[quote=MARTYM8;37112402]
He isn't almost certain to be in the dance off. He could come 1st, 2nd or 3rd with the judges (depending on how he and the others dance), there could be a tie which immediatly dilutes the judges scoring, if he is bottom with the judges then there is every chance he won't be in the dance off - depending on how the public vote between the other two which in turn depends on how the other two dance next week and we have no way of knowing how that will be other than to speculate.

X factor have a 100% public vote from the last 5 - you really must have a low opinion of your fellow human beings if you think people can be manipulated by Cowell or anyone else into picking up a phone and voting for someone they don't like. Leon Jackson and Alexandra - who won the last 2 years - weren't Cowell's favourites.

At no time in the X factor can the person topping the public vote leave the competition - in SCD that can happen and is likely to next week.


Please BBC - trust the public. Whooever tops the public vote should never be allowed to go home that week!

Next week could be a nightmare for the BBC:

Ricky gets 3 + 1 = 4
Ali gets 2+2 = 4
Chris gets 1 + 3 = 4.

How likely is that? Or are there double points from the judges next week?

But X Factor is a pure popularity contest with little element of talent (seriously, it lost any credibility as a talent contest the second Jedward were put through). Strictly is roughly 50% talent and 50% popularity which simply means those who vote on popularity (Cola fans at the moment) campaign for it to be 100% popularity because their favourite usually isn't as talented. Those who vote on talent campaign for it to be 100% talent (although these are usually less vociferous than the popularity voters)

[quote=ellie1167;37112540]
Indeed if this week happens again as we suspect it did

Chris gets 3 public + 1 judges
Ricky if he beats Ali gets 1 plus 3
and Ali gets 2 plus 2.

Chris goes through however terrible he is.

It depends then on what the judges decide on and whether Ali has one better dance than Ricky or not.

Chris also goes through if he beats either of both of them in the dancing - which isn't much to ask of a winner.

The only way Chris goes is if Ali can beat Ricky and retain the public vote lead.

Ali and Ricky have it all to do they have to outscore each other and keep or better their vote and they have to have a dance off dance that is better than the other's. Chris basically just has to turn up and hope Ricky is dancing well and the public vote stays the same.

Well, it depends. How probable is it that Chris will be 3rd with the judges. Last week he scored higher than Ricky on his Charleston v Rock n Roll so it is possible that he won't be 3rd. However, there isn't any real doubt that overall he has usually been the worst dancer of the three which suggests it is more likely than not that he will be 3rd with the judges - say a 75% chance

It then depends on whether he tops the public vote or not. We have no way of knowing whether he is or not but it seems likely - perhaps a 75% chance. It then assumes that the other two get voted in the right order by the judges and the public to ensure the outcome above (which is 50/50). Putting all of the above together it is about a 60% chance that he won't be in the dance off and about a 40% chance that he will.

This is my first year following SCD, so I'm not up to scratch with all the rules. Therefore my question:
If there is a 3-way tie, does the winner of the public vote automatically go through?

[quote=ianswaiting;It then depends on whether he tops the public vote or not. We have no way of knowing whether he is or not but it seems likely - perhaps a 75% chance. It then assumes that the other two get voted in the right order by the judges and the public to ensure the outcome above (which is 50/50). Putting all of the above together it is about a 60% chance that he won't be in the dance off and about a 40% chance that he will. .[/QUOTE]

Yes - but the public voting for Chris can't control if he avoids the dance off. Only the fewer numbers voting for Ali and Ricky can - and the order they place them in.

So say Chris is third on the judges vote, Ricky 2nd and Ali 1st next week.

Say Chris gets 90% of the public vote Ali gets 6% and Ricky 4% So we have a Ricky (3 pts) vs Chris (4pts) dance off as Ali has 5 points. So Chris goes

In this scenario 90% of the public are denied their preferred finalist - and the finalists are decided by a handful more people who voted for Ali vs Ricky plus 5 judges who are accountable to no one.

Outside North Korea where would that be considered a just outcome?!

Yes - if there is a 3 way tie in the combined judge/public vote then the public vote takes precedence.

Its perfectly fair as it assumes a particular scenario which is by no means certain and you could say the same abojut those voting for Ali and Ricky.

Chris can decide himself whether he gets through to the final - he can outdance both Ricky and Ali and then rely on not being bottom with the public.

That makes sense.

Who decides who outdances who - 5 judges or hundreds of thousands of voters? The judges votes are arbitrary and random and cast before they have seen all 3 couples - Len actually ranked Ali and Chris equal on points tonight I believe whereas the others had Ali ahead (so even the judges aren't consistent).

I agree that a dance-off at this stage is wrong, not only because it gives the judges far more than their 50% share of the power, but because once they are doing two dances it is no longer a fair reflection of the better couple. However, if Chris is as far ahead as he is supposed to be, if Chris voters give a third of their votes to whoever is second on the leaderboard that should be enough to see him through.

I will NEVER accept they were right over Colin! The rest I can accept but, not that one. Couldn't stand him them, still can't stand him now.

