If you could swap Jade with Ricky then the final 4 would be better.

If you swap Jade with Laila the final 4 would be waaay better

It could have been. I couldn't see enough of the dancing with the camera work to see. But we're also talking perception here. A group VW is right up Anton's street more than probably anything else on Strictly, so a lot of folks would expect that even if he had to drag Craig Kelly round in a dress Anton could have made his VW look pretty damn good.

Back to perception again, I was watching with three other people and as soon as it was mentioned how the scoring was gonna be done - judges discuss among themselves and score each couple out of ten - all three said something along the lines of Ricky and Laila are tied, so the judges are gonna score them at least a point higher than Laila.

Results came in from judges - Ali first, Ricky second. And Ricky goes up a place on the leaderboard. Everybody gives an ironic 'now there's a surprise'. Could have been judged perfectly right on the dancing - like I said, I didn't see enough to tell. But the perception of that style of scoring is a disaster for the judges. They should drop it. Whatever they do, it 'looks' like a kabal sorting out the leaderboard for their 'favourites'. And the public vote to correct that. Craig's six for Laila and Anton first time around didn't help much either on that score.

I prefer a truthful OP and title to be honest. God knows there's enough hyperbole elsewhere.

And from the reaction of other posters, I see I'm not alone in being annoyed by that absolutist statement. It smacks of dogma.


Yes, but they're over a much longer period. Hell, SCD voting used to be run over an entire week - now it's 15 minutes on a Saturday evening.

So there'll naturally be far less votes cast (which is inherently more volatile), and people are far more likely to change their minds based on what they've seen. Or, for example, if a contestant had a high-profile incident (such as an injury or a goof) in the past 24 hours.

So the votes this year are almost certainly more volatile than in previous years.

In fact, they're so volatile that I suspect they're vulnerable to manipulation.


Again, 15 minutes. Not a lot of time.



Yes - and the less contestants, the less the judges marks count. That's always the case.


It's a reasonable guess.

But it's not "know".

Assuming you're positing a Big Judge Conspiracy for some reason (why?), then why didn't they simply give him better marks in the first dance?

Or maybe Rickys VW was better than Lalia's

There's a Big Judge Conspiracy, don't you know?

It's called "Let's give the better dancers the higher marks".

They're sneaky them judges...

If you could get rid of Chris and bring Jade back the final would be open and competitive. Although I doubt if they would have got all of Ali, Ricky and Jade to the final if she had stayed in as the risks of two in a dance off and splitting the votes would be greater.

What is iffy about that for me is the fact that the Judges are experienced in judging a group dance, the viewers have no way of knowing if they are being fair or not as we have to rely on a cameraman - not ideal

I adore your warm, charming and light hearted touch. I love a man who doesn't take himself too seriously!

It's a gift.

As a suggestion, how about phrasing your next thread as a question? You might get less knee-jerk negative reactions then.

The only judge with any experience of judging this way is Len Goodman.

Using Anton's phrase, In real dancing the judges would have all had to rank the couples in order 1 to 5 and then a scrutineer would work out the combined order 1 to 5.

I suspect they didn't use that system. Lord knows what half-baked method they used.

I

I don't know why people think the judges are trying to keep a particular dancer out of the DO. So called judges' favourites' have been known to go. Remember Austin? I hate it when there are ties as this benefits the person at the bottom of the leaderboard most under the new scoring system. Taking into consideration that he had to lead, I think he did just have the edge over Laila. Chris was the one who was slightly underscored but it made no difference to his overall position and probably did a great deal towards maintaining his popularity.

Not always - there are loads of different judging systems possible.

Not in real dancing.

People like conspiracy theories.

And the problem with conspiracy theorists is, they ignore the evidence. That's pretty much why they're conspiracy theorists.


Whilst I agree, I suspect you're missing the "conspiracy theorists ignore evidence" concept I meantioned...

Yes, in real dancing.

Sure, the skating system is common (see "How a ballroom dance is judged"), but there are many other systems for dance judging.

I'm a fan of Ricky, but I didn't like his dance the first time around as much as Ali and Chris' - it wasn't the crowd pleaser, so he was going to struggle in the public vote. Laila, on the other hand, was much better in this than any other non-ballroom dance she's done - the floating voters have a big say - it'll probably all change again next week.

AS for the VW, we know Ricky scores highly in ballroom and he had by far the tougher job than Laila - you can tell from the celebs girls reactions afterwards they hadn't had to work as hard.

No conspiracies, just voters reacting to different dances.

If there really was a conspiracy to keep Ricky in, they'd have given him the more crowd pleasing dance. The 3 charlestons were way more entertaining than the 2 rock'n'rolls. If the dance choices had been reversed, I'd say the dance off would have been different. The idea of Chris and Laila (and Anton!) doing rock'n'roll? Frightening!!

Again, you're falling into the "These people are reasonable and will be convinced by actual evidence" trap.

Personally I thought Ricky danced much better in the dance off and he came across and genuinely upset to see Natalie go. He is a good dancer but his partner is the offputting person in the competition imo!

With only five couples left who can tell? No doubt there's always a hardcore of support for specific couples, but I'd hazard that voting figures overall fluctuate depending on the performance on the night. I thought it was fair enough Ricky was in the dance off tonight because his first stab at the rock 'n' roll was a mess.


I agree it's a pity Jade has gone. But I'd have liked to see her in the final four with Ali, not at the expense of Ali....


...nor at the expense of Ricky. In what sense would a final four without Ricky be 'better'? No way does Ricky not deserve to be in the final four based on dancing ability.

But would they have known that before the programme was shown? The jive (from which the rock'n'roll takes its roots) is the most crowd pleasing dance on Strictly. I'd have had doubts about Ricky selling a Charleston far more than I would a rock'n'roll.

By the way, I'm not saying the judges fixed the leaderboard one way or another (and if they did try and do it for Ricky it didn't work). I just think throwing dance choice in as "evidence" after the event doesn't convince any more than certain counter-arguments do.

As for the VW, I thought Ricky was just as good as Laila and, therefore, would have placed him above her by virtue of having to lead (exceptionally difficult in a group dance.) Mind you, I thought Laila was as good as Ali and would have had both couples on equal points. Which would have made no difference to the overall scores as they stood. I'll shut up now.