I've always maintained that couples should dance their lowest scored routine in the dance-off when we arrive at the stage where they are performing two dances.

This gives more scope for improvement from the first performance and it helps the more consistent dancer and stops pros neglecting one dance altogether knowing that excelling in one will see them through.

Only the bottom half of the leader board should b up for eviction. The ones in the top half should be safe. Then u wouldn't get the ridiculous situation of one of the top couples going out early. When it's down to the last 5 then it's fair game!

Surely tho to do this you have to remove the public vote, this then takes away from everything the show is about. You cannot tell people they must only vote for - with your theory the bottom five - people vote for whoever they want. Although with the judges having their say with the ridiculous "dance off" it is still taking some of the decision off the public - and why on earth Len has a double vote I'll never understand - do it ala X factor and let the public decide if there is a tie

That would just create more problems potentially though.

Regardless of anything else, all the judges have to do is mark who they consider to be the best in the top half and they are safe as houses.

At least way, there is the chance that a top ranked couple could be in the dance off rather than just a pre-ordained procession to the final.

Agreed, especially as it is more likely to have been the lower performing dance that landed them in the dance off.

Easy: no dance off. Just like in the first few series. Bottom of the board when judges' and public's votes are added is eliminated. Nice and simple.

The reason I like the DWTS approach so much is because it does play to a couple's strengths and we've all seen on SCD how much harder it is to survive a dance off, if you happen to have the bad luck to be dancing Latin that week.

Those two shows were very exciting and in fact, in the second show the couple at the top of the leader board with 29 out of 30 points was in the dance off. On SCD normally this would mean that couple were almost guaranteed to be saved by the judges, but because each couple danced their special dance off dance it made the playing field much more level.

I think that would cause people to get more invested in the couples that were regularly in the bottom half because they were the only ones they could vote for. Under those rules there would be four couples (Ricky & Natalie, Ali and Brian, Jade and Ian, Zoe and James) who would have not been up for the public vote yet, and I think it would harm them in the later weeks because they would not have gathered enough support early on, and many people would stick with the 'lesser' contestants they had voted for early on.

I agree with BuddyBonthenet (hey Buddy we agree on something ) or Seaside Lady's husband's idea that only the bottom five contestants can be voted for - that is much, much fairer.

I like the idea of playing to a couple's strengths too. The semi final dance off in both of the last two series became a bit of an anti-climax as one of the couples had scored so highly for their dance off dance, the result was almost a foregone conclusion.

However, I'm not altogether sure about a couple performing their lower scoring dance either as I don't particularly think a celeb should be penalised for having a dance that maybe doesn't suit them when they've performed their socks off in one that does.

Having a completely new (albeit truncated) dance that has been chosen by the couples themselves seems fair as it neither penalises nor benefits anybody but gives everyone an equal chance to shine should they seize the opportunity.