This is very true.

This is very true.

The final should have been an all girl one between the two of them and Tom simply shouldn't have been there ! If Len hadn't undermarked Rachel for her foxtrot American Smooth, causing the marks to be tied and the BBC to hurriedly put Tom in to ensure that there were 3 people in the final, then Rachel would have deservedly won. She and Vincent were fantastic together and she worked hard to improve every week- nothing wrong with that as far as I can see ! Lisa was a good contestant but Brendan's choreography sometimes let her down - remember the showdance final !

I think it was a shame that Austin went when he did.......left to the public I am positive he would have got to the final. So if the judges had chosen Austin over Lisa we would probably have ended up with a Tom/Austin/Rachel final and that would have been far more difficult to call. I knew Tom was going to win as soon as he made it through the semi final but some of his votes came from Austin fans and it would have been fascinating to see how it would have ended up if he had kept his own votes.

Austin was my compromise candidate last year, for me he had more personality than Rachel and more talent than Tom so that suited me and I would have felt comfortable with it.

Unfortunately Rachel was on a hiding to nothing and I for one have never quite worked out why. She was a great dancer I thought and her Argentine Tango was the most jaw dropping routine for a non-professional to do. I am glad that she was vindicated in such style on the tour.

While there is still unlimited voting I don't think there will ever be an outcome that truly reflects what people are thinking. Certain of the celebs and pros seem to have followers who are willing to vote many times. There are probably a lot of people like myself and most of my friends who don't vote at all for that very reason. I wish they would change the voting and make it so there is a limit to the number of calls from one phone number. The outcome might be very different.

They have changed it some what as in series 5 you could vote all week........last series it was restricted to an hour or so.

However as its all for charity does it really matter (ooohhh naughty ....takes myself to one side and gives myself a slap on the hand couldnt resist)

Tom headed the poll the week Austin went, almost certainly did the same in the SF and there is no evidence that people voted his way only at the last minute in the final, or indeed had time to . He was almost certainly ahead from when voting started and the showdance was used as the show's justification for what would have happened anyway. The obvious reasons for that have been well rehearsed in threads here. What was strange was that the tour audiences watching the same people and dances voted overwhelmingly for Rachel and ignored Tom - which suggests its a case of audiences within audiences .

Agree your merit list - my theory is that a largely female vote will vote for females who are clearly better but otherwise as a group finds fault with the females and votes for any male who ticks the right boxes, is almost as good or has a story.

You're right it doesn't really matter, I just sit back and let the show unfold.

Just think if Austin had stayed in we would probably have been robbed of the dance that has become the bacofoil legend.

Its not only that - which is all true - popularity seems to build and vanish early on for some people leaving few votes for most . That suggests its got very little to do with the personality involved or what they do. We know much of the early voting is anti-judge because we have polls with people telling us that and its the only explanation of why people get votes depending on how low they are on the leaderboard but lose them when they actually do better.

The voting also means that some people will back who they like and some who they think will win. As few people vote for more than one person the other really good people can get zilch. Which is why on some shows and probably SCD too for much of the series you get some people who will end in the final on merit on 20%, the most hopeless on 40% and sometimes the other semi finalists on merit limping in on 2-3%.

Somewhere in there too is the question of who votes when and how are they motivated. The theory used to be that by the end enough people would be voting on merit to counter any biases or anti-judge voting but recent experience is this goes on longer and longer as years pass.

I usually vote for who I think is making the biggest journey

* well somebody had to say it*

First of all, I don't think Lisa was a better dancer than Tom at all and Rachel was only better than Tom at ballroom. Her only interesting latin was her Rumba.

Secondly, Lisa was so unpopular to me because she was so false! Nothing to do with the judges overmarking her but that was annoying too. All of her simpering and gurning got on my nerves.

Rachel was just :yawn: and I'm not a fan of Vincent at all.

Dance will never prevail over talent and I like it that way. Nobody in their right mind should vote for someone they don't like, imo.

I'm happy enough with last years outcome.
Initially, I expected Austin to continue his meteroric improvement at the start and run away with it, but maybe he just burned out because it may not be possible to devote enough time to both your family and the show.
Tom loved to dance and I wished he could have improved more during the show, but he had many good things from the show.
I'd agree that Lisa did benefit from what appeared to me as extra generous marks from the judges, although she did become a very good ballroom dancer. Every fault that could be found with her seemed to be sought out and savoured.
Rachel worked very hard and became a very good dancer. She seemed to be a nice person, but a bit reserved and predictable. Rachel and Vincent put together perhaps the best standard of dances (at least on techique) of any couple ever on the show, so being overwhelmingly popular on the tour was nice recognition of that.

That was the dance side of it, but I think its good that it isn't all about dancing, and people like Goughie can also win.

Mmm... Rachel only better than Tom at Ballroom? Don't you mean Latin? Although I'm not entirely sure about that either. As to the statement "Dance will never prevail over talent" - I'm not sure what you mean by that. Surely talent and dance is the same thing. Talent is nothing to do with whether you like someone or not. It's entirely to do with your dance ability. For me, I love the beauty and the excitement of the dancing. It's why I watch the show, so dance will generally win over popularity every time.

No... Rachel wasn't better than Tom at Latin. Her Salsa. samba and Cha Cha Cha left much to be desired.

Sorry, my last statement was meant to read "Dance talent will never prevail over likeability."

The winner generally tends to be the person who manages to balance the talent/likability scales.

Talented and humourless will fail, as will humourous and talentless eventually (although the later always takes longer than the former!)

