The 2 dancers the public think are the best WILL get to do their showdance!

I can't see it Veri. Chris is a lovely fellah but, the judges love Ali. She's doing the AS this week and I predict the first 50 in the history of SCD, which will make up for any shortcomings she may have in the AT.

If the judges love Ali, why do they say almost every week that her performance is lacking, that she's a "one trick pony", etc? The judges often come across as lukewarm at best about her.

That was the first time I've heard Len criticise her like that and in the live thread I said "it's a bit late now". Alesha told her at least twice that she was the front-runner. Very few people would have got away with being marked so highly with an injury from Craig.

Sorry Veri, I know you love Ali, but she has been the judges favourite for a while. I really don't mean it in a bad way because her ballroom is exquisite and she deserves to be encouraged for it but, her Latin isn't all that and this is the first week I've actually seen the judges properly criticise her for it.

Judge criticism of her performance skills have been a constant after every single Latin performance she's done. They're accurate, and often balanced out with praise for her technical abilities (particularly her flipping arms), but this "where's the passion?" from the judges is absolutely nothing new.

Len called her cha-cha "too airy-fairy" and a "Darcey Bussey cha cha". Bruno said her salsa "had all the ingredients but she failed to ignite". Her paso got roasted in terms of performance. And so on.

They may criticise her, and why not, but their points don't match up. She could fall over and sit down for the rest of the dance and they'd still love her and give her a 9. It's years of blatant favouritism from the so called impartial judges that have wrecked this show.

Their points do match up. Not getting the mood quite right merits a small deduction when the opposition is doing vastly simpler routines and getting them wrong, can't act at all and looks much more inappropriate and is getting 7s and 8s for it .

Its years of weaker male competitors getting votes for being strong, weak, hunks, mother's boys, hopeless, on journeys, on trips to Blackpool, rerunning the plot of Billy Eliot, hamming it up, propping up the leaderboard and attempting to be funny, that have arguably ruined the show. It ruined the first final, saw the one with the best record not even in the final 2 in series 3 and 4, removed key competition from series 5 and saw no female with any votes and the third or fourth best dancer win series 6. Now the fifth or sixth best dancer looks like winning for being cute.

Marking the better people higher than the poorer people isn't favouritism - its what happens when you have judges and they apply the relevant standards.

I mostly agree with this, and I think that this series they have been slightly better at fairer marking than previous series - however, they still have a loooooong way to go to drive out their bad marking habits of the past. Yes, each judge is going to mark on different criteria so there will be a disparity in their marks. What has been bugging me this series is the favouritism that is still going strong. Ricky actually makes a LOT of mistakes, and they even comment on it. But does that stop the technical judge (leonard) giving out 9's for most dances? I'm sure there are other examples of consistent overmarking and favouritism this series, but none spring to mind this early in the day.

Overall there has been an improvement, but they must do a LOT better.

Another great post!

It baffles me when one couple is accused of being favoured by the judges over the others The judges scoring is so random for ALL the couples. Ali and Ricky get better marks in general because they dance better.

I think you are looking at it the wrong way.

Len isn't "the technical judge". There's nothing that says he's supposed to mark only technically, or be more technical than other judges, and he clearly does look at other things.

Also, the judges' marks are not all about mistakes. They're looking at a bunch of different things. We can't say this person made mistakes and so can't deserve a 9, or even this person made more mistakes than that one and so should have a lower mark.

(I think the judges do a poor job of explaining their marks, and sometimes make it seem they're biased by saying inconsistent things, for instance about when they "have to" take marks off for a mistake. I think that's a problem the show ought to fix; but it's different from there actually being bias.)

There's a tendency to think that 9s and 10s are especially questionable, because people have an idea that 10 means perfect and 9 means almost, but that isn't how the marking goes in SCD, and if some 10s should be 9s or 8s, that generally means some 8s should be 7s or 6s, and so on.

If the judges took off points for every mistake and flaw, the marks would be lower across the board, and the celebs would be doing ultra-safe dances to try to avoid getting anything wrong.

IMO, the judges' marks should usually be 1 or 2 points lower, to leave more room at the top for 10s and 9s to be more special, but for whatever reason (to make the show more exciting or to avoid being too discouraging or whatever) that's not what they do. But this means the marks in general are too high. It doesn't make sense to pick out one celeb's high makes and say they show favouritism.

Another reason it doesn't make sense is that it's the differences among the marks a judge gives to different couples that matters for the placings -- not the particular numbers the judge happens to use. So if a judge gives Ricky a 9 and someone else a 7, it's that difference of 2 that matters, not the 9.

For there to be over-marking / favouritism, a judge would (a) have to give marks that were too high compared to the same judge's marks for other dancers, and (b) those marks would have to be too high beyond what any reasonable difference in opinion, taste, etc would allow.

