So what is the mysterious reason why the judges want Ricky W and Ali in the final?

Presumably it's got to be something other than: because they're the best dancers.



And what gives people the idea that marks are supposed to be only about errors.

Taking difficulty into account is not marking on a different tariff scale.


All the 8 million need to know to avoid mistakenly thinking "teacher's pets" is to know the marks aren't only about errors.

I didn't say there was any mysterious reason about it. I said that they appear to have decided they are the best technical dancers and, since the judges get to control two of the three places in the final, they'd use the means within their control to get them there.

Nothing underhand about it. They're entitled to do it, whether I agree with their selections or not.

I've got to say that the basic frame, the passion and command of the dance, were excellent. Ricky is very good.

He made a lot of mistakes though. Perhaps enough to put him on a par, or just below Jade.

When he gets it right though, hes awfully good. And I don't really like him much.

Aye, and what the judges need to know is that appreciation for dance, like art or music, is subjective - no matter how much you try to make it objective. In the World Dance Championships, if two couples dance their dances technically perfectly to a same degree of difficulty, professional judges are gonna decide a winner ... They've got no pseudo-objective hat left to do that with, so what do they make their decision based on? Ta-da, back to subjective reasons.

Which is why the judges get to choose two finalists, and the public get to choose the other one. Technique will usually be enough to win - but not always.

How dare you compare Ricky to Lisa! I liked Lisa but Ricky is in a different league.

And both Ricky and Lisa never f*cked up their performances on more than one occasion., unlike your fav Matt D A, but he was taken through to the final because he was doing the tour, wasn't he?.

Thought body shape much better but mistakes and lack of passion spoilt it for me. I had said to my partner that he could fall over and still score 8's. The judges did not seem to mark the dance they saw but gave marks on the basis of past performances and at the end of the day they're not doing him any favours with the public.

rickys dance was good even though he made a few mistakes. the tango is quite a hard dance and to me it looked like one of the best eventhough he made errors.
want to talk about overmarking - lalia was way over marked that week after anton called her THAT name...conviently she was top of the leader board then....

The sad thing is that when Zoe and Ali were overmarked last week, both ended up in the dance off, but an overmarked hunk avoids it. I would love to have seen Ricky in the bottom two as a bit of a wake up call, and see him come back with a fantastic dance next week, as Ali did this week.

I do hope Ricky Nipple is not this year's Lisa Snowdon. I really don't want to see him dressed in Bacofoil, crawling all over Brenda and flashing his gentleman parts

No I can't speak for others but Matt DA was voting through by me because he was a good dancer who had a terrible week. I justified my decision because I rather vote for someone who lost it then someone who I wasn't convinced to obtain it - i.e Tish who had the samba and AT to do next (I'm still remain unconvinced we missed much in not having her do those dances and she seemed happy to go out doing a lovely dance in a lovely dress having had her self-confidence raised massively by becoming a lovely ballroom dancer - the tour proved her latin could improve with practice but she was always going to be outclassed by Alesha and Gethin and she knew it). I suspect people voting for similar reasons although I also because he was cute, they liked the dynamic between him and Flav and they took into account the fact he was very young and inexperienced doing live work and suffered from nerves on occasion. I think Lisa's performances sometimes suffered due to nerves too although not as speculately and unlike Matt she wasn't marked down for stumbles and wobbles.

Lisa didn't do a good job in the samba which in fairness the DO gave her a chance to raise her game and a lot of her latin was over-marked (Matt's jive was way better than hers despite been performed much early in the competition) I could switch it round that at least Matt gave us a geuninely amazing latin dance which I don't care if her ccc got 40 it didn't even get close to blowing me away and while we're in the domain of cheap shots - he did a decent showdance too.

Well, if the judges are marking to a technical merit tarrif it should be clearly stated before each dance what the actual top score for the routine is ... 'cos then it could stop all that unnecessary VT-ing about wanting a '30' for a dance actually only graded at '28', and all the Tessterview scoring waffle is kyboshed in one fell swoop as well.

I agree with this......I think he needs to realise that being naturally gifted and good looking is not enough. He is not putting in the hours and last night it showed, he was second on the board when in my view he should have been 4th behind Ali, Jade and Chris, he should have had 4 8's (32) which would have been 4th .

I actually agree with your marks Jan2555*GG* but, does a score of 32 necessarily mean he would have been in the DO? I think after last week's "shock" result people would have been more inclined to pick up the phone and vote (I know I did). He also danced first this week which "should" have also gone against him and I for one wasn't sure he was safe.

Being naturally gifted and good looking isn't enough and I too agree that his performance suffered because of lack of practice. However, even if his dance was marked so that he was fourth in the leader board there were still five couples who would have been worse than him and therefore should have been in the DO before him. Last night the correct couples were in the DO and the right one went. So Ricky's position on the leader board is now really a moot point.

I think the top leader board positions were helped as much as anything this week by the fact the there were no tied marks.

There was a good reason for that. He was in a car crash on tuesday.

Jade and Ian were in a car crash the week before and still pulled it out of the bag.....

No ofcourse it wouldnt, but it would have made him more vulnerable when Jade and Chris were in the 'more vulnerable' postion despite dancing better.

And he is still doing full days filiming for Hollyaks

Chris is working full time on BBC Breakfast.....

I KNOW he has a busy schedule but he knew this when he agreed to do strictly and he is doing amazingly considering the hours he has to train BUT that is no reason to give him 9s for a routine with mistakes in it.

It was odd. There were lots of errors and he wasn't sharp enough stylistically either.
Four 8s would be plenty.

I was just merely pointing out the reason why his training hours were affected for those who may not be aware because unlike Jade and Ian, Ricky's accident went unreported.

But I forget, its Ricky W isnt it, so any reasonable issue that may affect his training (injury week previous, car crash, working a full-time job with long hours) isnt allowed on here. The man cannot do anything right in the eyes of some people on this forum.

I thought, given the lack of training hours on his Tango, it was a really enjoyable dance and his storytelling had come on leaps and bounds. Yes, there were mistakes, but it was still one of the best dances of the night along with Ali, Chris and Jade and they are the 4 couples I cannot wait to see every week for the magic they can all bring to the floor.

Bring on next week!

I must be being really thick or something but I've watched the routine again a few times and I'm clearly not seeing this mistake-ridden, error strewn out of time dance that everyone else can - ricky tinted spectacles possibly and my computer has its own staccato built in (stops every now and then!) but to me Ricky's dance is fast, the choreography is advanced, the staccato movement is superb, the kicks are bob on, floorcraft is great and he's clearly leading.

There's one bit towards the end where there seems to be slight hesitation and the last walk thingy side by side is not quite on the rhythm but he was marked down (Craig by 2 and the other judges by 1).

The audience's reaction was enthusiastic and maybe if Ricky had been a better actor (worrying that this is his day job) & covered up his disappointment better he might not have had such a flaming on here. To me that shows he's not fake though.

As to his hours, I agree this week he didn't have much time due to Hollyoaks schedule and the whiplash from the car crash didn't help. I acknowledge he knew his day job might interfere when he signed up but nowhere on last night's show did he whine or moan. Also Jan (as one of the original Gethin girls) I'm sure you remember when Gethin struggled on one particular week when his Blue Peter schedule was full on - day jobs are day jobs.

Ricky's accident was reported in the papers and on the DS and on Twitter.......I was just trying to make the point that lack of training hours (no matter how good the reason) is not a good reason for overmarking a dance, that isnt Ricky's fault it was the judges that gave the marks.