I wasn't sure where to post this, but as it's really talking about SCD I thought it should go here. Apologies if this has already been mentioned

Tonight I watched the Dancing with the Stars UK premiere on Watch where the American series had a Danxce Off for the first time. However it had been tweaked from SCD's version. Instead.
[LIST][*]The Dance Off Couples danced again[*]The Judges scored the dances as they would do in the main show[*]This score was combined with the Judge's vote from the main show and the viewer vote[*]The couple with the lowest combined points (judges vote main show + judges vote dance off + viewer's vote) was eliminated[/LIST]
Could this be the new look to the Dance off for the next Strictly Come Dancing, eliminating the Vote Off? I can't see how it helps the two major issues from the last series though: namely the John Sargeant Affair and the Semi Final mess up.

What does everyone else think?

Definitely not. That just gives us even less chance of getting rid of someone like John. if someone is good enough to stay, the judges will generally save them by our system. So there are no positives unless it's an EXTREMELY close call, and many negatives.

I agree. I think we'll see this happen in Dancing with the Stars as well - with weaker dancers being saved by the viewers vote.

I think the BBC'll be considering a change to the Dance Off Format after the issues it caused this year in both the popularity of it combined with it leading to the Semi-Final problems. It could be DWTS is being used as a guinea pig to see how this method works...maybe other versions created by the BBC will have different formats to try and perfect it?

Actually I think that's incorrect. It works like this:
[LIST][*]The original Judges scores are discarded[*]The two Dance Off Couples dance again[*]The Judges score the Dance Off dances [*]the couple with the lowest combined points (judges vote dance off + viewers vote from main show) are eliminated.[/LIST]
The only thing that could happen is that whoever is at the bottom of the viewer vote could be saved by the Dance Off judges vote if they vote the bottom couple in the viewers vote higher than the other couple.

So effectively they have the same power as in SCD, they have just gone about it in a different way. They are asked to produce actual scores instead of just saying the name of the person they want to save.

The explanation of how it works starts at 6.56 on this clip.

Belinda & Jonathan Dance Off (from 6.56) plus explanation of the scoring

Force Ten I need to get this round my head.......could you do a scenario for us......because at the moment I cant see how anyone other than the most poplular with the public will go through so it all seems slightly pointless.........I need to see some numbers to sort it out.

I thought the dwts way was better than Strictly. At least the judges don't actually have to NAME someone to save, and the lowest marks overall (out of the 2) will still go.

I don't buy any version of the dance-off I'm afraid and think that the whole idea should be dropped...

I agree. The bottom of judges/viewers combined votes should go each week, or, at the very least, from the quarters on. It will mean public favourites like JS will last longer than their ability deserves but better that than such blatant manipulation of the system by the judges to keep in unpopular contestants in the latter stages of the competition.

Keep the dance off until the two dances on the night per couple stage- when it gets to that stage of two dances per couple it is back to 50% judges and then the viewers have their say- and the lowest combined couple vote goes.

That cuts out the tactical let's concentrate on doing the perfect waltz etc- like Brendan did last year

So if they score the lowest placed public vote contestant above the highest placed public vote contestant, what happens? That's effectively a tie. Wouldn't the public vote then count?

I thought they introduced a dance off to try and prevent good dancers being voted off too early.The judges would save the best dancer of the two.

On DWT it looks like that has gone (i cant watch it so i might have it wrong) because i cant see how anyone other than the viewers favourite could go through as i assume in a tie the viewer vote would have more weight.

Some viewers would like it (more popular person stays in) but i cant see Arlene or Craig liking this. For an example at one point we had a Christine/Rachel dance off. Rachel got higher marks but Christine seemed more popular. so if she got more viewer votes they would have tied. If the public votes mean more Christine would have been saved and Rachel sent home. I cant see the judges (and some of the public) liking this

Thats what I dont understand but I am assuming that its the actual score from the first public vote for instance.....if Cherie and Lisa are in the dance off....their judges scores are wiped.......and for example Cherie had 5 points from the public and Lisa had 2 points from the public then they dance again Lisa get a higher judges score and gets 2 points so ends with 4 points Cherie had 1 point from the judges and ends with 6 points and goes through........but I would have thought that more often than not the most popular with the public would go through so what is the point in having the dance off in these circumstances.......???

The final scoring system on DWTS is different from SCD
Instead of giving points each couple is awarded a percentage.
Here's a full explanation from the ABC site

It seems pointlessly complicated to me...Under the old system a good dancer occasionally went out earlier than might have been expected. Since the dance-off was introduced the same thing has happened. Why bother with it?

LOL it is a bit of a handful
I think compared to the points system it gives the audience more power but tbh, because I can't vote, I've never bothered to work it out

I rather like messing around with my 1 2s and 3s etc during scd this system would rather baffle me I think but I am up to the challenge !!!!

Yeah- but what I didn't like was the judges sacrificing Austin to get Lisa through(wrongly saved) just to increase Rachel's chances of winning-as we all know they did their level best to get rid of Tom in the semis

The judges should not have that much control when we get to the two dances per couple stage. For one thing most of the couples left tend to deserve to be there

I don't believe the judges "sacrificed" Austin. I'm not a Lisa fan, and O.K. so her jive in the quarter final wasn't that great, but her waltz in the dance off was far superior to Austin's salsa. As for Tom, his rumba was prettty rubbish and he was lucky not to be in the dance off himself.

As for the semi's and the judges "doing their level best to get rid of Tom", I think that Camilla and Tom nearly did that for themselves with their jive, a bad choice of dance not performed that well.

But the constant overmarking of Lisa was crazy- she wan't as good as the judges bigged her up as

Agree with you on that one, footygirl

The judges overmarked Lisa for two reasons

1. They were so desperate for Rachel to win- but they knew she didn't stand a chance in a public vote against Tom or Austin

So they had to lose one of the boys in the quarter finals. Hence they grossly overmarked Lisa in the waltz- it was only worth 35 not the 39 she got. And the jive was dreadful, glued to the floor- it wasn't even as good as Jodie's- and she got 30
So really Lisa didn't deserve the marks she got- but it was enough to get her in front of Austin

This meant Austin and Lisa were in the dance off- and of course the judges went with their bias

Austin out of the way- they overmarked her again in the semi finals. They knew if they could get rid of Tom then Rachel would beat Lisa in the final- because the only person less popular than Rachel was Lisa lol

I liked the DWTS version better too as it required the judges each to score the dance off performance rather than make it a 50/50 choice for each judges.

I agree the calculation looks a bit much, but does it really matter? We won't have to do it will we?

And I doubt very much that the dance off will be scrappped.

Getting fed up of the conspiracy theories now, SCD finished 3 months ago, after all, so I will wish you good night.

I'm not entering to that discussion either, but I would point out that if we did use the DWTS scoring system on SCD the semi-final voting problem would never had arisen.

BTW on DWTS we only see the leader board showing the judges' scores. Nothing else about the scores is discussed. All that happens next is that on the result show we are told who is through to the next round after the judges' scores have been combined with the public votes (in no particular order just like on SCD) until you get down the the bottom two who will dance off. The public still has a say though as the new judges' scores are again combined with the public vote.

By calculating a share rather than a finishing place you are getting a much more accurate result imho and that has got to more fair too.