On ITT tonight, there were several references to 'getting through to the final'.

Ali was one who mentioned that she was desperate to get through.

I must be missing a trick here but I thought it had been decided that all three semi finalists are going through and that there won't be a dance off this weekend.

There won't be a dance off, but there will be an elimination - the person with the lowest combined votes from the judges and public will leave.

They're all desperate to get through, I should imagine

I'm voting for Ali and Brian

Right. I've got the wrong end of the stick then.

I thought we were going to have a semi final with all couples going through resulting in a three person final.

Me too !

It would have been a better solution, but instead we're still having a two person final - despite ample chance once again to ensure three.

Thank God for that. I thought I was the only confused person out here!

Why can't the BBC have a contingency plan for this sort of thing?

They've had the John Sergeant withdraw and the Jimmy Tarbuck illness issue in the past so surely they should have learnt from those and when Jade had to pull out, they could have a plan to deal with it. Dancing On Ice managed to bring someone in as a reserve. I realise that at this late stage you couldn't just start someone off from scratch but the last contestant to go could possible have been given a lifeline.

They did have a contingency plan in that they state in the rules that if a couple withdraws then an eliminated couple could be re-instated. However, they chose not to use this. My own personal theory about why they didn't, is because Jade had a bye the week before she went out. This meant who should have come back was not as straight forward as it should have been, i.e. should they have brought back Phil because he went out the week she had the injury or Ricky G the week she actually withdrew, in either case it would have been unfair on whoever didn't come back.

There were of course other options that they could have used to ensure it was a three person final, and we don't know for sure yet that they're not going to just let them all through (Although I suspect that this won't be the case).
Last edited by isopap : 10-12-2009 at 00:09

That would be pointless though/not a semi-final surely unless it was just a show to watch them come on and dance for fun.

I'd rather they did the Christmas Special this weekend and then had three couples in the final the week after. They'd have two weeks to prepare for it at least.

All details are on the official website:

That is a cracking idea! if only they thought of that in time! Imagine the standard of the dances if they had 2 weeks to prepare and it was a 3 person final. It would be fantastic!