this script is completely hypothetical, Lisa and Rachel having received the same number of points, the BBC has frozen the votes for no good reason at all. Somehow, Tom is being protected from elimination. And if there's going to be any research into the scoring of Strictly Come Dancing, that should be the topic.