It's taken them two years to figure it out what a lot of us have been saying but the dance off isn't fair at this stage, indeed it's not fair at ANY stage.

Do you know, this forum used to be quite a nice happy place. Where I could come on and have a laugh with some like minded people and have a chat about the dancing, the frocks, and the routines. But for the past two years the frigging DO has chucked all that out of the window and now we get the same repetitive moans week in week out, not fair, Len chucked the wrong couple out, could have had the highest vote, why was that person put through when he/she is about as popular as a Stars and Stripes T shirt in Afghanistan?

We abided by one simple rule. The least popular person went every week. Yes, there were some moans but we lived with it. We accepted an amorphous numberless vote. We could move on and talk about the SHOW. What they were dancing. Whether Ian would remove his shirt. INTERESTING things.

4 or 5 people or whatever have absolutely no business deciding who stays and who goes every week. It's not a private contest for them to judge. It's OUR show. We pays the money. We vote. We decide who we like best and who we want to see dance the week after. That's the meaning of public participation TV. What does this momentous decision mean? That the two most popular contestants with the public contest the final. Well, blow me down. How radical. How FLIPPING shocking. We're only going back to what we had before. It's not a fix. It's fairness. It's also equally fair for Ricky and Ali as they do not have to rely or not on a whimsical judges veto to get them through. If one of them goes or indeed Chris it was by a legitimate public vote. If some people can't accept that, then I suggest that all future series are cancelled (probably a good idea) and CRH and co can go and have a late night dance contest for them to judge on BBC3 getting oooh....all of 57 viewers.

I think there's an overwhelming case for the DO to be scrapped altogether as it's provoked more arguments and more bitterness on here in the two years than I can ever remember any other single facet of the show.

The judges decisions in the past haven't exactly all been shafts of genius.

And there's been more stupid voting patterns come to that.

It was never purely a popularity contest though. It was always designed as part talent part popularity. Dancing on Ice and X Factor both have skate offs/sing offs between the bottom two so why shouldn't Strictly have a dance off.

I would say that the 4 or 5 people that you refer to are infinitely better equipped to decide who should stay and who should go. For a start they actually have the skill and experience to make the decision but more importantly, they see everything - all we see is what the cameras let us see and often that leaves much to be desired.

What is so fair about a public vote. Its not exactly as if the public vote on fair criteria is it. From everything I see on here its all about I don't like x because of their pro partner or I don't like y because they aren't in the soap I watch or I don't like z because I don't like their smile. Hardly objective is it.

X Factor scrap the sing off from the last 5 which is completely right. DOI is generally perceived as fairer because the two people were there did have the lowest votes and sometimes because of the dangerous nature of DOI it's better to put certain people out who may seriously injure themselves.

To the bit I've highlighted....if they do have all that, why are most decisions that are taken by them mean reams of argument on here the next day?

Yes, the public vote is objective. By and large, they do not have a vested interest in getting a certain person through unlike the panel last year when they were hell bent on getting two relatively unpopular girls through ahead of two popular boys. They will vote for the people who entertain them the most. I'm really at a loss if you think that's a bad thing. They aren't dancing for a professional contract at the end of the day. Why public opinion is such a terrifying thing to some on here when it's relative to a bit of fluffy Saturday night entertainment is inexplicable.

But when push comes to shove, when they are backed into a corner, when their backs are against the wall and other general in a hole type cliches ... the powers-that-be always back the personality/entertainment/popularity angle.

The judges get their chance to rank the leaderboard, and are just as prone to personal bias let's not forget. The public get their chance to rank their leaderboard. The scores are added. Lowest leaves. It served the show well for 4 series and arguably gave us the best overall winners the show has had.

The BBC brought in the danceoff because noisy people didn't like promising dancers being kicked off by the combination of the votes and calls.
They gave the judges extra power so we wouldn't have Chris Parker/Julian Clary situations again.

Now, noisy people on the other side of the fence (or who were previously on that side of the fence) how think the danceoff is a bad idea because it stops the popular favourite getting through to the final.

It's a bit of a mess isn't it?
Or at least, it's a mess for a BBC who slither around from one panic to another trying to please everybody all the time and ending up pleasing noone - least of all the Daily Mail who are quite likely to latch onto this as another pinko liberal plot to waste the license fee.

And that's about the size of it!

If the judges were given the extra power for the reason you say, it obviously didn't work - otherwise John Sergeant wouldn't have lasted so long and been set to win SCD6 (if the leaked voting figures were acurate)!

Empowering the judges has massively increased the tension between them and the audience. Where is the sense in that?

