99.9% of the time the the judges NEVER base their decision on the dance off so usually its poinltess and a waste of time with them even bothering with it at all. For example, say if Craig was in the dance off last night along with Ricky, and by som chance Ricky falls over and totally messes up etc.........................does anyone REALY think they would vote to keep Craig as he did the better dance off.

Its a mockery.

The judges know the rules and they should abide by them. The programme is made to entertain the general public not just to please the judges or a minority of people who think they are the experts. The viewers are invited to vote for their favourites who they wish to see back again. If they want to see weaker dancers again that is their right. And, in my view makes for a far more entertaining programme than one where we just listen to the judges (especially where, increasingly they don't even know what they are talking about!) The only thing that should happen is that the farce of the dance off should be abolished and the lowest scorer judges and public vote should just automatically go.

Wonder who would be left at the end ?

Possibly Jade, Ali and Zoe would all be out of the competition by now if that were the case and we`d be left with Joe, Jo .......

Zoe has now gone <obviously > but tbh I wouldn`t have liked a final with Craig, Joe and Jo in it.

DO has it`s pros and cons.

That Zoe grind made me squirm

She picked a name. She was made to pick a name and she did. What's the problem? I don't like her much but sniping at her for non-existent faults is crazy.

The fault doesn't lie with any one of the judges, bottling or otherwise, the fault lies with the scoring system. The public vote IMO carries too much weight, and that is why you end up with the wrong people in the dance off.

If you want a competition based on dance rather than popularity, then the public vote needs to be lowered to at most 1/3 of the overall score rather than 1/2.

OT - I don't think Alesha bottled it especially. The judges were faced with a choice of two, and she picked the one she preferred to save. The fact that none of the judges believed that the right dancers were in the bottom two was largely irrelevent at that point.

Perhaps it would be better if the public vote were only aimed at the bottom half of the leaderboard, with everyone above the mid point being automatically safe.

That would keep the good people going until the very end of the season.

I like these shocks. Makes it much more fun.

Thought Alesha had some stupid marking last night, but in the dance-off I thought she made the right decision, if you based it purely on the dance-off.

how did she bottle is? She knew full well the other judges preferred Ali and yet she still went for who she liked better rather then follow the "crowd".
Personally im glad Ali stayed as she is IMO the better dancer however based on the dance off Zoe was a lot better so i dont think its a shock Alesha picking Zoe.