You have a point and the slip and what is perceived as overmarking could cost her in votes.

Ditto.


I must admit I naively thought there was no Zoe/Emma/Kelly/Lisa/Ali celeb in the group. I hope what I saw tonight was a one off.

Me too.

Tonight made me think more than ever that the Judges have their marks and comments ready before the show - it shows when there is fall/mishap in a routine they've already seen and appraised.
(IMO of course )

Perhaps she did fabulous in the dress rehearsal and they had their marks and then she disappointed in the live show. But of course to be fair they should mark what they when they see it.

I thought it had a slow start but once she got going it was great minus the slip.

I would have thought that until Jimi & Flavia's routine tonight - they seem to have had a great dress rehearsal and were marked down when it went wrong (marked down a bit too much, but they did need to be marked down a bit for the mistakes), whereas Kara & Artem went wrong and were not marked down. It's favouritism I think rather than judging solely on dress rehearsal. It doesn't really matter what some couples do, the judges will always wax lyrical. Lisa was one example, I just hope Kara doesn't become another!

Lisa got 22 for her first dance, and I don't recall her marks getting out of control at all until towards the end. I think people mistakenly extrapolate her last few dances out to an entire series worth. Most of her marks were perfectly reasonable.

I think if someone has a wardrobe malfunction, as Kara did, it should probably be marked around. If she'd stood up squealing "let me have another go! let me have another go!" a la Mark (and the mishap didn't really happen that much further into the dance timewise than his) I think she might have had a decent case. That said, I think she was marginally overscored based on that, but it was ever thus for last dances. Just as first dances have a history of being underscored.

I thought it did actually, i think it would've got a slightly higher score had she not got her heel caught.

I felt Bruno marked them down a point and how do we know the others (Alesha especially) wouldn't have scored higher had Kara not had the mishap?

I think Jimi does have it in him.

Agreed. Without the stumble Alesha would have easily given a 9.

I think she managed to cover her fall really well - I wasnt sure if it was a strange part of the routine at first.

Surely not? That would have been a tad excessive at this stage in the competition.

She is my one to watch this series.

I think it's a little too soon - and unfair! - to brand Kara as the next Lisa Snowdon. I actually like Kara's personality and I haven't seen her simper once yet, unlike La Snowdon who was crying for camera pretty much from the off. Kara seems quite nice, self-deprecating and down-to-earth ...

... which rather begs the question: who the hell had the idea to put her in that costume? The dominatrix look, along with the Croydon facelift, was totally at odds with who she comes across as off the dancefloor. It was completely out of place and that, along with the way the VT clip was edited which referred to her 'ending up with her leading men' all created a very poor first impression.

From where I was sitting, Kara has great potential but the producers could be her undoing if they carry on as they did tonight. She didn't seem entirely happy with the look they'd given her - not that she's liable to say so - but perhaps they need a bit of a rethink when they're busy branding SCD8 as the 'sexiest series ever'. There is a distinct difference between someone looking sexy and tarting up someone so they look like a hooker.

Add to that Artem's ridiculously white teeth (what a shame she wasn't paired with Matthew C) and I'd say Kara's got quite a few obstacles to overcome. Being the judges' favourite isn't necessarily the kiss of death - it did Mark and Alesha no harm - but the producers need to stop forcing her to vamp it up. If they have any idea of who their audience is, that is ...

I wouldn't have said Ramps was the judge's favourite. He and Karen got their fair share of criticism and tough scores. It was Emma the judges seemed to be favouring that year.

Fair enough - I stand corrected! But you get the point I'm making ... being liked and well scored by the judges isn't necessarily the kiss of death if you've got a personality the public likes.

Oh absolutely

Kara seems to just giggle nervously when she messes up. Actually I do think without BBC trying to manufacture anything, she'll be like last year's Ali Bastian. Unless of course Artem bets for the other team, expect sparks to fly and audience will lap it all up.

She's a decent dancer too and did recover well from that costume incident. But I agree that with that perception of overscoring, the judges' enthusiasm might be her downfall.

Even some of the other dancers are fuming that Kara has an unfair advantage, and that everyone is not being treated equally.

If she is the judges favourite, why isn't she 1st with the judges

I seriously hope they wouldn't have given her higher. If she'd got a 9 in her first week she would have nowhere to go. She thought her marks were too high, you can lipread what she says as the scores come out. She strikes me as someone who wants to be marked entirely on her merit, and she fell, so she shouldn't have scored so high and she knows it. If she hadn't fallen I could see her meriting the score she got, or maybe a 31.


Excuse me, I never said she was a Lisa Snowdon! I said the judges risk turning her into one, which is an entirely different proposition, so please don't make out that I said something I didn't. I never said i didn't like Kara, I actually do, and as I said before, she is a good dancer, but if the judges give her 30 for a dance with a very noticable mistake, regardless of fault, then she has nowhere to go really, and that's not going to do her any favours in the long run. On talent she could quite possibly make the final, but the judges' favouritism may not help her.

C'mon, she's compensated by not being able to train for one week, which was the time she had when she did that sports relief dance with Ramps.

Look, Matt Baker had 5 days to learn jive and paso with Zoe Salmon in Blue Peter, and they actually WON the amateur ballroom dancing competition, and nobody here is baying for his blood?!

Because if they'd put her top despite her mistake then there would have been an absolute outcry. Matt and Pamela did not make mistakes and danced brilliantly, therefore they deserved to be top. I hope the judges wouldn't have marked her higher than 30 even if she hadn't made a mistake, but clearly they would have, and that smacks of favouritism when Matt did a better cha cha that actually looked like a cha cha!

Aren't you assuming though that they didn't penalise the mistake? Even with the mistake those judges who gave her 8's no doubt believed she was better than all those to whom they had given 7's but it may have cost her a 9.

I personally hated her routine, however well she danced (which is her pro's fault) - it was very 'American' and didn't seem to have that much cha cha in it. I'm suprised Len didn't comment really. However, I can see why the other judges in particular would have been impressed.

You must be biased. Kara did all those complicated cha-cha moves and you said she did no cha-cha?! Granted, that vampish look worked against her, but she did dance a cha-cha, and I for one say she's equal with Matt in terms of natural dance ability and talent.

C'mon, even a non-dancer like me, after watching SCD since series 4 I could see Kara did a lot of cha-cha basics in that routine!