Yes, but a lot of people here think that he was more popular with the public than Lisa and the judges saved "their favorite" (i.e. Lisa) over him.

The same scenario could happen again with Team Cola this year, although, as someone rightly said, none of us know how the public vote is going. All we have are a couple of polls to base our judgement of popularity on.

You must be kidding - Lisa was overmarked - and her jive was awful - she barely moved one foot from the floor - Lisa should have gone - she was the weakest all round dancer

There are also scenarios where Ricky can get 40, Ali 39 and Chris can pull a funny face, sit on the floor,watch Ola dance, get 4 and still get through. The judges have the problem as things get near the end that they don't know what the order of the top two's votes will be or that they won't perform in clearly the opposite order and with only 3 or 4 people there its much easier for the publc vote to completely reverse the scoreboard. It is pretty equal - its random whether votes or ability decide.

The requirements on people are actual biased in several ways towards the most popular . The best dancer can't afford to be least popular of the three and the most popular dancer needs to be not the worst dancer. Whichever succeeds avoids the dance off, if both succeed the most popular goes though and, if neither succeeds, the votes also give the worst dancer the advantage.

Let me guess. All of these "many" scenarios involve a dance off where Chris is against a better dancer.

Any idea how small the minority of viewers who vote is, btw?

You might argue Austin was better than Lisa in the dance off and she had a few marks too many for her first QF dances but you can only do so because those two both had a high standard of performance and the gap was arguable. Its impossible to argue that Chris is anywhere near Ricky W or Ali in ability unless either has another major injury or off floor problem and massively underperforms on the night. He might be funnier but the judges are not judging Find A New Clown.

Some people undoubtably will think that the judges will save their favourite but they will think that even if its marked completely on dancing merit because they are thinking in terms of some other criteria.

Without a doubt he was more popular then Lisa, Austin never appeared in the bottom two until it was virtually impossible for him to get out of it, Lisa had previously appeared there twice, one week with the same score as Austin, and was back again on for the third time.

Yeah - that ids easy - who would Ali beat in a public vote- an who would she stand no chance against

What IS the problem?
If loads of people like Cola and they win then what's the big deal?
Or if Ali wins or the man in the hat behind Dave Arch?

Or Will Young? I shall be delighted if Cola win but it's not the Nobel Prize for Peace.

I think some people would like the judges to be out of it completely, but that's not SCD.

Do X Factor viewers complain that Simon & Co have a role in deciding who stays / goes, or is it only considered a problem for SCD?

The concern may not be so much about who wins as about who gets to the final.

In the final it's all down to the public vote, no?

Exactly.

Once they get to the quarter final the judges on Xfactor have no say - it goes on the public vote only.

You seem to be under the mistaken impression that the only people to vote are the small number who read & post on these forums, and that any such campaign (real or imagined) would have any real effect. And that such outcomes can in fact be fixed.

For a conspiracy theory, that one ranks with the best.

The rules of the contest do expect a 3-couple final. That is the supposed outcome every year. Only BBC incompetence fails to make it so.

It would SO be worth watching if it were all fixed. What riveting entertainment that would be! NOT............

And before that, if the bottom 2 eviction vote goes to deadlock then the public vote is the decider, not another go for Simon

I do have a problem with those who suggest that the DO should be suspended at some arbitrary point e.g. the QF.

That does smack of wanting your cake and eating it.

If the DO system has rectitude in the first place, there's every argument for keeping it as long as possible. However a big problem with it, as many have pointed out, is it potentially endangers the televote winner...in any round but it's perceived far more likely in December. I believe the DO causes at least as many problems as it solves and doesn't seem to me to have prevented what it was ostensibly brought in to prevent.

In other words the DO should be scrapped altogether.

Simon though can decide the running order, who gets the best songs,who gets the best and most expensive performance support, who gets the best VTs, even who the soundman turns up or down - and he has decided on the xmas number already - one that fits 2 contestants.

The BBC blurs the purpose of SCD by showing a story for each contestant. Weaker dancers tend to get stories focusing on something else. Stronger dancers tend to end up not looking silly or like they are trying as hard if not harder. That allows people to think Chris is cute and funny when for all we know Laila is the best comedienne but has been given another, Anton based, story. Simon just wouldn't allow one of his weakest people the VTs, the airtime or back story to do that well.

