She did have her own supporters, you're quite right. And we don't know how much impact mine and my friends votes had because we don't know how close the votes were each week between her and the person below her. All I can be definite about is the fact that 425 votes each week were for Dan, not her! We wanted to see him back so had to vote for her and we disliked the girl immensely.

OKay, fair enough. So Dan can drag a sack of spuds round (please stop envisaging Coleen Nolan tabitha, that's far too obvious) and get at least 425 votes . Obviously some professionals contribute more to their pair's votes than others so, in that respect, it can be something of an advantage to get them rather than someone else. However, I don't think someone can win on the back of their pro's popularity unless they have their own talent and fanbase to back it up.

It would be interesting to see how Dan would do with a Melinda Messenger or Natalie Pinkham type; someone who doesn't come from a really popular show and who isn't either very good or hilariously bad. From your post, it does give some indication that he might be able to keep them out of the skate off a little longer than either Fred or Andrei did - I would be interested to see it put to the test.

No, I didn't say that a pro can win on the basis of their fan base, but their popularity is one contributing factor towards the longevity of their partner. Not so much for Hayley this year, but last year it could have made a difference if the voting totals were close. The thing is, we will never know. The only way to find out is to ask each voter why they've voted, even if we were priviliged to see the voting numbers.

Equally, if a pro is disliked, and many found Frankie obnoxious this year, that may have a negative effect.

Well I thought she was one of the better of a bad bunch last year. Melinda and Zoe annoyed me so much. Only voted for Ray though, he was amazing.

I agree that there isn't very good evidence that votes for the pros make a difference; but popularity can come about very quickly, so I don't think the "didn't have time to build up a fan base" point quite works.

For me, if I like the pro and the celeb, that makes me more likely to vote for them (Rachel and Vincent in SCD, for example), and if I dislike the pro and the celeb, that makes me even less likely to vote for them (and more likely to vote tactically against them), but if my linkings are in opposite directions (liking one of the pro and celeb but not the other), the pro doesn't make any difference. (For example, liking Vincent didn't make me any more inclined to vote for Natalie Cassidy.)

I thought Roxanne had potential but fell into the trap of thinking she should go for big lifts at the expense of her skating.

BTW, I do wonder whether Dan did a better job of looking out for Hayley's interests than the pros typically do, since she avoided such traps and always had fairly well-balanced routines. (I'm thinking for example of Emily's partner having to get annoyed before she was given a routine that showed her skating. Perhaps Dan was a factor in keeping Hayley out of traps.)

The pros in DOI and Strictly have their fan-bases, for sure, but I very much doubt these are in sufficient numbers to make any significant impact on the overall voting figures. Of course, as others have pointed out, we don't know the actual numbers of votes cast each week, only the percentages.

I don't know how many millions of viewers watch DOI regularly, or what percentage of those viewers would pick up the phone to vote, or how many would vote more than once. My educated guess would be that only bonkers fans (I count myself in that number) would vote more than once, and we must form a tiny percentage in real terms.

It's a bit like the DS forum itself - small potatoes in the big wide world in terms of public opinion, so the DS polls have not been reflected in the wider public vote. Similarly, we fans can fall into the trap of thinking we have more influence than is warranted by our actual numbers. However, we have a noisy influence when the DOI show goes on tour, which makes up for it!

What fact do you think it's stating it as? If a "when" question is stating something as a fact, it would have to be a rather odd sort of fact.


The point was that when good-looks work against someone, it's not all at a conscious level (with people thinking "I dislike her because she's so hot").


As I've already pointed out, I don't regard Suzanne as even a candidate for being a counter-example to what I said, since she isn't too good looking, nor does she have the wrong sort of looks.

And also, that she won doesn't mean her looks weren't working against her. (I don't think they were, but they might have been.) The idea is not that looks are the only factor or even that they're always the most important one. There's nothing in what I've said about this issue that means Emily would have gone at the first opportunity either.

But your whole line of attack here is odd since I wasn't saying that anyone's good looks had worked against them in this DOI. What I said when you first objected was almost the opposite: that Hayley benefited from being "better-looking without being too good looking or having the wrong sort of looks".

People don't all think so differently that there aren't any patterns. (And of course one person stating their opinion of three people's looks cannot possibly prove that anything is entirely anything.)

Perceived attractiveness is not entirely subjective -- that it's not is why there's such widespread agreement about who's good-looking and who isn't -- but even if it were, it could still be used to explain why someone does well or badly. There'd be no need for an agreed definition of what is and isn't attractive -- because, for one thing, we'd be talking about perceived attractiveness, not attractiveness.

Not that I'm actually using perceived attractiveness in the way those posts seem to think. Indeed, perceived attractiveness can work in rather odd ways, for instance someone who is good looking might be thought not to be.

No, Mikey was eliminated on 7th March, those comments of yours were made on the 14th.