Has it started already?

I ask cuz I thought Ali's Salsa was maybe not as good as anticipated but was for me the best of the night closely followed by Jade and Ian. The Golden couple ie Ricky W and Natalie Lowe (or as my daughter calls her 'That boring Australian girl' ) were wildy over marked considering the judges were quite critical of their dance. They did the same section three times and it seems to be alot of basic with Natalie spinning around Ricky. Not very Salsa, in my opinion.

Marks wise there seems to be distinct divisions in striclty and it seems extremely difficult for any dancer to win promotion to a higher division where they automatically receive higher marks. Phil Tufnell should never have received a four from Craig for his Salsa, Jo Wood was not as bad as the judges said, Zoe receiving a nine from Len for her Foxtrot was extremely generous and for Natalie C and Vincent to receive the same overall mark as Jade and Ian was laughable. Ian was right to make a comment about the marking not matching up to the comments.

This seems to happen every year what do we all think about couples automatically receiving higher marks than others?

Jade & Ian probably deserved a mark more, Zoe & James a mark less.

The rest I agreed with.

Jade and Ian were undermarked a smidge.

Ricky and Natalie were overmarked .....how can a judge (and I use that term loosely as it was Alesha) say something was 'uncool and cheesy' and 'dissapointing' and still give it an 8 !!!

Well lets face it the decisions have already been made; there are a third that will now score over 30, a third that will be between 25 and 30 and those that will score 24 and under. Once you have made your way into one of the groups the judges will always mark according to how they think you will perform rather than how you do.

Always a disadvantage to go first too as they leave room to mark others higher and usually do!

Totally agree. Thats what I was getting at with my rather poor Football league division analagy. How does a dancer like Jade ie who seems to be in in the 25-30 category, convince the judges that she should be in the 30+ category. Judging by Saturdays undermarking, it seems almost impossible. The judges seem to have decided that no matter what certain dancers do they will not mark them higher. Its a shame and I think its going to cause a few controversial moments in this series because I think this crop of dancer are quite even in ability. With the exception of the two Joes and perhaps Corrie Craig, I think any of this crop are capable of producing a 30+ dance but unfortunately I dont think they will receive 30+ marks.

Problem is - Ali's salsa was only so frigging good because the choreography was ACE and the only actual salsa there. Her dancing wasn't that great, if you looked at the feet instead of arms.

I wish Brian could've choreographed a salsa for Ricky Whittle. Now THAT would be amazing!

You are right about them voting on things like unmet expectations and you could add that sometimes they do the opposite to what you suggest - they mark people according to that persons' standard so a good rather than the expected very good from a performer will get less than a better than expected but still not so good one from another . They do what you said sometimes and mark to reputation but they also mark some people on their own scale which is a total no no.

There's also biases in some judges voting. Len seems to mark blokey blokes higher and throws votes at females like Nathalie. He seems to have problems with the elegant slim females who look good. Alesha seems to be there to make things look and sound nicer by chucking the odd high mark towards the direr dancers. I have no idea why all 4 of them are overmarking Zoe as they did Lisa.

Beyond that though the marking equation is more complex. Jade may look right in bits but I don't think she looks right overall and I couldn't see what her outine had to do with her music. Nathalie did less well technically or in terms of difficulty but looked right - how do you equate thse two? Phil did very little compared to even Nathalie let alone Jade and Ali - he was over overmarked on a sympathy vote - Craig was right on content. Agree about Jo - she's better than Joe and Lynda was no better. Ricky had half a routine that wasn't very good and wasn't even acted that well and got the same points as Ali who had far too complex a routine that she mastered - I suspect because they didn't as you say want to challenge the order by reversing their frontrunners.

There's always some element of luck of the draw of how good your Pro is at choreography in general, and whatever dance you've got in particular.

As for whether we get a decent look, or any look come to that at the feet sadly we're all in the hands of the dodgy filming and direction

On the original question in the thread, I agree Jade was undermarked and Zoe overmarked a a tad both this week and last. Plus I think Tuffers is being undermarked too.

I think the judges have always formed a set idea about everyone within the first two weeks every single year and those expectations have then heavily influenced the marks. Only something seriously exceptional can allow someone to progress from a "middle ranker" to a "top of the board" type.

The fundamental problem in the marking is that only Craig uses enough of his paddles to actually properly differentiate between all the various performances. By the other judges, and especially Len choosing to keep thier marks between only about 6-9 effectively they are leaving the final ranking order entirely in C R-H's hands especially in the middle of the board - and that as we're constantly reminded, is the most dangerous spot to be. A place here or there must be critical to who gets stuck in the dance off which ultimately matters much more than whether you get 26 or 31 any particular early week.

I agree with this and its one of the point I'm glad people are making in this thread.

