I know this is going to provoke a storm, but personally I think that the judges are just starting to learn that overmarking doesn't help.

I think that the new voting system means that it's so much easier for the GBP to overturn any of their decisions to keep people out of the bottom two, and this has been seen a couple of times this season. Also, Claudia has told them several times this season that every time they overmark the GBP reacts against it. I think the message may at last be hitting home. Although it's fair to say there HAS been overmarking this year, I feel it's not been anywhere near as bad as the last couple of years.

You have a point - but IMO the words 'judges' and 'learning' in the same sentence sounds all wrong!!

I don't think Claudia has said that the public reacts against overmarking.

She's said the public reacts against the judges saying who should have gone or implying the public got it wrong because the worst dancer didn't go.

I haven't seen any evideance of the judges learnig not to overmark

It appears to matter wo you are , when the judges decide on their marks .

For weeks now I have felt Natalie Cassidy has been overmarked , though this week I felt she had really improved .

Ali Cha Cha Cha was definatley overmarked as it was far too polite a performance to go with the spirit of the dance

There are others who I feel get consistantly undermarked and team Cola have had this a lot

The judges scoring seem to me to be as erratic as ever!

Do they care?

It's just a show and all seem more concerned with projecting their personalities and hoping to improve their "market value" by their constant exhibitionism.

They don't want Chris to win that is blindingly obvious the way he is undermarked.

Never mind judges carry on overmarking your favourites and see what the public does

Yes, giving Chris a 9 for that paso was classic undermarking.

I think everyone other than a handful of people have benefitted from overmarking this year. And thinking about it, the people I'm thinking of as not having been overmarked (Ali, Jade, Tuffers) are my favourites, so I'm probably just going to settle on everybody having been overmarked.

Completely agree.

Ricky W is the new Lisa Snowdon - he'll still get good marks even if he makes mistakes.

My main problem with Ali's cha cha cha wasn't her dancing, though - it was the music. Utterly terrible choice - no wonder she wasn't raunchy enough!

I was thinking more in contrast to Natalie's foxtrot this week - both foxtrots directly compared

Chris's was better - and don't forget he has to lead it - which should be worth a point in itself. Natalie's posture was not as good

She is not a bad dancer but she is not as good as Chris

Both dances scored 34. Chris did the better version

Ali was poor on Saturday - I would have given her 7/10 for that

I would say that Chris' foxtrot vs Natalie's was more an individual case of Natalie being overmarked than Chris undermarked. His was a very good foxtrot, deserving of the 32-35 ish range but still hampered by faults that brought it down a notch (poor hands, constantly counting out the rhtyhm). I wouldn't have given Natalie's more than a 6.

I do struggle to think of any dance of Chris' that didn't get more or less what it deserved, if not a tiny bit higher in some cases.

How does it being too polite a performance mean she was over-marked? The politeness or not of the performance is not all that matters to the marking.

And how do you separate "who you are" from how good a dancer you are, the difficulty of the routines, and various other factors?

In the end, over-marking has to be in comparison to other dancers. (Otherwise, we ought to say that pretty much everyone in SCD is over-marked.)

And it can't just be that you (or I or whoever) would have marked it differently. It has to be outside the range of reasonable opinion somehow.

Why shouldn't he get good marks, despite mistakes, if other aspects of the dance are good enough?

If SCD starts making so much depend on avoiding mistakes, we'll have safe, boring dances from everyone every week.

When you have people marking, then it's never going to be anything other than personal opioin.

You can't take the personalities out of it, and that applies to any artistic event that is being marked by real live 'uman bein's. It's so subjective that however hard you try to stifle it, personal opion will play a part.

I would venture that Len makes it harder for himself than he needs to by ignoring the 1-6 paddles. By his own admission he marked 7 couples via the medium of 3 paddles (and actually marked 6 couples only using 8 or 9, I think ) this week.

I guess there are ways to make things 'better'. A clearer understanding of how the marks work (for watchers and judges ) ... so does the difficulty of the routine play a part ... or not? Are the marks split between technical/artistic merit ... or not? Are the dances marked on a week by week progression basis or are they marked purely as stand alone dances regardless of the week they are performed in? Would having half marks make a difference ... or not? Would it make a difference to drop the highest and lowest mark per couple so they are ranked on just the 3 middle marks ... or not?

With every series you always get "The Blue-Eyed Boy or Girl. Last year it was Lisa Snowdon - this year it is Natalie Cassidy or"Pollyanna on Crack" as I like to call her - have to say I cannot take the credit for being the originator of this moniker. I haven't much technical knowledge re ballroom dancing but even I can see her posture is bad. Her head is cranked back to a completely unnatural position so it is a wonder she doesn't get a stiff neck. Her mouth is very rarely shut. Pollyanna's jive which the judges raved over was so awful it was hilarious. Ali has grace and style - whilst NC is completely devoid of any grace and her style is very clumpy and her ballgown always makes her look frumpy. Her dance last week did not merit 9's. To be fair she isn't the worst dancer in the pack but she is definitely hovering towards the Dance Off. Of course all this is just my opinion and one man's fish is another man's poisson.

If she were to be judged on yapping and begging for points - well she has more rabbit than Sainsburys and more neck than a giraffe - so would receive the highest marks on offer.

