Now don't go riling footygirl. To be honest I would like to see an overall improvement in the male celebrities. Let's give the male professionals a bit more of a test, that will make the training footage a bit more interesting (excusing Anton of course he's been tested more than enough)

Poor Poor Anton How he's agreed 2 stay for the last 6 series after getting sum awful dance partners is beyond me. This year he best get a decent celebrity it's long overdue

Yup and I think he'll be naked in a minute!

Naked Barrowman I'll have to inform my Gran, she loves him haa

Lol....I hope I'm not riling anybody. I just saw all the other female pro's names getting bandied about for Joe Calzaghe and decided to throw Flavia into the mix for him as well.
I do agree that most if not all of the female pro's deserve someone with a decent chance this year though, and let the male pro's suffer for a change.

yes he was naked

True, this is why I don't think Erin and Joe is a very fair match. If you look at the last two years:

Erin: Austin and Willie- one duffer, but one exceptionally good dancer. And made it to the quarters

Karen: Gary and Brian- no brainer, Karen deserves better

Ola: Andrew and Kenny- deserves better, although Kenny did get to the quarters, and Andrew to week seven, so she's still had a reasonable time of it compared to Karen, and neither were as bad as Gary, Brian or John.

Kristina: another no brainer there!

Lilia: Don and Dom- not quite as bad as Karen, but one rhythmless twit and one older, portly gent, both knocked out in week 5- deserves better this year

Flavia: Matt and Gary- because of the rubbish state of male celebs in the last year or two Flavia actually hasn't had as bad a deal as you might think, getting to the final of SCD5. Obviously Gary does bring that down somewhat, but she's still had a better deal that say Karen. However she is still ahead of Erin in the queue as Erin's best partner is more recent than Flavia's.

So if it depended on fairness alone (which it doesn't), I'd be allocating good celebs to Karen, Kristina, Lilia, Ola, Flavia then Erin.

Lucky for Erin she automatically gets a taller celeb so if the tall males are good, that's her sorted! However I would pair Joe with Karen (and I don't even like Karen, so that's not favouritism talking!). On favourites alone I would obviously pair him with Lilia

Just to add my argument in favour of Lilia, she is one of the strongest female choreographers, so the BBC would do well to pair a strong male celeb with her. I don't see it happening though sadly!

^^^ thought I should add in fairness that the picture does change if you add in earlier series, in favour of Lilia and Karen, and away from Flavia and Ola. I didn't purposely cut it off there though, it's just because I do think the further back you go the less relevant it is to now. Whereas SCD5 should have a bit of weight because in SCD6 everyone except Erin had a rubbish celeb!

OK let's look at them from series 1

Erin, Martin, Julian, Colin, Peter, Willie and Austin
Lilia, Aled, Darren, Matt, Dom and Don
Karen, Bill, Mark, Brian and Gary
Ola, Spoony, Kenny and Andrew
Flavia, Jimmy, Matt and Phil
Kristina, John

So on that Karen should get a youngish decent partner as will Kristina and perhaps Lilia

Erin will get a tall guy

Flavia and Ola may well get an average ability one

But who are the two new lady pros

Perhaps the judges 'favoured' the girls over Austin because they were better dancers? Austin started strong, but stayed there - he never improved. He may have done better with one of the other pros - we'll never know, will we?

No matter how good a celeb Anton might get, they will never do any good with the Latin, simply because Anton himself can't dance it, let alone teach it! Sorry, but that's how it is.

But Austin was better than Lisa- and he was a showman as well - Rachel was a tad boring to watch- she really struggled to give that spontinaeity which is just as important as being technically good

He wasn't too bad at latin- his latin with Lesley was OK

Anton still deserves the chance to get a decent partner, they haven't even given him the option to see how he would deal with a younger partner. Although Anton excels in ballroom and is latin is weaker, other pro's are weaker in ballroom and have been given good partners so Anton deserves the same

Totally agree- that is why it is time to give Brendan a weak celebrity- so what if he is eliminated early

All the female pro's except Kristina, have took part in the last three series, so its probably fairer to judge from Series 4....and based on that, I would say Flavia is due a better partner than either Lilia or Karen. Both have been finalists, but Lilia has reached week 5 the other two years, whereas Flavia hasn't got past week 1, and although Karen hasnt done too good the last couple of years, she won Series 4. So I would put both Flavia and Ola a wee bit nearer the front of the queue than either Lilia or Karen.

