World of Dance, By the Numbers – Week 6

Can I just say that I am SO sick and tired of the whining from the Jabbawockeez fans?? Look, I was a fan. I am a fan. But to claim they were cheated out of a win, or it was a “mistake” or that the show is “over” because they lost?? Get real. GROW UP! They are not the only great dancers in the competition. And they just weren’t bringing it – not for me, not for lots of people.  And, as you will see from the numbers below, they were NOT on track to win the show. Not even close. Neither is Ian Eastwood, who I much preferred. But I skip ahead…

Below is a table showing all of the dancers/teams who made it past the qualifiers and their qualifying scores. To recap, the highest scoring dancers from each category pick first who to duel against. Then the next highest and so on.

The first duel is between the Kinjaz and Stroll Groove – once again a top scoring group wusses out and picks someone from the bottom of the leader board. Why didn’t THEY pick the Jabbawockeez, eh? Similar in style, much higher on the leaderboard. Scared?? This is what the Jabba fans fail to see. They were whining about understanding a loss if it was against Kinjaz, but not Ian – well, Kinjaz are the ones who picked.  Anyway, I love the Kinjaz – they are right up there to win the whole show – but I do lose respect for a top scorer who mines the bottom of the leaderboard for an easy win.

And an easy win it was. You already knew they were going to win based on the simple fact that we didn’t even see Stroll Groove in the Qualifiers.

Next, Cabaret Ballroom versus Ballroom. Scores seemed about right, all things considered. While I prefer DNA, I did like Luka and Jenalyn’s routine better this time around. Luka and Jenalyn had last pick and amazingly got DNA? I guess that makes sense. Pasion picked before them and picked King’s United, so…

Now, next we go into a speed round of several routines that we don’t really get to see. I guess this is what you have to do when you only have ten hours of programming against more than 40 acts?? I dunno why they bother showing them at all in that case. If you have several low scoring routines that don’t make it past the duels, just don’t show them and then show the full routines of everyone else, instead of chopping them down. In any case, you can be fairly sure that none of the six acts in the green shading on Table 2 (below) are going to win their category or the show…or make it past The Cuts.

All I have to say about these acts is that I’m disappointed that D’Angelo and Amanda didn’t beat the Sisters – we need a ballroom act besides Luka and Jenalyn going to the next round (although I guess we have Pasion, but they were edited so not long for the show). Perhaps this is why Derek said he was already recruiting ballroom stars for next season. 🙂 They must have made some mistakes to score that low – and they certainly picked a VERY over used Samba song. I swear, that song has been used 50 times on DWTS.

Next up, the last duel. Jabbawockeez had last pick and there were three acts left so they got Ian Eastwood and Rouge. I’m sorry Rouge, you looked good, but the hairography won’t get you far in a competition like this one. They reminded me of a cheerleading squad mainly because the choreo was too simple (agreed with Jen on this) and their formations were very sloppy – no good lines. And DWTS viewers know that Derek is all about a clean formation. Well, clean in general. 🙂  Next up was the Jabbawockeez and I have to be honest, I saw a few things that appeared to be mistakes. :::shrug:::  I’m also a new fan of Ian Eastwood. That doesn’t change the fact that this was a cleaner routine.

Anyway, Ian takes it by ONE point. Not exactly a blow out and can’t really be the fault of one judge over the others. They all scored them low – one of the lowest scores of the duels. You don’t get that low score with only one judge under scoring them. It’s simple math people. And history so far on this show will tell you that the Jabbawockeez have NOT been knocking it out of the park.

So, where does that leave us?

Above are the results of all the duels. What can we see from this? Well, there are several takeaways. They said at the end of the show that there are only six spots available after the next round and there are 15 dancers/teams. BUT, three of these were heavily edited – Pasion, Immabeast and Chapkis Dance Family – so I think it’s very safe that you can count them out for making it to the next round. Not coincidentally, I’m sure, there is one from each category.  Except for Ian Eastwood and the Sisters, they are also the lowest scoring duel winners of everyone left. The fact that the Sisters and Ian are lower scoring as well, probably means they aren’t long for the show either. And this is what I was talking about at the top of the blog – The Jabbawockeez were also on the lower end of the spectrum in terms of scores – you can’t do that when competing at at this level.  Not to mention that their score was decreased by a couple points from the qualifying round.

If you look back up at Table one, you’ll note that I’ve re-shaded it so that everyone eliminated is shaded green. Which means there are five dancers/teams in each category, three of which will be eliminated in the next round.  So who do you think will be eliminated? There’s no sure way to guess except by how the show was edited, and maybe according to how they are doing so far.

In the table above, I’ve taken the remaining teams in each category and their average score from each round. Next to that I’ve put an arrow indicating if their score is increasing or decreasing. I would wager that if your scores are trending in a downward direction, you need to seriously step it up.  I would say this especially applies to Les Twins and the M Sisters – their scores fell by 4.7 and 6 points, respectively. Everyone else who had a decreasing score only lost between 0.3 and 0.6 points. So, is the bloom off the Twins and the Sister’s roses?? We’ll have to wait and see.

Everyone increasing their scores increased them by a fairly modest amount with ONE exception: Keone and Mari, who increased by a nice 6.3 points. And I love them so I would love to see them win. 🙂  Of course, all this could mean nothing because a new round means a new shot at the win.

Looking at each category, their history on this show, and how they were edited, below are my picks for who will make it to the final rounds:

UPPER:

  1. Les Twins
  2. Keone and Mari
  3. Alternate: Fik-Shun

TEAM:

  1. The Kinjaz
  2. SuperCr3w
  3. Alternate: Swing Latino, Ian Eastwood at the outside

JUNIOR:

  1. The Lab
  2. Diana Pombo
  3. Alternate: Eva Igo

So, what are your picks for each round? Who do you love? And who do you think will get to the finals?