Yet history proves 3 female and 3 male winners that isnt the case. Especially the series Alesha won when she was up against two <supposedly> good looking male dancers in the F3. She wasn`t even in the dance off for the final for the judges to save her.

I was hoping that he'd be on ITT doing CC like Karen, Darren and Lilia. I don't want him behind the scenes!

You keep making these arguments. The only people who can lose all the top technical dancers are the judges NOT the public. On forums, some people grumble on all the time that the public have too much power and make the show lose the more 'meritorious' dancers in their view. It's the clever part about the way the show's pitched that makes some people think the public have all the power, when in fact the public vote is a bone tossed to those who don't wanna be certain of who's in the final just two weeks in to the show. Do away with that and you lose upwards of a third of your audience right off.

The system's basically designed to let the judges determine two finalists and the public only one finalist. Often the one finalist the public do get to determine also happens to coincide with one of the judge's top 3 or 4 also. On rare occasions, it won't and folks send a 'personality' to the final to be bemoaned by the true believer meritocrats like yourself. What actually happens is you lose a couple of the judges top four at most in the course of any series.

Just in case you hadn't noticed, the system's designed to give the judges two bites of the cherry every show. They get to decide the original placings on the leaderboard ... AND they get to decide who leaves from the bottom two after the public vote has had its say.

If the judges want to keep, for example, Ricky W and Ali until the final, all they do is place either one of them in first place on the leaderboard all the way through when they score. They can alternate them each week if they want. Even if the other one they didn't place first ends up in the dance-off after the public have voted, they then use their second vote and save the one they didn't place first in the dance-off against anybody else. So if the judges are determined to put Ricky W and Ali, for example, in the final, there's diddly squat the public can do to stop them doing that! They get two votes, the public get one.

What actually happens pretty much in practice each year is that the judges don't just have a clearly defined two favourites. They narrow their choice down to about four favourites on technical ability. This year those will be Ricky W, Ali, Jade and Laila. The judges will get to place at least two of those in to the final, no matter which way the public vote.

The dramas come only a couple times at most a series, one usually about halfway through, one in the later stages, where they can't prevent two of their favourite techical dancers meeting. That's when the judges' favourite four can get culled down to the two they end up taking to the final.

Most other weeks, apart from those couple of exceptions per series, the second string 'personality' celebs get taken out in the dance-offs by the judge's second favourites. For the public, to quote the movie, there can be only one. If folks decide to coalesce around some celeb they know the judges will never let get through, they can send that one person to a final by voting enough to keep them out of any dance-off till the end.

Basic summary being the judges can pick two candidates right now and book two places for them out of the three places only in the final if they want. The public has got a bone to gnaw on deciding the other one.

Slightly off the original topic, but I can't sleep so I've just watched sections of Saturday's show again on iPlayer and I wanted to say how lovely James was to Ricky W in the Tesspit after Ricky's quickstep. I didn't notice on the night, but he really made a point of letting him know how fantastically he thought he'd danced.

What with that and Brian's comments on ITT, I think I'm finally warming to James, sadly too late for this series. I hope he's back next year with another partner with as much potential as, and more charisma than, Zoe.

I know that James spoke bluntly but I am sure he used the word "coward". Not on James, no matter how miffed you are.

And James had stressed, when he left on the Saturday, that people must remember it is a DANCE contest.

I suspect that John and Kristina were getting the most votes each week and so John then did the only thing he could to return SCD to a 'dance contest'.

James then appeared to do a complete about face and criticised him for THAT decision!

As I said, I really think James and Cherie should have been invited back and the BBC boobed, imo, by not re-instating them, to keep the number of couples intact.

calm down. Yes its MY OPINION based on what I have seen from James in the past.

There was nothing remotely contradictory or illogical about James asking the viewer to vote on dance grounds and also being unhappy with John unilaterally withdrawing. I've never understood why people bang on about this.

I don't understand how anyone thinks James "did a complete about face". Did he ever say that John should quit?