I posted this elsewhere, but thought it's interesting enough for a full thread.

Here's all the possible point combinations, given that the judges gave Zoe: 3, Colin: 2, Darren: 1 (and given that in the event of a tie, biggest audience vote swings it).

Audience vote: Darren, Colin, Zoe. This would leave them all on 4 points, with Darren winning. D: 4, C: 4 (second due to lower audience vote), Z:4 (Zoe first out, due to lowest audience vote)

Other combos: AV: Darren, Zoe, Colin. Z: 5, D: 4, C: 3. (Colin out first)

Zoe, Colin, Darren: Z: 6, C: 4, D: 2 (Darren out first)

Zoe, Darren, Colin: Z: 6, D: 3, C: 3 (Colin out first)

Colin, Zoe, Darren: C: 5, Z: 5, D: 2 (Darren out first)

Colin, Darren, Zoe: C: 5, Z:4, D: 3 (Darren out first)

The most interesting thing about this is how irrelevant the judges votes are. In five out of the six possible combinations, the winner is the person top of the audience vote.

Which is how it should be. SCD is first and foremost an entertainment show rather than a sport. The voting system ensures that the most entertaining couple usually wins, but still retains an "expertise" element so that really bad dancers will not win, even if they are highly entertaining. (Cough: Clary)

Oh, true. For all the talk about wanting 'the best dancer to win', the simple fact remains that if that was the point of the series, why allow an audience vote at all.

Am I right in thinking that if Zoe / Ian and Colin / Erin had been awarded the same total marks by the judges, Darren / Lilia could not have won under any circumstances?

Finally people who are speaking my language!!! People who go on saying 'dancing should win out' are mssing the point of the show!!!

They should go and watch a professional dancing competition if that is what they want! (And not watch ITT, which is about getting to know the celebs and pros!)

Nat
xxx

I think so. Let's look.

That would be Z/C: 3, D: 1 at the end of the judging. With the same audience vote as last night...

C: 5, D: 4, Z: 4 (out with lowest).

With Darren still on top, but Zoe second, on audience vote, just swap Zoe and Colin's position. This is at the point where we lose the third place contestant.

The one vaguely interesting thought this makes is what happens next. With the third place person dropping out, how are the marks allocated? Are the third place entrants treated as phantom entries?

What I mean is this - with the third place gone, are the remaining two (in this case Darren and Colin) still standing with an original score of 1 and 3 respectively? Or do the marks allocated change with the numbers left?

Having said that, there is the opposite problem. With the judges votes so irrelevant in the final, you have to ask the question: if the best dancing isn't important, why have the judges at all?

Because they act as a modifier - They can effectively eliminates the worst dancers especially in the early stages of the show when there are more contestants.

Plus of course they can influence viewers votes.

Plus, it adds to the entertainment value of the show.

Dunno...I'm hoping some brainiac has got the answer because it'll bug me otherwise.

This is an interesting senario as this would mean the audience vote would be irrelavent when down to the final two. This would have been the case in any senario where the 2nd most popular (viewer vote) contestent had 2 points more than the most popular from the judges. In this case regardless of viewer vote the judges favourite would win. I know the money is for Children in need but would seem a little unfair to ask people to continue voting.

The other Senario whereby there is only 1 point difference between the final two means the judges score is irrelavent and it is purely down to audience vote.

. . . so perhaps once down to the final 2 it is purely an audience vote

I think it is also the case that the only way for the judges favourite to be voted off is if the public vote points are awarded in exaclty the reverse order to the judges - as happened to Zoe in the final. This is fairly unlikely to happen until the numbers of contestents are vastly reduced.

I am not too sure what you mean? Julian made the final despite never being top with the judges (same as Darren). He was also placed bottom with the judges in the final (as was Darren). Therefore had exactly the same chance of winning as Darren did - IF that was what the public had decided was most entertaining. It is entirely possible (although unlikely) that the worst dancer from the original 12 could win the series.

The only difference this year was that all three finalists were good dancers of a fairly similar standard - so I think most people (even the judges) would agree that any of them would have been worthy winners.

But why does the audience win 5 out of 6 times?

Is it just because they win ties?

Pretty much (though there are only two scenarios where the top score is a tie). It's just the way the maths works.