I wonder if the next Awards Ceremony will have a category for the Most Annoying Female on British Television - if so, Natalie Cassidy would win it, hands down.

I disagree about ali being overmarked. But others definitely have been. Ricky w gets 8s and 9s no matter how many mistakes he makes through the routine. And he makes a lot of mistakes.

If it's just personal opinion, how can there be over-marking?

Anyway, just to be clear, I didn't say personality should be taken out of it; I didn't even use the word. I asked how to separate "who you are" from other factors.

However, I do feel the dancer's personality should be left out, except where it affects the dance. Judges should not give someone higher marks because they think the person has a great personality, for example.

That marks are opinions does not mean judges cannot make an effort in good faith not to go by their personal like or dislike for the contestants' personalities.

As for marking "never going to be anything other than personal opinion", I don't think judges should just be giving their personal opinion. Of course, there will be an element of opinion to it, especially when judging artistic aspects, but marks should be based in a justifiable way on what the contestants do.

After all, the rules and regulations for sports (most of 'em anyway) don't say that judges can do whatever they want, because it's personal opinion. There are criteria judges are supposed to use. I think figure skating has taken this to the greatest extreme in the so-called "code of points".

I don't think SCD should try to pin marking down like that. I don't even mind if different judges give different weights to different things. However, I do think SCD ought to let viewers and contestants know how marking's suppose to work in SCD.

Instead, we have judges saying different, conflicting things about marking at different times.


Good questions.

It would certainly make a difference to drop the highest and lowest marks! For a start, it would create a lot more ties.

Why was the cha cha cha overmarked? As Karen Hardy said on ITT, Ali's hip action was very good because she had the right leg action. I can't see why Len did't give her '9' the same as the other judges, as there was only one slip up in the routine. I preferred that cha cha to Alesha's which you are probably taking as your bench mark. Technically it was not that great. 'Spirit of the dance' is a very subjective criterion and you and I will have to differ on that one.

Overmarking is in the eye of the beholder. I have felt that some people deserved their marks while watching the show only to come on here and see several threads vilifying the judges for overmarking that couple.

And vice versa (I thought they were overmarked and people here expounded on how beautiful the dance was).

We all look at it differently, we all support different couples so there's always going to be this debate whether a couple is being over, under or fairly marked.

So in answer to the question of the OP, I don't think the judges have learned their lesson because they don't feel they're overmarking anybody.

So how come some couples are penalised for making mistakes and Ricky W makes mistakes yet doesn't get scored lower than an 8?

All in the eye of the beholder, of course, but it seems to me - and to others, from what I read on DS and hear from friends - that Ricky's mistakes are not taken as seriously as others. Yes, he may be a good dancer, but technical skills alone don't win over the audience.

Karen Hardy hit the nail on the head on last night's ITT: his jive was deeply flawed. And yet he still ended up top of the leader board.

If Ricky's jive is watched alongside Jill & Darren's or Kelly & Brian's, it doesn't look anywhere near as good. I also agree with Karen. Ali's dance had one obvious flaw and and Len gave her an '8'.

To be honest, I don't pay that much attention to the marks, unless it's a 39 or 40. To me it's the leaderboard position that's important as this directly affects the results. I get more annoyed if I disagree with the leaderboard positions. I guess overmarking can have a knock on effect if it inflates a leaderboard position, but whether, for example, Ali gets one extra 9 or not (if she's going to finish top anyway) is largely irrelevant.

At last people want to discuss one of my favourite subjects.

The judges will over mark every year but they are so far up their own arses that they dont see it has a detrimental effect on the publics view of the overmarked dancers. There wasnt much point in Lisa Snowdon turning up for last years final as there wasnt a chance in hell she was going to win. Low and behold she's receives a frankly laughable perfect score for her dances but is booted of first by the voters who can clearly see she's been over marked.

Ali is this years Lisa. Shes a great ball room dancer but she struggles with fast Latin dances. Her CCC was definitely overmarked; her hip action was good but she didnt capture the fun and cheeky element of the dance.

Rciky Whittle makes mistake after mistake after mistake but still ends up with scores in the midthirties.

I think both will make the final simply because I cant see who'll beat them in a dance off. Even if they trip, fall over or have any such disaster I still think the judges will put them thru over virtually any other dancers. This also means they're unlikely to win the final because its good that the public hardly ever let the judges have their own way.

This year's Darren and Lilia are Chris and Ola, who should win because they capture the heart and soul of a dance and it's not all about marks marks marks with them. They're bringing the only fun and verve to an increasingly ludicrous series. I hope this new voting system does actually work in the last few weeks and they can avoid the dance off, because I think if they land in it, they are toast. Still, I have faith that they are popular enough to stay out of it.

Overmarking certain people...happens every year. The public do like good dancers, and they do vote for them. But they don't like teachers pets. So why the judges persist in it, is inexplicable and certainly the obsession with Snowdon was. Why put somebody through who is blatantly unpopular and hasn't a hope in hell of winning? In the final stages, if you must keep the DO, exercise some sense in who is likely to put up a better fight in the final.

When Austin went out last year it was just appalling!

If the judges ever dumped Team Cola there would be an outcry!

Hey, they have their favourites. We have ours. Lisa going through last year when everyone knew she wasn't popular was pointless. I'd hate to see Ricky AND Ali in the final.