This Week's Shocking DWTS Elimination Was a Product of the Daughtry Effect

In season five of American Idol, back when most of America still tuned in, a guy named Chris Daughtry, who would go on to become the fourth or fifth most successful contestant in the show’s history, got bounced before the finale. He finished fourth, behind eventual winner Taylor Hicks and runner-up Katharine McPhee, despite being the near-consensus pick to win the whole thing. It was jaw-dropping. It was head-scratching. It made no sense. Everyone loved Chris Daughtry. The voters dumped him anyway.

The same thing happened this week on Dancing with the Stars, when Jenna Dewan got the boot. She was easily the second-best dancer in the competition behind Harry Shum Jr. and an obvious lock for the finals. Like Shum, she came in with real dance experience, and it showed. Week after week, she landed near the top of the leaderboard, and this week was no different: She finished well ahead of the couples at the bottom. But Dancing with the Stars weighs the fan vote equally with the judges’ scores, which means fans really didn’t show up for her. The reason is the same one that sank Chris Daughtry: complacency voting.

This season has a handful of underdogs, contestants who can’t match the frontrunners’ technique but who have banked a ton of goodwill with viewers. Connor Wood, Maura Higgins, and Tatyana Ali aren’t in Jenna Dewan’s league, and that’s the point. They’re underdogs. Fans rush to save them and overlook Dewan, not because they dislike her, but because they assume she’s safe. Voters don’t reward the best dancer; they rescue the one they’re afraid of losing. Nobody feared for Jenna Dewan, so Jenna Dewan got axed.

That’s the likeliest explanation. Her partner, Val Chmerkovskiy, may have cost her a few votes. He was suspended for a week earlier this season over a bad joke about going “Fresh Prince” on one of the judges, and that probably soured some viewers on the team. It wouldn’t have sunk her on its own, though. Dewan went home because of complacency voting. Because of the Daughtry effect. Because nobody wanted to watch Alfonso Ribeiro’s “baby sister” from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air get sent packing, even though Tatyana Ali was clearly the weaker dancer.