I think its virtually impossible to go from the under 30 to the over 30 section on Strictly. I think Rachel Stevens is the only contestant to successfully achieve 'promotion' but it could be argued that she only achieve it because she was undermarked in the early rounds. Darren Gough is another and maybe Matt Dawson but then again it could be argued that some of the judges (ie Arlene) never gave either of them the respect they deserved.

The long and the short of it is, that the judges make up their minds pretty miuch in the first three weeks of the competition and not much can happen to change their minds.

Rachel never scored below 30 ever, and after his first dance, Darren only did twice (and even that was a 28 and a 29).

Matt Dawson's probably the closest, and even he was basically erratic throughout, dipping way above and below 30 depending on the dance. Maybe Carol Smillie, who started out in the high 20s and ended up consistantly in the low 30s.

Ooops. You're right. My mistake. I think I thought of her simply because she was twice in the dance off and was never considered to be a front runner.

Darren famously received 19 for his jive in the first week.

EDIT: Sorry Cha cha

Cha cha not jive

I do think they've historically given the cha cha in week 1 to men they want to go on journeys, because it's very easy to score low at the beginning and get away with, because most people look awkward doing one and it'll get you a sympathy vote to a certain extent. As I said, after that dance, Darren was basically scored high for everything.

I agree. You can basically blag the CC but if a male has ability the CC is a good way to show good hip action and flashy foot work.

Thank you. Brian was the only professional that was able to choreograph an authentic salsa. He made Ali look better than she was. But then again that shows what a good job he is doing.

The judges were clearly not up to judging salsa on its own merits as it is normally a ballroom discipline so they were ignorant of what to look for. I think as well as having salsa advisors in to help the professionals that the judges should have had a quick briefing on the subject. They genuinely seemed to think there were no technical aspects rather than to have worked out that the technical aspects might just be different to that required in ballroom dances.

I agree with the rest of your post but I was surprised by this. I think Len prefers the blokey blokes over the 'airy-fairy' non-sportsmen among the men and he may be kinder in his comments to the larger/older women than Craig or Bruno are. But I can't think of any examples of Len marking harshly an elegant slim woman. I think the judges all think the young slim women are the best and they have to be pretty dreadful not to score highly. Who are you thinking of?

If someone marks the larger older women overgeneriously then they can also be considered to undermark the young and slim. It is just a matter of perspective ie shoudl the older ones have got less or the younger more. Either way you are agreeing with the original op that his marking is not on the merits but is biased on the personalities.

In this show I think Natalie is being overmaked because people like her and she is enthusiastic and a fan. I think she would get through on the public vote for the same reason anyway so why are the judges not just marking her on the merits of her dance as is supposed to be their job. The only one who marks realistically and consistently is CRH and that is why people are genuinely happy when he marks them better as they then know that their work has paid off.

i think they have been over marking since week one with the exception of craig. I always thoughts 9s & 10's were for truely outstanding performances now they seam to just dish ouot 9's willy nilly although we've yet to see a 10 but no doubt ricky or ali will be the first to get one probably next week.

Agreed. It would also be nice to see a bit of consistency between the comments and the marking

I think that, if anything, it's the other way around: he made Ali look worse than she was, because the choreography was so difficult that she couldn't dance it with enough left over to "perform" it convincingly. (A similar point applies to any footwork or other problems.)

But I doubt any of the other celebs (except maybe Ricky W) could have danced anything that difficult nearly so well.

Its a good point. There's something more complex going on. I am struck though that Len is the one giving Nathalie and Ricky G the same marks as Ali and he was the one who made the big thing about Rachel not being expressive last series. He's not chucking his spare marks in Ali's direction or that enthused and he is chucking marks in all sorts of other directions. Making the point the way he did about Rachel established the story even for when it didn't apply later. There was also his odd marking of Rachel vis a vis Lisa. Perhaps its the airy-fairy thing that he doesn't like and that translates to people who look like nice quiet ballet dancers? Perhaps he likes someone who looks like they could get away doing Oom-Pah-Pah, or he doesn't like complex choreography or was rejected by a ballet dancer or he doesn't like some accents? May be its not even him and he has been told who to give high marks to for the producer's purposes? No idea what it is but you can now often predict who he will throw marks at and who he won't - which isn't as it should be.

Surely the logical way of marking is to start with 10 - and then for evry error made knock a mark off

That would stop the daft 9s being given out like sweeties already

If I was judging I would start off with a score of 5 then add or subtract as I saw fit while watching the dance.

It would stop the silly overmarking we get now. In a few years they will start week one with a 10 for somebody. If you look back at previous series and see seriously good dancing being awarded 7 or 8 I think that was about right.

A 10 should only be given for excellence. At this rate some of them have nowhere to go in terms of improvement.

And the trouble is by easily giving out the 10s the judgres paint themselves into a corner- even if someone comes out and does a better erformance they have to give them a 10 irrespective of whether it merits one or not