I think that's rather the point. They're incompetent and apply sticking plasters to whatever problem's in front of them and never think anything properly through.

I never claimed that it worked, or indeed that there was any sense in it.

They never foresaw the John Sargent situation, just as they didn't foresee the scoring debacle in the semi final last year, or the undesirability of a two couple final this year.

Whenever there's a blip, they try to find a fix.
But as each fix is designed to address a very specific issue, there's always the potential of it working against the 'greater good' in a different set of circumstances.

Why do you think the dance off was introduced then?

The dance off was introduced to try to stop more talented dancers going too early - that is perfectly true.

However, it would not have prevented a Julian Clary situation and we don't know if it would have prevented a Chris Parker situation.

Julian still would have made the final three and Chris may have done.

Even with a dance off, series 2 would still have had the same final result. It was the public who decided that, having got Julian to the final three, enough was enough and the better dancers should now take precedence.

The dance off should go when there are only three couples left; that is the plan at the beginning of every series. I'm only sorry that it's taken the bbc so long to realise the fact and that they've chosen to announce it at the last minute because that does indeed smack of a panicky "Oh b*gger - how do we get out of this one?" decision rather than rationally realising that this was what should have happened two series ago.

Servalan! *smooch*. We did it!

It didn't work last year (definitely) and all it achieves is a lot of arguments and bad feeling. I think it should be scrapped as a failed experiment and we should go back to how it used to be.

Of course some people seem to be annoyed because in their madcap way through this chaotic series Cola have connected with the voters in a fluid way that few contestants can master and fewer bother to fake.

Ali, a little madam? I don't think so.

It was more to avoid a Spoony situation I think? That is, a "good dancer goes out really early" situation.

And to be fair, it usually works, more or less - no really good dancers went out in the first half of this series.

I have to disagree with that: Zoe Lucker may have been hit by the curse of the samba, but showed loads of potential prior to that ...

Just realized last year's winner was a BBC employee! Tom Chambers was appearing on Holby City, a BBC show. It's a conspiracy!

Plus we didn`t get to see if Martina had potential - stupid Len choosing Rav over her

I don't really buy the personal bias of the judges. Believe me, from my experience of competitive dancing in the real world, judging can be so incredibly biased it makes the public vote look sensible. However, that is because you have people who are teaching competitors judging, strategic alliances between judges for various reasons etc.

You don't get any of that on Strictly. None of the judges have anything to gain from favouring any of the celebrities and mark it as they see it. Craig normally correctly, Len normally far too leniently but ultimately the rank order in which they place everyone is pretty consistent.

When its really close, you will naturally get differences of opinion between them but I believe their adjudications are genuinely based on an appraisal of the performances given and nothing else.

This was the classic case of everyone at home assuming that the best dancers are safe through being at the top of the leaderboard and not voting for them as a result. Ali hasn't been in the dance off since so it can't be down to unpopularity.

This I feel was one of the big reasons behind introducing the dance off but it doesn't work as it should when you end up with two of the best at the bottom of the public vote

No mess - the dance off is fair enough until you get to the final 5. After that time it gives the judges too much power.

So follow the X factor - and scrap the dance off once we have our last 5 contestants. By then its time to let the public decide!

Why does it give the judges too much power? It gives them the same amount of power that they have in every other week. All this fuss is because Cola were not guaranteed to avoid a dance off if they were last on the judges leaderboard. However, whoever is top with the public in any week of the competition isn't safe from the dance off, it depends on how the public rank everyone else.

What has really weakend the power of the judges this year is the stupid tie rule. It would be more sensible for the judges to be asked to break ties by giving the respective ranking for each of the tied couples like they do in the Eurovision Dance Contest.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but your theory is flawed: Tom Chambers was leaving Holby City when he signed up for Strictly. So he had no allegiance to the BBC, nor they to him - hence the judges blatantly favouring those non-BBC employees Lisa and Rachel ...

Re the sentence I highlighted: no, I don't think it is. I think it's a direct descendent of the public vs. judges tension of the last two years (Series 5: the decision to dump Gethin; Series 6: Sergeant-gate, then theloss of Austin Healy in order to preserve the judges' darling Lisa Snowdon).

The dance-off has put the public and the judges at loggerheads. When the public latch on to a couple, there is huge resentment if the judges then turn on them. If the BBC think that is healthy, they need their heads testing. (But then they do anyway ... )

The BBC coverage on Claudia's show is always tipped in favour of Hollins. Just wait until the final week. It will be total Hollins brainwashing

You do realise that everytime someone says something like this , a Chris supporter somewhere decides to put in an extra vote

Wow, I don't either. I can't believe I've found someone who thinks the way I do about this