Agree about Len but if he used his lower numbers the dancers getting them would probably get more votes.

You can take personality out of it. People may weigh things differently and calculate differently how you add whats good to whats bad but profesional judges should know the range of things they are looking for and what they are getting and whether its consistent with the interpretation of the question/task. If its an unusual response they can also usually agree whether it is compatible with and adequate for the task set. What happens on SCD is that people state bits of the argument and they don't have an opportunity to discuss anything that might need them to reach an agreement. For example Craig and Len ought to discuss whether Ali's Cha Cha Cha choreography was appropriate and agree to mark it accordingly rather than go one way each.

You can't make it all more explicit because its too complicated. You also shouldn't need to as you should be able to put your dances (or students) in order quite quickly with the excellent standing out (even with errors) the poor obvious and usually a consensus arrived at who does or doesn't quite have what it takes to be moved up the order.

The problem with SCD is that they are falling into two traps . The first is that the tasks set are not equal and this often comes down to the music choice made by someone else. You can't be bad or dynamic or sexy or complex if the music goes somewhere else. The choreography is often wrong but often its following the music not what the judges would expect. The problem is that if they kept on reusing the successful and appropriate music choices the viewers would think they had seen it before- so no one gets Austin's paso or Rachel's Rumba music and often what they do get is inappropriate or duller than they needed. The judges then end up effectively marking the producer who picked the wrong music.

Their second fault is to mark people according to that person's own scale. Zoe was on a neat and accurate scale not requiring anything dynamic. Nathalie is on an improving trier scale being rewarded for exceeding expectations. Ali is on a scale where they are expecting what they think she is capable of. Thats just poor marking - confusing comments with marks. Craig shows how its possible to avoid it. You wouldn't want to drop the lowest mark when its usually his thats the most rational.

If it were not for Craig the scores would be more frequently tied. The possible variants would be far fewer if they all just took out the 7 - 9 paddles as is Common for Len, Bruno and Alesha.

The only scores ever obtainable would be between 28 and 36.

Craig brings some semblance of accuracy to the scoreboard and does show some discrimination between dancers.

Unfortunately unless they're in a dance-off against each other they're shoe ins for the final. They'd beat every other couple in adance off. Maybe if Laila and Anton had a ballroom dance and Laila could actually get thru it without making a mistake but even in that scenario I still think Ricky or Ali would get the judges vote. But as I mentioned in my post the judges overmarking has a detrimental effect on the couple they're overmarking so in the end the public will have their winner not the judges winner.

Is this irony?

I am not an expert in ballroom dancing technique but get frustrated with the lack of constructive criticism given by the judges. They make personal comments far too often and also make comments like "You made mistakes but we'll forget about that." None of which help celebs or the public to understand how the judges mark each dance. The GBP sees a lot of unfairness and erratic marking and reacts accordingly then the judges wonder why some couples end up in the dance off. The farce that was the Ali/Zoe DO showed how they bend their rules according to their wishes.
I love the programme but wish the judges could be replaced by people like Karen Hardy and other ballroom judges who might explain why they mark as they do.

No clearly not. Len got huffy when Claudia commented on his overmarking Laila but huffy that the public also gave some sympathy votes. They don't seem to have worked out that it is their job not only to get the order right but to educate the public about dance by marking appropriately and making constructive and educational comments. There are some people actually arguing that Laila's rumba was good and Craig being mean and relying on Len's overmarking to justify that position. Presumably he wouldn't do it if he were judging professionally rather on an entertainment show but they clearly are still muddled about their role - excepting Craig of course.

Karen's choreography corner has been one of the highlights of ITT this year. I've always been unsure about former competitors (professional dancers or celebs) joining the judging panel but Karen has shown how it should be done. It's a pity they didn't employ her rather than Alesha or even Len who has been the most erratic this season. I put it down to jet lag.

This is such nonsense. For all we know, Ricky could top the public vote every week as well as the judge's vote!

So why would it be so bad if he was in the final? Cos he's a much much much better dancer than Chris will ever be and therefore if it's based on dancing, he'd deservedly win?

Cola and Cassidy are grossly overrated, both, most of the time.

The problem for me is that the challenge of the choreography is something that isn't taken explicitly into account.

Does a less perfect but significantly more challenging routine deserve a higher or lower mark than a nearly flawless but less complex dance? Rather like the tariffs in diving, there should be some recognition that some contestants are trying things that others could never manage. 90% of a potential 10 is better than 100% of a potential 9..

The best thing they could do is have them all doing the same dance, of course - it would make it much easier to compare than Foxtrot vs Rumba vs Viennese Waltz vs...

Indeed and you could go further and say here is Rachel's Rumba music or Jill's Jive or Austin's paso- see if you can get 40 with that music too. Dancing On ice actually does this at the end (though its probably too late to count much) with Bolero. The obvious problem is we have heardthe music before but the alternative is what we have now - love songs for raunchy dances and even slow music for fast dances. Perhaps they just need a shorter list of tunes that are known to work - with all these series they ought to have a set of best scoring tunes for each dance by now.

As it is you have Ali and Ricky W still waiting for their great tune to do anything showstopping. Someone like Nat might impress with the right music for reasons unconnected to her dancing technique and it might let some people excel in the odd week (Mellisa on DWTS with a Charleston and the right music) but it might give the people with most potential a chance to use it and show what they could do.

You're not familar with Monkseal are you?

I dunno the judges aren't there really to judge whom has the best chance of winning but to judge quality as they see it which may not tally with our perception. At least part of the problem with Lisa's going through was the system it wasn't fair that she could get through on a good ballroom dance in the DO whilst her latin wasn't as good and at the end of the day her waltz was better than Austin's but she should have had to have danced her jive against his AS it would have made it fairer - I'm in two minds about the dance-off itself and it's merits but it's not right you get to do on the strongest dance in the two-stage stage. At the end of the day it's the public vote that decides whom you want to save for whatever reason it was a bit unfortunate that Tom also needed saving by his fans that week too as the judges didn't favour him either.

Brian, from what you could gather on ITT this week, seems to be going down the line of a stripped back routine performed well rather than every step and the kitchen sink slung into the routine ... so it will be interesting to see what goes on with that.

If they are marking routines on technical merit to some degree, then that should be made clear - and also what the top score for that particular dance actually is. If an dance, even without errors, doesn't have a hope of scoring a 10 then it seems a bit daft to imply that it could. A dance which had a maximum potential of 8 scoring 7 is quite good, really - but call it 7 out of 10 and people start getting crabby.

I'd also like to see an independantly choreographed identicial routine performed by, say, all the final 4. When they get to dancing 2 dances, have that as one of the dances and spread them out through the show to reduce the audience boredom threshold .

It is interesting - FWIW, I think that the 'kitchen sink' aspect comes from the other key factor in Strictly, which is the GBP. I know Cola's Paso wasn't the best dance of the night, but it was entertaining. So Ricky's complex jive, while it had mistakes, would also have people ooh-ing at how much he was doing.

I'll be interested to see the results of Brian's 'pared back' approach - I'm sure I have heard people called for not trying to do enough.

I don't like the idea of them all doing the same dance - the best pros (and all of the winning ones) choreograph to suit the celebrity - it's one thing for a dance not to suit you, but if someone develops a routine that suits Ricky G rather than Chris, say, can you imagine the outrage...

Funny how they are so sure Ricky isn't topping the public vote isn't it? I wonder how they can be so sure.

Anyway, being the producers fave is more important than being the judges fave. Ricky hasn't been given a storyline and he hasn't had much exposure on ITT so sadly it's obvious he won't get to the final.