So if over-marking happens at all, I think it is pretty rare. There have been a few isolated marks this year that were questionable, but I don't think there's been any consistent over-marking or favouritism.

The only way for there to be a level playing field on the scoring is for each dancer to do exactly the same dance with exactly the same choreography

It`s not as if the problem of a 2 person final has arisen before

Series 3...The last time we had a series with no withdrawals or cock ups...3 celebs in the final

Series 4...Jimmy Tarbuck withdraws....2 in the final

Series 5 Kelly Brook withdraws.....2 in the final

Series 6 John Sergeant withdraws....The BBC again does nothing...would have been yet another 2 person final but scoring cock up results in no one being eliminated in the Semi final...result; 3 person final by default

Series 7 Jade withdraws....2 in the final.

As I`v said in countless posts....Does anyone for one second think that Simon Cowell would have ever allowed circumstances to dictate a 2 person X-factor final...Not in a million years...He`d have done something and no doubt made it a ratings winner as well...But then he`s a multi millionaire with a bit of business nous....The Strictly production team are but paid minions who for some reason seem unwilling or unable to make any decisions.No doubt the production model at the BBC means that no one person has the final say....and that will always result in a great deal of umming and arghing and burring ones head in the sand....Cowell just says do it...and hey presto it`s done.

I think DWTS did this in the final of the most recent series; all 3 couples were out at the same time performing the same routine side by side. Can't remember if it was scored though.


In terms of the 'no elimination/rollover idea' - i wonder if this was considered but had to be dropped? Think about it -

- Jade is off injured for a week so gets a bye; things proceed as normal on the presumption she'll be back the following week i.e. still a 3 couple final.
Bye Tuffers!

- Jade withdraws so they decide to go for a rollover than week; however, one of the competitiors was injured (I think Ali?) and another still carrying an injury from the previous week (Laila?). Hypothetically if the scores are rolled over to the nest week then whoever was injured (Ali/Laila) is at a disadvantage when it comes to aggregate scoring. Bye Ricky!

- They decide to use a rollover the following week, but Ali's injured (agai) and Ricky's been arrested so his head's not in the game; not a level playing field for aggregate scores. Rollover scrapped. Bye Natalie!

- Quarter final. Maybe they could use the rollover here; but maybe it's too far gone from Jade's withdrawl for it to be fair to use it now seeing as Tuffers and Ricky and Natalie have been eliminated since Jade went so they can't use it now or something. Rollover scrapped. Bye Laila!

Maybeif there hadn't been the other injuries at the time of Jade's injury, or if it had happened early enough that they could have brought in a replacement contestant (like when Michael Underwood had to withdraw from DOI) a 2 couple final could have been avoided.

Series 4...Jimmy Tarbuck withdraws after one week...thinking about it did he even dance...but anyway the BBC did nothing....For some unknown reason they seem unwilling or unable to come up with a plan that ensures a final with 3 celebs....and lets not forget they had a rollover week on DWTS a couple of years ago....As long as the powers that be are up front with the viewers and explain the roll-over process before a single tele-vote is cast then I can`t see where the problem lies....I really am baffled as to why nothing has been done since Daren Gough won to ensure that 3 celebs are in the final....Remember we only had 3 in the final last year because of a cock up which forced the BBC hand.

^^I know that; I'm just wondering if maybe after the fury that last year's c*ck-up created if maybe they did have a rollover contingency but due to circumstances it was dropped in order to be 'fair' beause of the other injuries at that time.

In Dancing on Ice they have stand bys who can take over if people pull out. This only happened once, but she did make the final. Obviously there would have to be a cut-off point. But that could be one contingency.

I agree especially since it's not rocket science. You build the show around having a double eviction with no dance-off at the semi-final stage that way if as has happened EVERY year since series three someone for one reason or another drops out then you just go to a single eviction with no dance-off as they're doing this year as they've got that it's stupid that only one person can go through at this stage without having to do the DO. The beauty of it is that they don't have to do pointless filler like the stupid re-do a dance rubbish we've had for the past two serieses and if for some reason two people have to pull out (when Ali got injured the week after we lost Jade they're must have been a few execs bricking themselves that they'd have to do some sort of emergency plan) then they can resort to having a two-person final again. I think it's a real shame we're losing someone this week and the final is going to be the poorer for having one less person in it whoever that person is.

The BARB ratings suggest that no viewers are being lost, as the weekly ratings are either steady, or showing slight increases.

With the amount of injuries this year there could easily have been more than one withdrawal. Tuffers' surgery, Ali, Laila, Jade etc.

You can't have a ONE couple final! What would the Beeb do then?