So you think Darren Gough has more talent as a dancer than Leona Lewis has as a singer?

SCD is a popularity contest pure and simple. The winner doesn't matter in the end - whereas on X factor someone gets the X mas no 1 and a £1m record deal.

PS Jedward got voted off - due to the PUBLIC - two weeks ago!

Let's assume, as seems likely, Chris comes bottom of Judges' scoring and top from the GBP. There are four possibilities for Chris NOT to be in the D/O:

(sorry this looks rubbish but can't put in tables and it seems to ignore spaces)


Chris 1+3 = 4
Ricky 3+1 = 4 ...D/O
Ali 2+2 = 4 ... D/O



Chris 2+3 = 5
Ricky 3+1 = 4 ...D/O
Ali 3+2 = 5 ...D/O


(The other two possibilities are the same but with Ricky and Ali changed)

I think there are two possibilities for Chris to be in the D/O:


Chris 1+3 = 4 ... D/O
Ricky 3+2 = 5
Ali 2+1 = 3 ... D/O

(The other one is R and A interchanged again)

So, if the assumption at the top is correct, Chris has a 66% chance of avoiding the D/O. (Actually, that's not true, because tied scores are unlikely with 5 judges - but it's still better than 50%)

It would be really good if AT THE END OF THE SERIES, the BBC published the public votes. We could then see how the votes were transferred after people left. Would be interesting.

Yes - but is it right if the person topping the public vote goes? It is totally wrong in my view!

Neither. It's the way they dance that decides. However, it's also what the judges marks are about, while people vote for a wide range of reasons.

BTW, how do you know it's 100s of 1000s of voters?


The judges aren't consistent with each other -- which is one reason there's more than one judge -- but their votes are not arbitrary or random.

There's nothing wrong with marking each dance as it comes rather than waiting until everyone has danced. Every sport with judges' marks that I can recall off hand works that way, rather than waiting 'till the end.

It is right that the same rules apply to all of the contestants rather than the show changing them to protect Chris.

When it is close, the judges can have different opinions, that is why there are 5 of them. As regards who outdances who, the judges decide that, its what they are paid for, and are more qualified to do so than most of the hundreds of thousands. Their votes are rarely random or arbitrary.

What you need to remember is the judges have the best seats in the house and see everything. We only see what the cameras let us see and the camera work is sometimes abysmal. I found it inexplicable that the judges chose to save Ricky & Erin over Phil Tuffnell but I wasn't to know that they did a huge cock up right in front of the judges desk that wasn't on camera.

I would prefer that they vote after they have seen everyone dance though because doing it as they do now gives whoever went 1st a huge disadvantage (which may well explain why Ali had lower scores tonight) because as a judge you can't give the 1st couple to dance 10 in case someone comes along and dances better.

They were equally wrong not to put Zoe in the final two against Colin - she was completely robbed that year We're such suckers for anyone who constantly utters the word *journey*

The public vote (or the vote by those who vote) is difficult to under-estimate and Simon has vast experience playing with it. He clears the way for winners by removing their competition as well as increasing their advantages. This year he didn't let much of it in and got rid of some, like Lucie, who made it. Alex was his winner when it became clear Diana wouldn't win - she's a shoe in from when she gets the strongest vocals in Hero. Leon I agree wasn't any good and shows that you can't win all the time but you can ride with that in a poor year and just dump him asap afterwards - there was the obvious problem pushing Rhydian that he wasn't a pop singer anyway.

SCD and most other talent shows don't let the public vote alone decide because history shows that what you get are onesided finals, finals without the best people in them and winners who would be almost always white and male. Alesha would have been the only girl to have made a final in the last 4 series without the dance off as everyone else ended up bottom of the vote at some point and even she was behind Gethin and Matt in the vote in her QF. Given what happened in series 3 too, there wouldn't have been a female in the last two for 5 series if the public vote in series 5 had been the same the next week.

You're confusing different issues. Perhaps winning XF has a larger affect on someone's life, but that doesn't stop XF from being (largely) a popularity contest.

Meanwhile, SCD is not a popularity contest pure or simple. No matter how much some people would like SCD to be an "entertainment show" in which dancing was irrelevant, or a pure popularity contest, in which the judges marks either didn't exist or were ignored, SCD is neither of those things.

I meant Jedward being put through to the TV stages in the 1st place but the public were just as guilty for keeping them in for 8 weeks

SCD isn't purely a popularity contest (although the final is more of one than the rest because it is purely on the public vote).

I don't believe Darren had much talent as a dancer and certainly don't believe he should have won. Leona clearly has more talent - all I can say is that the public are inconsistent and suffer from intermittent blindness and deafness.

Yes - but do the public who spend their hard earned money voting understand the rules?

Do they understand that the only way they can save Chris next week if Ali tops the public vote is to vote for Ricky almost as much as Chris to ensure Ali comes bottom in the public vote. I doubt it - and even so why should Chris voters also have to phone in and vote for Ricky just to allow Chris a chance to get to the final?

Its the public being ripped off and deprived of their preferred winner that I have an issue with!