Hi there

It's clearly not Craig's fault: let's not forget that he, like all the others, is employed by the BBC and will take direction from the producers about how to 'play' certain things. Strictly, like other 'reality' shows, employs people to generate 'stories' that will engage the audience - and the celebs are asked to play along with this (e.g. the Austin/Tom 'rivalry' from SCD6).

Craig is being singled out because of 'Get Craig to Blackpool' - which I'm sure is a passing comment he made that was then amplified beyond belief by the producers (yes, them again ... ).

As for how long this will last, who knows? I have to say Flavia's grin seems ever more fixed week by week ...

Yep... spot on. But sholudve taken more chances. imho.

I had the feeling they were trying to sneak or steal their way each week. Entertain more.
You feel there was bags of personality waiting to burst out
Fun was missing

Do you think that if the public were asked to vote for the best dancers, the results would be very different?

My vote...no.

Yet the stunningly beautiful Laila Rousass has never been in the bottom two, Alesha Dixon is possibly one of the most stunning woman ever to appear and managed to win over two fairly handsome men.

And who's getting this mysterious 'woman vote with their loins vote'? Ricky W? Not going by this forum. Craig, Ricky G, Phil or Chris? I'd do Craig Kelly in a heartbeat but I suspect that not a widely held opinion. The other three I suspect are all acquired tastes. As for the male pros, Matthew, Brendan and James are all gone and they seem to be the most lusted after pros. Your argument isn't really standing up to inspection.

On the other hand it would explain why some people think they need more than 15 minutes to vote. Unless you've been doing extensive Kegels, s'quite hard to vote with your loins.

Female voters generally vote for guys. They seem to hate female celebs for very little reason and male celebs have to do a lot more to annoy them. My argument is borne out by the voting patterns over the years. You may not like it, but there you go

But it might be fun trying!

I think you're right. Gethin and Matt did so well because of their looks, which I find kinda pathetic. Zoe, Emma, Lisa, Rachel etc were not liked by the public because they were good looking and good dancers. Alesha only won because she created a "story" for herself. However, even she was in the bottom 2 at one stage.

I think it says a lot about girls tbh. Some of them blame men for everything, but women are generally very bitchy about each other.

Zoe is a great dancer but would she have won it after being in two dance offs? The public wasn't voting for her, so she wouldn't have won. I say this as a Zoe (well, James Jordan :P) fan, she was my favourite out of the high acheivers. She did go out early, but hey, if we're gonna blame it on anyone, it must be the people who didn't vote for them.

The GBP love a tryer, an underdog. Natalie, Ricky G, Chris and Tuffers aren't quite as talented as Ricky W and Ali, and frequently sit in the dangerzone middle of the leaderboard, but every week they get through. I'd LOVE to know for sure whose getting the most phone votes.

The judges really ought to stop whinging, the public have a say because we like who we like, but they have FINAL say. If it was Ricky W in the dance off every week from now til the quarter final, they can put him through, meaning the best dancer does make it through to the final. So it's sort of a nice compromise.

Sorry, but you'll never get me to believe that any female, however frustrated or bitchy, was driven to vote for Darren Gough by her loins.

I can't quite agree with your generalisation - I think it's a bit more complicated than that.

Sure, Gethin is fit - but he also had a journey which excited the judges and the public. Ditto Matt.

Lumping Zoe, Emma, Lisa and Rachel together is a misnomer. Emma was perceived as teacher's pet by the public; she was also one of the Spice Girls, whose appeal had long worn off by the time she did SCD.

Rachel was technically excellent but could not translate her personality to the screen - hence the name 'Rach-bot' coined on here; it wasn't that people didn't like her because she was good-looking and a good dancer - it's because that's all that seemed to be there.

Lisa alienated her audience by constantly crying on cue, simpering to the judges and being deliberately overmarked to ensure that she stayed in over the public's favourites. That is why she wasn't liked.

And as I said earlier, Zoe danced well but was eclipsed by bigger personalities. Whether we like it or not, people vote for who they like - so contestants have to be able to sell their personalities as well as their dancing. That is what Alesha did - on and off the dancefloor.

And that is why Ricky and Ali need to pull their socks up fast if they are going to survive SCD7 ... it's not all about technique.

I am not blaming Craig for Zoe leaving. I agree that the bottom two was a great surprise (or a moderate one anyway), but it is up to us to vote if we want someone to stay.

THe BBC is to blame. If they had not brought in the new scoring system until the quarters Zoe and ALi would be far too safe to be in the dance off.

Len should not be blaming the public. It should be blaming the idiot in charge - Jay Hunt for making it possible that tose in the top three can be in the dance off.

Muppets!

I couldn't agree more!! As someone who voted for Zoe and james, I do feel frustrated that they were in the dance off - did a better dance than Ali and Brian, but were still voted off.

I do think the rules for voting should go back to those for previous series until there are only 4 couples left - then perhaps do as this year. Would that have made a difference? Who knows - it is only a tv programme, I need to get a grip!!

Rather a sweeping statement, never hated any contestant - male or female. Not keen though on Laila - there's no connection to the dance for me and Zoe seemed gangly. Wouldn't vote for Craig, Ricky G or Tuffers (not good enough). Ricky W's dance this week was one of the first this series to make me go "Wow! that was good."

My faves this year are Jade & Ali.

Didn't like Lisa Snowdon and wasn't keen on Darren Gough.
Enjoyed watching Alesha, Jodie Kidd, Letitia Dean, Zoe Ball but also loved Ramps, Colin Jackson, Austin Healey. It's all about the Dance for me - who can make me wish I could do that or as Bruno says "the magic".

As for it being Craig's fault that Zoe was voted off - of course it is .... because people voted for him and not for her. His dream was bigger than hers.

