It was described as an entertainment show by Jay Hunt

I thought that "corporate lines" were issued to, and followed by, corporate employees.

Quite sad (and rather telling) that you choose to see my personal opinion freely posted as toeing any corporate line

Its not panto or a comedy though and if its just a popularity contest where the weakest but funniest dancer wins, its not something thats compatible with their charter. If it is a popularity contest there's no logic in extending it beyond a week and having months of irrelevant dancing.

But the point is that the judges have too much power - they should still get their say with scoring - but when it gets down to this stage it should be no dance off at all - public should have the final say

Well, that makes sense to me, it's not drama, current affairs, sport or children's, so entertainment would seem to be the logical descriptor for it.

The trouble with the dance off is that one of the two couples will have a higher score than the other. But we never get to know who.

Perhaps it should go back to how it used to be with no dance off and just eliminate the lowest overall scoring couple.

Having said that, wasn't the dance off created to stop weaker dancers from getting through?

If they were seriously trying to do that then they wouldn't have had Ricky 3rd on the leaderboard last night, would they

I not sure if that was its intention but I agree with having the DO for this reason alone.

Ricky was never really in danger They were always going to sve him in the dance off. The only really dangerous position for them was in a Ali v Ricky dance off which they ensured wouldn't happen by placing Ali top of leader board.

And if in that DO he had made a few major mistakes, forgot his routine and was quite obviously inferior? Do you really believe that they would still have put him through?




Which could also have been pure luck rather than a conscious decision. But I guess that you will never accept that rather obvious standpoint.

To question 1 Yes
To question 2 the judges have enjoyed far to much luck and coincidence over the years for me to accept this rather less than obvious standpoint without query.

Ricky was very obviously never in danger from being placed third on the leader board.

I actually think he was in great danger of going out last night. No matter how many times people say it, I am not convinced that "favoured" one this year . If he hadn't changed the routine in the DOhe would have gone. The judges would have said "it wasn't his dance", and/or he "lacked the enthusiasm". Len told him the other week that he could go the way of Austin Healey, and I now believe he was being set up for a fall last night.

I agree and I don't understand why people think he is a favourite with the judges. He is the celebrity with the most natural talent and because of that I feel they expect more from him than the others. I feel he is constantly being criticised from the judges, He gets his routines wrong sometimes because they are so complicated but the bits he gets right are far superior to anyone else. (He's not my favourite but I can recognise how good he is). Ali is very graceful but not exciting to watch. It seems if you are good from week one that means you haven't improved. He has but its just not so obvious.

1) Ali was top of the leader board because she danced the best.

2) People who have been top of the leaderboard can, and do, end up in the dance off. Alesha did notwithstanding the fact that one of her fellow competitors gave up in the middle of his routine and went and sat on the steps and sulked.

3) If they were deliberately trying to protect Ricky's position then they would have placed him as high up the leaderboard as possible and certainly above Chris & Ola. They didn't do that, they placed him where his overall performance merited.

4) Of course he was in no danger against Nathalie in the dance off - she was rubbish in comparison.

Alesha was 2nd that week.

I'll take your word for that but I'm sure there have been cases where celebs who have topped the leaderboard have ended up in the dance off.

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If they'd have the dance-off in their series, Zoe Ball, Denise Lewis and Emma Bunton all would have ended up in the dance-off despite being top of the leaderboard. In fact Emma would have been there twice.

Surely the fairest thing is for the dance off to be scrapped this weekend. Lowest combined score goes home

Depends on what you consider to be fair. Some, myself included, would say that it is patently unfair for someone to dance absolutely brilliantly only to be eliminated on the public vote because the public are too blind/biased etc to appreciate their performance. Its a bit like Rebecca Adlington winning the Olympic 800m final in a world record time but then being told that on the back of a public vote she doesn't get a medal because she has been placed outside the top 3.

Accordingly, the fairest thing would be for the public vote to be scrapped this weekend. Lowest score with the judges goes home

That was how the show worked previously - why should the judges have the greater power when they have already made up their minds about they are going to place people on the leaderboard. I can't trust them after they did their damndest to get the one dimensional Lisa into the final

Lisa may not have been popular but she was a good dancer and that is what the judges judge on, not popularity. The fact that you clearly disliked her does not make it incorrect that the judges should have scored her on her performance.

I suspect the reason the judges were given greater power was to minimise the risk of the show losing its credibility by having a Chris Parker v John Sergeant type final They have been given less power this year because of the scoring rules for tied scores which gives a massive advantage to the weakest dancers.

If you want to go back to the original format then there should be only 8 celebs instead of 16, Arlene would come back in place of Alesha, they would ditch Charleston, Rock n Roll, Argentine Tango, Salsa, American Smooth etc.

It's not really similar, the judging on SCD is still subjective..even by the experts. A couple of weeks ago, Craig gave a dance a 4, but Len gave the couple an 8 for the same routine. That's a wide margin of error among expert judges. Another thing I'm not so sure about..the judges are supposed to mark the competitors on what they see "on the night". I'm not entirely convinced this is always the case. I believe the judges feel it is their job to make sure the best dancers reach the final..understandably. Therefore, they mark on past performances..Ricky and Ali have both benefited from this when producing lacklustre routines. Sometimes the reasons for giving higher marks have made me smile.."not your best dance, but you have the most beautiful arms of any dancer to appear on SCD"..clutching at straws to justify another mark of 9 more like.

Me thinks some people have danced too far away from reality. The leaderboard of last saturday did justice to the performances of that night. If there was manipulation by the judges, they did a poor job. They managed to get it right this time. So there's no need to don the alu hats and conspire away into eternity.
As for next saturady, let's just wait and see.

My view.

The Rock n Roll dances were both weaker than the Charlestons. Had Ricky been forced by the public to Dance off against one of the Charleston Couples he would have been in deep doo doo.

Fact is had Ricky performed in the first place the way he did in the Dance Off he would have been higher on the Leader Board.

The trouble with conspiracy theories is that the Judges would have to agree in advance who would get what mark. Given the wide disparity between Len and Craig that would be difficult to organise.

I have posted before here that when you have a competition that is settled purely by opinion you will always get accusations of bias.

Leaving aside last Saturday in my opinion over the series thus far Ricky and Ali have been better than the others with the possible exception of Jade. But then we will never know had Kelly been able to stay in the competition whether Alesha would have won.

As for the Dance Off it was introduced the year after Spoony was booted off the show despite being far from the worst dancer.