Flavia got to the final with Matt Di Angelo two years ago

I know she did, and Lilia and Karen got to the final the year before with Karen winning, so out of the three years, Flavia is still due a better partner than either Karen or Lilia.

Dilly - what about the male pros- who should get the best celebs- and who do you think will get the best ones and why

It's so much more difficult to judge the women pro's coz they have all had some good and others not so good. Although in series 6 only Camilla and Erin had good partners thats why previous years will prob have to count in this year's decision.
For instance Karen and Lilia have had not so good partners the last 2 years but then, Karen won with Mark and Lilia came second with Matt, Lilia has also won with Darren.

Flavia has had 2 bad partners but did get to the final with Matt D.A.

Ola has had 3 partners which haven't been the best but were def not the worst. She has stayed in competition towards the middle, with Kenny getting to quarter finals.

Erin although had a good partner in Austin she had Willie the year before and Peter the year b4 that. Plus many may say she deserves a good partner as she was robbed with Austin.

Camilla had all good partners apart from David Dickinson in like series 1 so I bet she's thankful she's gone beacuse it may have been her turn 4 a duffer.

Yes, what I was trying to say though (and I swear I'm not just saying this because I want Lilia to get a decent partner) is that the further back you go, the less relevant it is. I only really included series five for variety, because last year everyone except Erin had a bad partner! But that is less relevant than series six, and series four is less relevant still. A good proportion of the current viewers won't even have watched the older series anyway.

e.g Karen: final, week one, week three
Flavia: week one (effectively), final, week one

Karen has been in marginally more of the series than Flavia, but it was three years ago that she had a good partner, whereas only two years for Flavia. To me that is more significant than the fact that Karen stayed in two weeks more. You might make more of a case for Lilia being behind Flavia with (final, week five, week five) but I still think it's debatable either way. It's not that I think Flavia deserves a dud because of course she doesn't- most of the female pros deserve really good partners this year. But I feel a bit sorrier for Lilia who only competed in the first few weeks of the last two series, and had a finalist three years ago, than for Flavia who competed one week last year but the whole series the year before, despite what happened the year before that. There isn't a way to be objective about who deserves better, because it all depends on the weight you put on each previous series.

Of course a very big part of the problem is that the male celebs have on the whole been so weak the last two years that a lot of the female pros are due a break.
It's a tricky business, trying to work out fairness, and in any case it's not what the producers do! It will be on height, location etc. (and, I suspect, there may be an element of not wanting to put any one pro in too strong a position which they would be if they continually got a lot of exposure).

I'm slightly subjective on Ola, but my feeling is that her choreo and ballroom are comparatively weak, so why waste a good celeb on her?

The one argument I do not agree with is that Erin deserves a great partner this year because she missed out on the semis last year. As the only remaining female pro who had a decent partner last year, it's someone else's turn this year.
(Also I do feel it wasn't just the judges that decided her fate- most people I think felt let down by her AS choreography for Austin. A stronger dance might have kept him in)

I would say Anton to get the best, but not too sure for the other males. Matthew and Vincent would probably be in line for the worst given that they both have had the best of the females between them the last three years.

I agree with you Dilly, Anton should get a decent partner but prob wont lol.
Matthew, Vincent and Brendan are the 3 I think may get weaker partners.
I think Brian will get a good partner and maybe Darren, James or Ian will aswell

I wouldn't give Anton a decent partner any more than I would Ola, it's a waste

I dont think ability, and whether a certain pro has had a good partner or a dud the previous year comes into it either. I think its as you say all down to height and location.

I dont see any point though in only going back the last two years. Its only by taking it back the three years that we get a truer picture of how the celebs have been allocated. If your saying its irrelevant going back three years, then to keep it more relevant, only the last series should be included....in which case Flavia would still top the list to get the best.