I guess... would have thought though that the salary and hours would be too good to turn down. 90K for fourteen weeks, Saturdays only!

I don't like Camilla at all but rather her than Kelly Brook!

Maybe she works hard during the week and wants weekends off, or else puts events on at the weekend? Or maybe she just doesn't need the money and doesn't want the job!

And yes, agree with the second point completely!

As much as I'd like to believe this I can't see it happening tbh. I can't see them dropping Alesha, Craig is irreplaceable imo, and Len and Bruno are probably the least likely to get the push of them all - though the reason why escapes me altogether I'm afraid...

I'm sticking with my expectation of giving the mute button another hammering this year

The story is related to Alesha leaving (well we can hope!)

If they had Camilla, Len would be replaceable as the 'knowledgeable' one- and hopefully Camilla would manage to mark below seven when the dancing is bad so there would actually be some point to the celebs mastering technique. Bruno is IMO completely replaceable, as he brings less than nothing to the show.

Hmmm...I'll believe it when I see it on the news, Katie!

PS: You're being overly generous to Bruno imo
Last edited by SideshowStu : 07-06-2010 at 16:37

I thought Alesha confirmed last week she was doing this series, or was that just tabloids as well?

I'd prefer a panel with Alesha and Camilla over any panel that has Bruno on it tbh....

I don't think the contracts are signed yet but if there were going to be changes I think we'd have heard something by now...

Ditto

I'll drink to that, too.

Bruno is a bad joke that has become progressively less funny over the past two years especially. His blatant favouritism is about as bad as Arlene's was and he adds nothing to the show.

Let DWTS keep him!

I will quote Alan Bennett, who was talking about Leeds and the scrapping of their tram system in the 1950's - something as far from a 2010 TV show about ballroom dancing as you could get, perhaps, but the same sentiment applies here and intelligent readers will understand what I mean.
"(Leeds), as ever, in too much of a hurry to get to the future"

Yes...I wish they'd leave it as it is!

I wish they would leave it alone, in as much as I want them to 'go back to basics'.

The charm and interest of SCD lies in having interesting celebrities, paired with good dancers/teachers and exciting choreography and then letting the viewers become invested in watching their relationship develop as they learn how to dance together, get better and put on a good show.

All the rest is just trimming.

It used to be like that, but with too many celebrities, the desperate race to compete with X-factor and the endless desire to 'sex it up' and appeal to younger viewers - they seem to have mislaid the formula that made it unique in the first place.

Whoever is in charge, does not seem to understand the programme. If all these changes were bringing in new viewers and cementing the show's position as the show to watch on Saturday night, then that would be one thing. But they aren't, are they?

People that do care enough (to post on forums) are pissed off. I'm personally really hacked off about Matt Cutler being sidelined to join in some weird spin off troupe thingy. And it just seems as though one of my favourite shows (as used to be) is being dismantled.

I shouldn't care, but I do.

This is the second post I've read recently that should be printed off and glued to the foreheads of the BBC executives responsible for yesterday's pea-brained announcement.

I totally agree with all the points you make. Any hope I had of a new regime initiating the changes that actually needed making is fast evaporating.

I just hope Ian and Matthew can afford to do what Brian has done and stick two fingers up at Strictly. Something I fear I shall soon be doing myself ...

Please send that to the BBC, you're summed up everything perfectly!

Just been skimming through the comments on the Daily Mail article and almost unanimously everyone agrees this is a terrible idea...

I completely agree - they need to undo all of last year's changes and return the show to the format that actually worked.

1. Decent, well known celebrities. Cut the ex-soap stars nobody has ever heard of and the abandoned spouses.

2. Reduce the numbers to 10 or 12. Thats's a three month run which is long enough. I also think everyone should stay for at least two weeks and get to do a Latin and a Ballroom routine.

3. Remove Alesha and replace her with a judge who knows what they are talking about and doesn't cackle like a witch from a Disney film.

4. Have the results show on Saturday night. We all know the result anyway by the time it starts on Sunday night.

5. Hold the final in Blackpool.

This stupid idea of sidelining the existing dancers to some show dance troup is stupid!!!
I think that now Brian has quit, the others may follow and if they do, these stupid idiots that come up with these 'revamps' will find that audience numbers will go DOWN!

I think maybe this is one way of getting rid of a program by blaming it on low audience figures!

They seem to be trying to make it more like DWTS, which is in my opinion is a lower-rent, crapper version of Strictly. Great.

