Stories

#1

Which DWTS dance styles score highest?

Freestyle leads absolute means (9.62); cha-cha-cha lowest among volume styles (7.04); paso (8.10) beats foxtrot (7.54).

#2

Which pros win the Mirrorball — and who lifts their celebrity?

Derek Hough leads with 6 Mirrorball wins and +1.34 peer lift; Julianne Hough has the highest win rate among pros with 3+ seasons.

#3 · data-quality note

Season 35 power rankings (weekly) — provisional

Provisional judge ranking through week 8; S35 name scrape is garbled — repair cast map before publishing as power rankings.

#4

Age vs average score

Age vs mean score r=-0.53 across 367 celeb-seasons; 16–25 avg 8.30 vs 56+ at 6.09.

#5

Athletes vs actors vs reality stars

Actors slightly outscore athletes on judges, but athletes convert Mirrorballs at a higher rate (11.8%).

#6

Judge harshness rankings

Derek Hough sternest panel mean (7.817); Julianne Hough most generous (8.110); guests avg 8.614.

#7

Perfect-score timeline & scoring inflation across 35 seasons

S1 mean 7.514 with 2 perfects → S19 mean 8.187 with 17 perfects; 353 perfect dances all-time.

#8

Songs that soar vs songs that struggle

Top repeat song ~9.78/10; lowest qualifying song 5.00; 157 songs with n≥3.

#9

Comeback couples: biggest early-to-late jumps

Biggest surge: Iman Shumpert S30 Δ +3.94 (early 5.75 → late 9.69); 271 long-running arcs.

#10

Guest judge inflation

Guests avg 8.614 vs panel 7.96 on non-guest nights (263 guest-tagged dances).

#11

Disney Night & theme-night boosts

Finals +0.73 vs own season mean; Disney +0.12; Latin Night -0.42; premieres -1.02.

#12

Double-elim survival odds (judges’ bottom third)

On double-elim weeks, 61.2% of exits were already in the judges’ bottom third (67 exits / 33 weeks).

#13

Mirrorball predictors: does leading on judges win?

Judges’ leader after week 5 wins 53% of seasons — weak but best of the week-3/5/7 checkpoints.

#14

Partner swaps and score deltas

Non-primary pro dances run -0.166 vs primary across 51 multi-pro celeb-seasons.

#15

Home-state heat map

California (62) and New York (44) lead 340 celeb-seasons with state data.

#16

Longest perfect-score streaks

Longest streak: Jennifer Grey/Derek Hough S11 with 6 straight perfects; Derek Hough has 42 perfects.

#17

Most improved week-over-week

Largest WoW jump: Skai Jackson S29 week 4 (+3.333).

#18

Style specialists: who owns the salsa, cha-cha, and paso?

Derek Hough leads residuals on Salsa (+1.575); Derek Hough leads paso (+0.903).

#19 · judges-only proxy

Vote vs judges: historic upsets (proxy only)

36 top-half-on-judges eliminations as a vote-tension proxy; no actual vote totals in dataset.

#20

All-time Mount Rushmore of pros — data edition

Composite Rushmore: Derek Hough, Valentin Chmerkovskiy, Mark Ballas, Cheryl Burke.