*storms in to claim intellectual property rights*

I coined the term Rachbot because she was a young, exceptionally good looking contestant who was technically adept, and then learnt to express her personality on the floor as the series went on, whilst still remaining shy/boring as hell off it. This fit for me the storylines/profiles/journeys/whatever of two ealier dancers I'd used the same term for (Mark, Gethin). And yet they got the votes and she didn't.

I do agree broadly that men get the votes and women don't. Looking at the overall picture that men and women do about as well as each other on all levels of the competition, and the judges clearly score the women higher, there's no other conclusion. I do draw the line at trying to forecast why that is, especially sexist nonsense like "desperate housewife bitches voting with their vaginas". I knew plenty of gay men voting for Gethin based on looks alone and I knew straight men who voted for Darren Gough because they identified with him (well alright...I knew my dad).

Ah, but I think this is just a convenient hook to hang your jacket on, much as I hate to disagree with the mighty Monkseal! To take Mark as an example, many people found him dull because his comments in Tess' interview room whilst waiting to be scored were limited often to one sentence. Those who bothered to watch ITT as the weeks went on or the training footage actually realised there was a lot more to Ramps than just squeaking out oft-repeated answers to (let's face it) rather silly questions. And he learned to express himself on the floor much better than Rachel ever did.

The Ramps 'journey' was equally as important as the fact his smiles melted female fans into a gooey heap whenever he grinned in the direction of the nearest camera. T'weren't just my female bits picking up the phone and redialing. What we saw at the end of the series was a different man to the one that had to be dragged out behind the curtain by Karen Hardy on day one. Same goes for Gethin to a lesser extent. They blossomed on and off the floor.

I loved watching Rachel dance, but I didn't connect emotionally to her at all. And that is the reason I found her dull. I never got that same sense of journey from Rachel as I did Ramps and, to a lesser extent, Gethin.

I know people disagree - it was just being talked about why the term Rachbot was coined and, as the person who coined it, I thought I'd just say why.

For what it's worth, I think Rachel did learn to express herself well later on (rumba, Argentine Tango, her waltz) it's just that people seem to measure "expressing yourself" on this show as "how fast can you shake your tits and gurn in a fast Latin?". (And yes, I know people will disagree with that as well, and yes there were still later occasions (tango, paso) when you could see the springs and gears grinding against each-other with the effort to look halfway human)

While I love the 'Rachbot'™ name, I am perplexed by your defenition: for me, I struggled to find anything of Rachel's personality in any of her dances, technically excellent as they may have been. (This is exactly the same problem I have with Ricky W this year). And I certainly wouldn't have either Gethin or Mark down as shy/boring as hell off the dancefloor: for me, they both blossomed in every respect as their series progressed.

I agree that in general the judges score the women higher than the men and quite possibly for the reasons you cite - but I'd argue that personality is a key factor: all reality shows thrive on extroverts and, as far as Strictly goes, I think you could say it's more likely they'll be male contestants rather than female contestants - can you imagine, for instance, a female Ricky Groves?! (And if there was one, she would probably be accused of not being 'feminine enough' ... ).

I would expect Ali and Jade to very much be in the firing line now - I bet the producers are all over the public phone vote figures right now, working out how long they can keep them safe for ...

I get that there's lots of latitude for diagreement over what happened in actuality, but Rachel and Gethin in particular had exactly the same storylining almost down to the week. They had the same first half of "you need to show your personality more", then a second half of "oh look, you have broken through, now you're really showing your joy of dance". They even had the same "contestants go on a date to get to know each-other better/ramp up the silly romance storyline the show would like to hint at" VT.

The only difference was that Rachel occasionally hit bottom 2 so that ate up her storylining some weeks, and they never sent her to an acting coach, partly because they'd already done it twice that series, and partly because she'd already done some acting professionally and it would have been mildly insulting (I'm guessing this is why they haven't done the same thing for Ali this series)

Servalan,

In my view, Rachel's personality - such as it was - did shine through in her dances. The problem was that she was virtually devoid of interesting personality traits in her interviews. Pretty much every time she was interviewed, she mouthed banal cliches and said the whole experience was "Amazing". Her scary looking brothers were the only interesting non-dancing aspect to Rachel last year.

That's not to say that in private she doesn't have a vivascious personaility or that there's anything particularly wrong in being introverted on screen.

BTW - Are / were you a Blakes' 7 fan?

If I only bother to watch the dances next week, and spend the time that the phone lines are open in the kitchen making steak au poivre. will I be voting with my surloins?

Fair do's!

I am, by the way, claiming the coining of the phrase 'The Mighty Monkseal'.

(Fellow Blake's 7 fan here, btw!)

I have to agree that I find Rachel and Ricky W on a par with each other. No matter how dazzling the footwork, how entertaining the choreography and how well it's danced, there's a sort of remoteness behind the eyes...I can't explain it. I don't normally vote for total outsiders or no hopers (in fairness I've only actually voted once this series) but the handful that are engaging are, arguably, the ones who are in the middle of the table. It's so rare when you have that special combination wrapped up in one contestant. And it pains me as someone who loves watching Strictly for the dancing to say that if it came down to a three way final between Ali, Ricky and Tuffers - I'd vote Tuffers!

I'm sure Rachel may be utterly charming/amusing/entertaining off-screen - but contestants need a likeable personality on-screen that the public can latch onto. I think we can safely say that Rachel didn't have that - and that's also what did for Zoe this week. Strictly is an entertainment show and those who are technically good need to match their dance skills with an engaging personality.

And yes - of course I am a Blake's 7 fan!

*raises arms*

"MAXIMUM POWER!"

(Sorry if that was too anorak-y for you! )