I agree totally with this. I blame the X Factor in all it's bombastic glory.

Admittedly scd was not the best last year (new dancers didnt help) but the format was right so dont change it.

I have looked at the new male dancer pretty boys all( not my taste) and yes its DWTS which was rubbish this year stopped watching it after 4 episodes.

Why does every programme have to appeal to the under 20`s ? what about the rest of us

They should not replace dancers who have become favourites with viewers. The dancers themselves will know when they are past their best.

The one thing that should change is the music, which is often totally unsuitable for the dances. The Tangos and Paso Dobles are frequently performed to rock and even heavy metal numbers. Quite ridiculous when you realise that the accents are wrong and there are hundreds of good orchestral tangos and Pasos they could use. The Viennese Waltz is, by definition a 'dance in three-four time', but SCD dancers sometimes attempt it in two-four or four-four, seemingly oblivious to the fact that it has to be three in a bar with an accent on the first beat. Not once in all of the SCD series to date has a proper rumba been used. Instead, we get a dreamy pop ballad without a trace of Latin. Don't they realise that these dances were invented decades before rock and that most of the hits of the day were written in rhythms which suited these dances? The Jive is probably the only dance in which you can use modern pop rhythms.

I well remember the original 'Come Dancing' series which ran from 1948 until the nineties. Every programme featured a traditional big band ( or dance orchestra as we used to call them). There were not usually any vocals and every piece was right for the dance in question.

I'm afraid that if the programme wants to be 'modern' it has got to come up with some new dances.

There have certainly been some horrible choices and songs forced to fit dances very awkwardly.

But the BBC isn't interested in tradition, and this is one area where I mostly agree with them. A succession of lyric-free traditional ballroom and Latin numbers each week would get pretty dull. Not all modern music clashes with ballroom and Latin, and we've had some fantastic interpretations of unorthodox music as well as car crashes. Aquarius for a samba - A Time For Us for waltz - any number of inspired choices for quickstep. Then when a perfectly chosen piece of traditional music is thrown in with a brilliant routine (like Zoe Ball's tango) it's a lovely change of pace.

Comparing it to Come Dancing is an exercise in futility - it's not the same show, and in any case, Come Dancing's format was very long in the tooth when they took it out behind the ballroom to shoot it. Strictly's gift to the ballroom and Latin world was showing that the genre doesn't have to be all crimpelene dresses and rictus grins. That includes not enforcing unnecessary restrictions on song choices when some of the standout routines of the entire series have featured non-traditional music.

Besides, the show is crying out for a paso set to Alice Cooper's Poison...

I think you're over estimating how many of the shows viewers are fans of the pros to be honest. Most of the 8million-ish viewers are casual viewers - the majority of them don't watch ITT for a start.

The show doesn't need to appeal to the 'yoof' but it is in a family viewing slot and they're probably thinking it skews too old for that. Need to appeal to the kids and their parents and I see these changes - so far - as a compromise.

Well if most viewers aren't fans of the pros does that not make this pro dance troupe idea even more futile? If the BBC are planning to woo more viewers, and the casual viewers aren't fans of the pros, more and longer pro dances is hardly going to attract them!

The problem is the other way around. The show doesn't go for many of the the type of fit, athletic, musical, dance capable, people who do well on DWTS or top celebrities who can dance well - and when it does go for them the voting minority vote for clowns, hunks and people who want to go to Blackpool. You can't have a serious dance show where the final ends up as uncompetitive without the best dancers there. You can't attract big names when some nobody wins for trying less hard and dancing worse - its plain embarassing. They tried to sort that out for SCD by changing the rules and the panel to control the public vote but still got their worst quality winner ever last year.

Now the next place they seem to be looking to, is to turn the show into one of the other dance shows around with younger hipper dancers and presumably celebs to match. If they have younger, supposdly more dynamic, pros and add the usual list of celebs it will look plain silly - SuBo dances with Diversity. That won't work either. if they do however make the show look more like the other dance shows by adding younger pros and more capable celebs, it still won't compete with X factor, will look like any other show and will lose viewers who want the old SCD back.

Its yet a nother case of trying to find a solution to real issues with attracting the right calibre of celebs and getting the public to vote on the dancing not anything but. Trying to make the show more modern at the same time ends up dumbing down, leaving the problem and working less well.

Not really because there's a difference between liking the pros and the pro dances imo. People could enjoy watching the pro dances without really caring who's doing them.

This pretty much hits the nail on the head for me too...