Beyond all the excitement of the new pairings, I'm almost more excited about the format changes:

- Got rid of the 4 weeks of guy/girl split. That was far too long last year and dragged terribly. Also made it difficult/unfair if one gender group was significantly better than the other.

- A two week split is kept. This is perfect. It gives the viewer a chance to get to know the celebs a bit better without them getting lost in a big group of 16 and lowers the chance of someone with potential going because they flew under the radar in week 1.

- They get to do a ballroom and a latin before they are eliminated. Finally!

- An extra Friday show for two weeks!

- The scoring to be re-jigged so that couples cannot tie on judges' points. No one is ever safe from the dance off now.

The SCD producers get an awful lot of stick but I say well done them - a load very good changes there.

you know what, I hadn't thought about it like that but you're absolutely right, this way things are much fairer to everyone and you're not stuck with the guy/girl split like before.

Hurrah for some sensible production staff at least!

Actually you are right... when you put it like that... good decisions....

I like the split actually... and certainly doesnt appear biased towards anyone in particular...

and those dancing in week two who might be "quieter" or "newer" will probably get the chance of some exposure on ITT before they have to dance... so we can see what they are like.

Yep -much better!

It always irked me that the first celeb to go out had never had the chance to show how good they could be in the other style -they could have been dog awful at Latin but a ballroom king -and we would never have known!

For example, for all we know Quentin Wilson may have performed a beautiful waltz -or Brain Capron could have brought some killer intensity to the paso ( )

In all seriousness, remember how bad Matt Dawsons first dance was? Then he surprised us with a mucg better ballroom.

Yep, Im a much happier cookie!

How have they done thaT?

I agree, they are all good changes, except that I am unsure about the changes to the voting system until I see what they are. No-one was ever safe from the dance-off before - we have seen people top the judges vote and still be in the dance-off before. What should have changed is that ties will not make it more difficult for those at the bottom to escape the dance-off.

One group (8 celebs) will dance Friday and Sat -performing a latin one night and a ballroom the next -simples!

Then. on the Sat, one will be eliminated. The next week, the second group of couples will do the same.

They'll be dancing both Friday and Saturday night (ballroom one night, latin the other) and totally the judges' score before one is eliminated on Saturday.

This is for the first two weeks only.

Sounds great.

By having them dance the ballroom on the Friday and then the laten on the Saturday and the two marks are added up and added to the audience marks. This happens for two weeks.

Yip -the more SCD the better as far as Im concerned!

Theoretically they can be - if two couples tied in the judges' scores it can mean that no matter how the public vote, one couple is automatically safe or one can't be saved (as happen in the semi last year).

I assume they will make changes so that a judges' tie has to be resolved - perhaps by making the judges re-rank couples who are tied in order give everyone an individual mark on the scoreboard (they did this one xmas when 4 couples got 36).

And, thank the Lord, no Sunday programme!
I hated that. So did my OH.

But the Alesha-thing is a serious mistake and NOT a bloody good idea.

No-one is ever safe from the dance-off. In last years semi-final Tom was condemned to the dance-off (until the BBC realised what the situation was), but neither Lisa nor Rachel were safe from it. If the person at the top of the judge's leaderboard comes bottom with the public then it is possible for everyone ranked below them by the judges to overtake them thanks to the public. Ties on the leaderboard actually make it easier for this to happen, because they make more points available to other competitors and give you more possible orders of the public vote which will put the judge's favourite into the dance-off.

Yup agree that this is sstill a bad mistake.

Claire, I hadn't even cottoned on to any of this stuff but blimey, you're right, there are a lot of good things going on there. Thanks for pointing it out. Now I'm even more excited then ever!

Perhaps what BBC means is that in case of a tie, the normalised leaderboard score would be something like this, considering the case like last year's semis:

Couple A and couple B tie top spot, while couple C 'last', then the leaderboard would be Couple A at 2 points, and Couple B at 2 points and couple C one point.

OR

Couple A and Couple B each 3 points, while couple C gets 2 points.

AND NOT like last year:

Couple A and Couple B get 3 points each while Couple C gets only 1 point (so one of the two top couples would be saved from dance-off, or couple C would be DOOMED for a dance-off no matter how the public vote goes for them).