My Deep Dive into DWTS Scoring
Alright, let’s talk about this whole dwts scoring thing. I got kinda obsessed with it for a bit, you know? Watching the show, week after week, and sometimes the scores just felt… off. Like, how did that dance get that score? So, I decided I’d try and figure it out myself, just see if there was some logic I was missing.
First thing I did was just pay way closer attention. Not just watching the dances, but really listening to the judges’ comments before they held up those paddles. I started jotting things down. Like, okay, Carrie Ann always looks for lifts, Len (when he was there, miss that guy) was all about proper technique, Bruno’s just pure energy, and Derek seems to focus on the whole performance package.
Getting Hands-On
Then I thought, maybe I need some actual data. I didn’t go crazy downloading databases or anything fancy. Nah, just grabbed a notebook, then switched to a simple spreadsheet. For a couple of seasons, I started tracking:
- Which couple danced
- What style they did
- What each judge gave them
- A few keywords from the judges’ critiques
Man, that took some time. Rewinding bits of the show, typing stuff in. It wasn’t exactly rocket science, just tedious work putting it all together. I was hoping some super obvious pattern would just jump out at me.
Hitting the Wall (Sort Of)
So, did I crack the code? Well, yes and no. I definitely saw some patterns. You could see certain styles consistently scored higher or lower. You could sometimes predict within a point or two what a judge might give based on their usual preferences and what they said.
But here’s the thing I really bumped up against: the fuzziness. Sometimes a judge would rave about a dance and then give it an 8. Other times they’d nitpick quite a bit and still pull out a 9. And don’t even get me started on how the audience vote plays into who stays and who goes – that’s a whole other layer that makes just looking at the judges’ scores only part of the picture.
I tried grouping dances by “technical difficulty” based on comments, or “emotional connection,” stuff like that. It helped a little, but honestly, a lot of it just felt subjective. One judge’s “passion” is another’s “lack of control,” you know?
What I Ended Up With
In the end, my little project didn’t give me a magic formula. I didn’t build some predictor app or anything. What I got was a better appreciation for how tricky judging something artistic like dance really is. It’s not just ticking boxes.
I confirmed some of my suspicions – yeah, sometimes the scores feel a bit emotional or tied to a storyline. But I also saw that mostly, the judges are looking for specific things, even if they weigh them differently. It was kinda fun just digging into it, trying to make sense of it all from my couch. Stopped me yelling at the TV quite as much, maybe.
