It was the best acted routine by a long way and after last week they showed they could produce something that was smooth and flawless. She also got to skate on her own a lot and do the difficult dance manouvering most can't.

The only problem is that a 5.5 now doesn't leave them much room to manouver upwards if she adds big moves in future - but the 4.5s and 5s being given elsewhere didn't allow them to fine tune the mark any more.You also have to ask what more could she do other than do the routine she was given pretty flawlessly. If its a 26 tariff routine and you nail it, you get 26.

I think you mean Daniel

Holding her blade whilst performing that spiral is what you see professional figure skaters do - I was very impressed!

Oops, I got carried away and got his name wrong!

I know its not easy to do that. Takes a lot of balance and flexibility.

I have to agree with the OP, i think she was way overmarked, clearly judges favourite. Last week she fell on her ass and she still topped the leader board!!

Have to agree that 5.5 may have been slightly overmarked, but it was a very good routine.

Hayley was superb and deserved the high scores -- and she was definitely not overmarked. I was hoping Daniella would raise the bar to challenge her, but she disappointed tonight.

Gary was overmarked, with Kieron & Mikey both undemarked by Emma & Jason.

I get the impression that if every judge scored Hayley 0.5 someone on here would start a thread saying she was overmarked! Digitalspy seems to be home to a quite a few people who suffer from "success envy"....someone does well and it seems to be their duty to knock them down before they get "too big for their boots". Very sad.

0.5 mark here or there isn't a massive issue. Hayley and Daniel put in a beautiful performance that was a step above the rest. She deserved what she got - and I'm someone who find the two of them as a partnership annoying sometimes.

As others have said, she's the judges' favourite because she is the best, not because of some conspiracy.

The marks don't actually matter per se though, do they? It's just the placing on the leaderboard that gives them their points, and her place at the top of the leaderboard was surely deserved.

I'm not a huge fan of hers, although I do quite like Dan, but there's no way those marks weren't deserved. It was a beautiful performance, so smooth and graceful to watch, and I found myself getting slightly emotional near the end. She was the best by a country mile tonight.

I agree. I thought it was brill. Couldn't understand why it didn't get 5.5 across the board.

I think its because she has no room to improve if they mark her to highly this early on.

absolutely brilliant I loved every second well deserved marks

My OH .. who hasn't a clue who anyone is .. came in the room when she was skating and asked me which one was the professional and which the celeb.
She really is head and shoulders above the rest and she's not 'teachers pet' .. which suggests someone who is popular for no reason .. she is rightly admired by the judges.

You also see very low level skaters doing catch foot spirals, if you can do a spiral then it's a pretty easy move.

Hayley spent very little time with her feet on the ice this week and her steps weren't overly difficult (others had more difficult steps and did them well). I think it's silly that she is marked so highly when she spends so much time in lifts.

i thought the competition was supposed to be dancing on ice not dancing in the air ... she was well overmarked .. program is getting a joke now

Maybe you were watching something different to the rest of us then?

She did plenty of skating.

I thought she was brilliant, and deserved to be top of the leader board by a clear margin, but for the sake of the competition, and the many weeks left in the competition, I think they should have limited themselves to a top mark of 5.0.

I think with so many contestants this year, and being limited to 0.5 increments, that the marking seems all over the place this year just so they can differentiate.

Hayley aside, people are getting better each week, but their individual marks aren't changing that much as it's all about putting them in order, not how good they are against a standard.

In two senses. She looks an equal in the partnership and she's also getting near enough to what the pro females do to not look weak in comparison with what they are doing - visually they are her competition not the male celebs.

She was excellent tonight. I think she will certainly be in the finals

You can bet money on there being a thread nearly every week saying that the top couple were overmarked!

Love it!

She deserved a row of 5 x 5.0 = 25. Too early to give out 5.5s. she was easily the best of the night.