I think Chris's performance of the Charleston was brilliant and he should be particularly praised for keeping in such great time with Ola. Many celebs have struggled with that, especially in the side by side moves.

To play Devil's advocate, I wonder what those who advocate Karen as a judge would have made of her giving Chris a 10?

I only saw the end of Chris & Ola but my OH said it was the best dance of the night.

So if Karen says it it must be right. She showed the same prejudice against Kelly Brook. How hard it is for a girl to win! Chris should not have beeen awarded any '10' imo as his dancing didn't merit it. When they were dancing side by side, Ola out danced him.

As for your observations on rhythm, I totally disagree.

I agree that Chris and Ola would have got a higher score had they danced last. And by the same token I think Laila and Anton would have got a lower score had they danced first. I'm not sure Chris and Ola would have got tens but maybe nines across the board.

Thanks for clarifying.

That is brilliant I hope they ended up winning Thanks for posting it, I never realised it could be quite like that in competitions

Thanks for the link Erinfan. Probably one of the funniest dance scenarios I've seen. I cried with laughing watching it.

They did. They were Amateur World Champs for years, no one came close to them. Franco is...erm...unique! You don't often see floorcraft quite as extreme as that, but quite often couples will swap partners briefly if they get in each others way in latin - that always gets a massive ovation from the audience!

So, Karen would've given Chris a 10 for his Charleston -- Well, there goes her credibility as a judge! At least Alesha gives 10s to good dancers.

Karen as a judge on Strictly? No thank you!

Not likely. I think she says it like it is. When there was the controversy around Erin/Ricky's lift, she completely contradicted Erin on ITT even though Erin was probably still in the studio.

I agree that he should, but not that he would - the judges knew what scores they had given Chris, therefore they had the opportunity to score Ali less but didn't.

As for the VW - I though Laila and Anton were top of the class.

Karen's one of the top ballroom judges in the world and has an incredibly high technical knowledge of each dance. You may not always personally agree with her and she may not be an expert in Charleston, but I don't see how anyone could ever question her credibility as a judge.

How did "would have" turn into "should have"?

(Someone said Karen said "should" later. What we really need is a recording so we can check for ourselves.)


Ballet class as a child does not mean you can do splits as an adult.

Interesting, though, that the first post in a thread billed as about Karen and Chris spends most of it's time poor mouthing Ali and Brian's dances.

We can question anyone's credibility as a judge if their marks don't make sense. Hence much questioning of Len's credibility over the years. Or if they seem biased.


It could depend on what her other marks had been. It's the differences in a judge's marks for different couples that makes a difference to the placings, not the particular mark values.

I enjoyed ALL the Charlestons .
I though Anton was the best pro on Saturday; he was brilliant .

I didn't think Ali was worth a 10 for the VW by a long way and 36 would have been fair for their Charleston, the over the shoulder lift at the end was not great . . Having said that I though Chris was equally as good and he should have had 36 at least .

Melia is famous for mischief. I believe it was her who instigated it. Once Melia saw they had Franco blocked off she held Sergey immobile on the spot. When Sergey realised Franco was tunneling through Sergey widened his legs to help, as Melia looked down in amazement laughing her head off. Well done the agile Franco.

For the bow at the end Sergey walked over to shake Franco's hand. Melia also applauded

The Great Escape

Can any German speakers tell us what the commentator said?

Oh my God, I've just agreed with something Veri said.

*faints*

*wakes up*

Sorry, where were we? Oh yes, Karen. I'm struggling to understand how the producers haven't offered her a judging slot yet as she's clearly made her mark on the public this series. Perhaps they have and she's turned it down?

I don't know about that

But back to the topic - we have got to contgact the Beeb - the system is skewedd against the public favourite

Maybe we could point out that if Cola aren't competiting in the final then the audience figures would drop significantly

It didn't. Both verbs were used.


I tried to be as precise as I could in my recollection (Breakfast isn't on iPlayer). I'm not sure forensic linguistic analysis is really called for though? It was just an interesting snippet from the media coverage, that's all.


Indeed. It can though, of course, as I said. And given that Ali's leg extensions were singled out for praise by Bruno in his comments, and it had earlier been mentioned on ITT by Craig that Ali had "balletic training" I hardly see why you're so upset by the comment! (Incidentally lots of people do ballet as children, so I'm by no means making out it's some sort of unfair advantage).


I don't think it's very interesting myself, but then again I don't think your description of my post is accurate, so there you go. They showed clips of two Charlestons and there was a clear difference in the synchronisation and coordination with the music. You can argue about what scores should have been, but it's probably not worth getting too worked up about. Meanwhile, Laila and Anton were not mentioned at all, which was a bit of a shame in my view, as I thought they were rather good on Saturday.

There is a very big difference between "would have" and "should have" in this case, and I think we need a clip so we can hear for ourselves what Karen said, how she said it, and the context.


No, if someone can do splits as an adult it is not because of ballet training as a child. Ballet class as a child does not mean you can do splits as an adult; it doesn't sometimes mean it and sometimes not.


Over half of the post was about Ali and Brian's dances, and the comments about them were negative.


Before, "it seemed to me that Ali and Brian's one was somewhat lacking in rhythm"; now it's "a clear difference". So again, I think we need to see a clip of the Breakfast segment so we can judge for ourselves. Different people see such things differently, just as they do when watching SCD.

Duplicate deleted, see below.

I think that if (big if) the BBC have asked, she probably has turned them down, as she's giving private lessons to couples, for very "discreet" fees, as well as running a dance school, and is in immense demand as a judge, commentator and event host

So it depends how Karen's business rides out the recession, and whether the BBC have left any offer on the table or not.

I wouldn't have complained if Chris had got a couple of tens.

Let's face it, lesser routines have been awarded a perfect score in the past.

Karen's credibility is based on recognised qualifications to judge dance internationally - prior to which she was a world champion in dance.

Now how does Alesha measure up to that>

I'm not a great fan of it, probably not a co-incidence that the being nasty about contestants threads have greatly increased as the competition narrows

I actually thought that both charleston's were great but that and although Chris' was more entertaining, Ali was better technically and therefore deserved more marks.