.... hmmmm! Has struck me that a way to make the finals (which often seem to be a 2 person jobbie due to injury etc) is to put the SCD xmas special on BETWEEN the semi finals and final week.... it would still be seasonal but would allow for that "missing" week between 3 finalists and 2....

The other option could be to stick to this formula and if no one went out due to injury etc we could try a 4 person final (a longer show so less need for padding), or stick to the 2 person final idea and have a shock 2 person eviction in the quarters or semis...

any other suggestions about how to deal with the 2 person final dilemma??

Have a roll over week?

Pick one of the departed couple out of a hat to return?

Anything to spare us an all Hollyoaks final.

Well i think the rollover idea is flawed due to the fact that the competitive element is missing (which would remove most of the expectation/tension) plus (lets be brutally honest here) the BBC wouldnt make any money out of it...
I think viewing figures would plummet in a rollover week too... the element of competition is the hook that keeps most of the audience interested...

if the Xmas spec was in the penultimate week that'd give the audience the opportunity to vote for the Xmas spec winner (perhaps the finalists could be excluded to remove any element of bias) and help buid up the excitement for the finals...

I'd envisage the xmas spec to be a mixture of former celeb dancers and perhaps the quarter and semi finalists (and maybe some other stand out dancers) from the current series.... Perhaps the finalists could do a form of group dance with their pro's as a part of the Xmas special??

Absolutely, Sid.

The BBC don't make a profit from the voting.

All they'd have to do on a rollover week is not announce that it is a rollover week until the voting stage...

Sorry OP, I wasn't being entirely serious with my suggestions!

I just find the idea of an Ali versus Ricky final less than thrilling.

I might have to find another way to entertain myself that night. Zan, are you free?

Let me check my diary.

Ditto!

Up for a threesome?

But they do roll overs in DWTS in the States. If it works there it should work here. Trust the yanks to take our series and make it better formatted.

I would however love to be able to cast a vote in the Christmas special.

In this weather??

It'd be a way to keep warm, granted.....

Thanks Sid but I just want to be friends....

In America it's free to vote, so they can do ALL SORTS of thing that would have the OFCOM drones over here dialling their fingers to the bone and the Daily Mail doing negative headlines from here to next August.

What I think they should do (and perhaps they've had this idea too) is whet our appetite for the programme by giving the dancers a couple of new dances to try out (rock'n'roll and charlston) and then - but only after the performances - tell us that we're not going to get a vote this week in order to keep the three couple final.

Simples!!

Think I might watch some paint dry

On DWTS a rollover is exciting and doesn't discourage voting because they still do the 'Moment of Truth' bit in the first show, so at the end of the show with no elimination ,everybody knows who the two lowest scoring couples are going forward. (Actually, the 'Moment of Truth' bit is staged throughout the results show adding to the excitement even more.)

This means if you want to save one of those couples from being eliminated in the second show, you have to vote (multiple voting is encouraged as you can vote online a set number of times).

The format changes that DWTS have made to the original SCD format have all been for the better imho -
[LIST][*]No regular dance off, but two double elimination weeks with a dance off and all the couples prepare a 30 second 'dance off dance' of their choice (no lifts).
[*]The staged 'Moment of Truth' (a bit like Amrican Idol) where only a few couples find out at a time if they are safe or in danger.
[*]Marked group dances where the couples are split into two groups to dance together and then ranked on their performances earning extra points.
[*]If a couple withdraws there is no elimination that week and all the scores roll forward.[/LIST]
I'm sure there are more. The actual dances and dancing style/content are different, but the actual show format is now so much better than SCD.