If it wasn't a personality based issue, then we would have no It Takes Two, no traing VT's and no appreciation threads a month before the show actually starts.

It also helps if you're a good looking man! Men are supposed to be more superficial than women but I have my doubts. I also tend to be suspicious of the contestants who try hard to cultivate a "story" for themselves. That doesn't make them interesting to me; I'd rather just judge them on their dancing.

Eventually is the operative word here. John Sergeant definitely falls into the humourous and talentless category, and was going on through the competition week after week. Why? I totally didn't understand. For me it made a complete mockery of the competition as decent dancers were beginning to go out instead of him. How far would he have gone before going out? I think he stood a good chance of getting at least to the quarter finals if not further. That means staying in while people like Jodie, Christine and even Austin went out. Doesn't sound fair to me. I like the excitement of seeing who will manage to bring off the great performance. I'm not interested in someone staying in the competition who is obviously incompetent in comparison. Could he have won? We'll never know but I wouldn't rule the out the possibility.

I didn't find John very humourous at all.

I agree except I'd had it wasn't helped by Brenda's complaints she was under-marked which drew attention to the fact she was over-marked. I think she was a bit too desperate to loved by everyone too.

Seeing both Flavia and especially Anton who has a huge public following certainly on the forums go out first last year made me doubt how much pro fandom actually counts for anything in saving the untalented celebs.

As previous finalists have included Christopher Parker and Julian Clarey then John Sargent getting further wouldn't be anything unusual for Strictly. It's what Strictly is actually about (this is from someone who still has her Aled wuz robbed t-shirt )

The Powers-that-Be over in SCD Towers played the Sargent situation all wrong from one point of view. From their point of view they would be weighing up the headlines, the mentions on the 10 o'clock news, the various visits by their emloyees to the Breakfast sofas, the interest in their show against the X-Factor, the increased viewing figures and the upped voting tally against the fact that one person who wouldn't win was staying over another person who wouldn't win anyway.

My personal take is that votes against a couple for overmarking, dance talent etc are made by a small minority of viewers (the same amount probably which post in this forum )

The bigger vote comes from viewers who watch the programme for entertainment and will vote couples on likeability/journey type issues.

IMHO this is why sports women do less well (Denise is probably an exception) as they come across to the Great British Public as a bit too competitive! Likewise Zoe, Emma, Gabby spring to mind as contestants who couldn't win at the end of the day because their public image wasn't liked enough by the majority of viewers.

I've just watched the recent rerun of the last series and it's clear to me that Rachel really should have won. She didn't because the Great British Public liked Tom more.

I love watching Strictly but I don't kid myself that the winner will necessarily be the best dancer.

This sums up just about every series of Strictly!

People like Emma Bunton, Rachel Stevens, Gaby Logan, Zoe Ball, Lisa Snowden (anyone noticing a pattern here?) despite doing well didnt seem to quite have the public on side.

Whereas jokers like JS, Christopher Parker, Dennis Taylor, Diarmud Gavin, Fiona Phillips etc all went far on humour alone.

I think someone like Rachel would never have won despite being an amazing technical dancer - the winner needs a mix of technique and sparkle -and her sparkle was a little less than Toms.

Likeability coupled with determination will serve a contestant well -even if they are lacking in dance talent. Whereas blind focus and determination minus the charm will get you noticed for all the wrong reasons.

I guess it's a matter of perspective - I wouldn't describe Zoe Ball, Emma Bunton or Lisa Snowdon as being particularly humourless or determined, and I certainly wouldn't describe any of Chris Parker, Dennis Taylor or Diarmuid Gavin as "jokers" either. Being crap isn't in and as of itself a joke, and all of those men were spectacularly huffy and moody a lot of of the time. It's a bit like describing Jan Ravens as a "joker".

I just think the public are ill-disposed to vote for women, and well-disposed to vote for men, and then these votes are pulled up and down from their relative starting positions when perceived talent is taken into account - in the case of a man and a woman with equal perceived talent, the man will always outrank the woman in the public vote.

Additionally an iconoclastic male vote, where a man is dragged far beyond his capablities for a prolonged period of time into the upper half of the competition, will occasionally happen. This goes beyond an anti-judge vote, and the man will usually be converted into a semi-ironic "cult of personality".

Sorry to keep on banging my drum about the objectivity and consistency of the comments and marks from the panel.

THEY are responsible for a lot of the voting results which upset them so much. If they actually thought about what they said to the couples (ie learned how to give CONSTRUCTIVE criticism rather than resorting to nasty remarks and personal comments) and gave marks which corresponded with what they said, as well as marking everyone to the same rules, they are far more likely to get the results they want.

Every year we get the comedy partnership which sails through week after week simply because they get subjected to verbal abuse and nastiness from the panel which gets them the sympathy vote - the nastier the comments - the higher the votes are. You would think after 6 years that the message would have sunk in. You don't have to say that everyone is brilliant but there is usually SOMETHING good in each performance to talk about as well as the bad and there is a world of difference to the reactions you get from

"That has to be the worst performance I've ever seen, flat footed/ hands like bananas/ d.u.l.l etc" with no suggestions for improvement which is destructive to

"Well that wasn't the best performance of the evening, however you showed good posture (or whatever), but you need to work on your footwork/ arms/ hands etc" and don't make personal comments.

They also need to stop having their favourites and trying to protect them at the expense of others - again, ignoring mistakes from a "pet" gets the underdog voters dialling like mad for the one who has been "done down" (Classic example of this was Emma Bunton almost falling over in her jive yet still getting high marks including a 9 from Bruno, so they had nowhere to go when Louisa came out and did a far better jive a few minutes later)