Ah! So that's what explains the peculiar nature of the 3-way final "petition". I was wondering why it seemed to involve conspiracy theories about a new scoring system and alleged pro-Ali bias.


Exactly. The aim of the game is to impress both the judges and the public.

Forum comments can affect both the show's decisions and what appears in the press.

It has prevented the worst of what it was meant to prevent . Without it there would have been no females in the last 3 for the last two years as we know most of the top females fell to the bottom of the public vote at some point and there's a decent probability all did. It hasn't been able to deal with the voters moving on further and dumping two good dancers or most Black people, apart from Alesha, (think Heather, Ray, Spooney) into the bottom two regardless of how well they do. It does however allow the judges to limit the damage by saving the best.

If anything the trend from recent reality TV shows is getting worse - both the current IAC and this year's DOI suggest straight, white males and a particular type of older woman alone can do well regardless of ability or story. If the votes are that biased, its the public vote thats going to have to go at some point.

Big Brother (and arguably even Celeb BB) point the other way though, with Sophie (and Ulrika) winning.

Perhaps BB is further along in some developing change, just as it used to be in having the anti-female bias that now seems to afflict other shows.

I would argue that, actually

I think without the dance off, last year would have seen Jodie in the final 3 ... and Jade this year without injury I'd speculate would still be there.

All the dance off has done, really is move the danger area up a couple of notches. Whereas pre-dance off all that was needed was to raise the bottom couple one place, now the bottom couple has to be raised by at least 2 places and the 2nd bottom by at least one place. The vunerable places now are the previously 'safer' ones ... and that more than anything is what 'did' for Heather. The weeks she found herself in the dance off she was third and fourth from the bottom of the leader board.

In series 1, 3 times over 8 weeks the bottom of the leader bord left. Series 2 is actually the one where there has been the most synchronisation between public and judges - in an 8 week series only 3 times did the lowest placed person stay. Series 3 has the most out of step - in a 10 week series only twice did the lowest placed dancer go home.

Series 4 shows that 5 times the lowest placed couple left (12 weeks), series 5&6 with the dance off shows over 12 weeks of series 5, 6 times the lowest placed person left and series 6 over 14 weeks that 5 times the lowest placed was elimiated. So far in series 7 after 11 week 4 times the bottom couple have left ... so on the face of it series 4, 5 and 6 both pre and post dance off have been remarkably consisent in the times the lowest placed dancer has actually been eliminated.

That's a very naive and typically one-dimensional analysis. It doesn't allow for the more hidden or unintended effects on the psychology of voting of any rule change. You cannot isolate the DO and argue 'without the DO, this or that would have happened'...the DO is part of the fabric of the whole system and potentially has wide-ranging effects, beyond the obvious ones, that are impossible to quantify.

It's quite possible that the voters are compensating now for the enhanced power of the judges leading to results equally as erratic as before...perhaps even over-compensating.

I'm taking a broad perspective which is the only rational way of looking at it. Has the DO prevented good couples from going too early? Absolutely not. The only real question is can it all be reversed by removing the DO...and IMO they have to try because there are too many other undesirable consequences of having it.

I sincerely doubt the first one. She was dunked into the dance-off in week 1, was protected by a legion of seriously awful men and Heather as a buffer for a few weeks, and then couldn't even get past Christine Bleakley. Ian's partners have a long history of being more popular on the forums (and with me) than they turn out to be in the mainstream.

There's a possiblity that Jade might have made it a few weeks further, but she's lucky (in terms of her perception) that she was preserved in aspic at her height - having just aced the jive (for a giantess) and on the verge of "her best dance yet". Would her support have really lingered through the rumba? Or whatever she would have done this week? Another hissy fit at Ian? I kind of doubt it, regardless of the dance-off.

I don't really understand all the comments that the judges have an "agenda". I don't dispute that they have their favourites, but surely there is no reason for them to favour anyone other than whoever they think is the best dancer. They have nothing to gain by keeping anyone who is both unpopular and not the best dancer.

The whole point of having "professional" judges is to provide balance between judging of the technical capabilities of the celebs and their popularity as judged by the public.

I know some people want public only judging, but clearly from a number of comments on this board, not everyone wants strictly to be just a popularity contest.
Conversely the public want a say in what happens, hence the 2 sets of marks resulting in the overall score.

OK so the judges get to decide in the dance off, but the public get the overriding vote where points are equal, so pretty fair really.