2024 Week Two: Deep Dive
Week Two has been and gone and what a show it was, although I was quite baffled when the celebs started to appear to a piece of music that wasn't the Strictly tune. Even more so was the fact that the producers chose "Shut up and dance with me" as the track to use, given the conclusion of the recent troubles the show has had.
Onto the dancing now, and after seeing seven "eight" paddles last week it was time to see some nine's, but only three of them. Our highest score so far for this season is the 35 points for Tasha and Aljaz, and their Viennese Waltz. The only recent dance to score higher than 35 in Week Two, was the 36 for Layton and Nikita in their 2023 Quickstep, and as an interesting aside, there were almost two scoreboards in one this week with a huge gap of five points between JB Gill & Amy and Pete & Jowita.
The Samba is the third most popular dance, but also the fourth-lowest for scores.
More Samba stats
Craig and Anton scored Montell & Johannes an 8, higher than Motsi and Shirley's 7!
"I'm not going to talk to you about technique, because there wasn't any"
Craig, in what seems like the first time for a long time, scored a dance higher than both Motsi and Shirley - this being Montell & Johannes's, Samba. Craig and Anton gave it an 8, whilst Motsi and Shirley offered up a 7 apiece. Which goes against the overall indication of average scores for Week 2, with Craig and Anton scoring dances lower on average, year on year, with a 5.47 and 6.80 respectively (versus 5.6 and 6.87 last year). Both Motsi and Shirley were up year on year, from 6.4 and 6, to 6.47 and 6.4. Does this mean Craig and Anton have a soft spot for Montell & Johannes and are scoring higher, or are Motsi and Shirley giving them lowering scores?
Add in the fact that the Samba is the fourth lowest scored dance in the entire series (average of 28.44 over the past four years) - and as a side note, the Samba is the third most popular dance over the past four years, the most popular being the Cha Cha, the least popular being the Argentine Tango - which we don't normally see until Week Four.
Onto the elimination, and the judges were right, as they're directed every week to score the dance-off on that dance and that dance alone. However, it does break the cycle of the past few years where the pairing that were bottom of the leaderboard for Week Two were the one's to go home. We do have to remember though, that staying out of the dance off relies an awful lot on public votes and sportspeople do sometimes find it more difficult to pull in the fanbase when it comes to voting.
Judges highlight of the week for me: Anton's, "I'm not going to talk to you about technique, because there wasn't any"!
Onto Movie Week now, and soon we'll be looking ahead at what we can expect from Week Three... maybe the first sight of a ten paddle? (It's been seen seven times in Week 3 since 2021 - it just never makes an appearance before that!)
Week Two Averages
| Judge |  |
 |
 |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 5.53 | 6.53 | 6.27 | 6.33 |
| 2022 | 5.67 | 7.13 | 6.60 | 7.13 |
| 2023 | 5.60 | 6.40 | 6.00 | 6.87 |
| 2024 | 5.47 | 6.47 | 6.40 | 6.80 |
| Year | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Average score | 24.67 | 26.53 | 24.87 | 25.13 |
Our Estimates
Every week we estimate the judges scores in our look ahead, here's how we did. (The difference is how far away our estimate way from their actual average)
| Judge | |
|
|
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Our estimate | 5.40 | 6.20 | 5.80 | 6.20 |
| Actuals | 5.47 | 6.47 | 6.40 | 6.80 |
| Difference | 0.07 | 0.27 | 0.60 | 0.60 |
