Well said Jan, I totally agree with you.

Ann Widdicombe. John Sergeant effect and she won't bow out if the judges don't like her.

Well it's nice that we can behave like adults.

I'm sorry but Chris Hollins was not a good dancer. He was mediocre at best. That's just a fact. He got better than where he started from like you said but that does not mean that he ended up good lol. It just means he got less rubbish. Best I agree is entirely subjective. It implies that among good dancers you get to pick and choose which impresses you more. But that doesn't mean that you can look at someone who's mediocre and someone who is clearly a dancer and say the mediocre guy is better. You can prefer them but it's nothing really to do with dancing then is it.

It's not that you can tell if someone is good at latin having only seen them do ballroom. It's that you can tell whether someone will ever be a good dancer based on seeing them dance.

I think the comparison between Chris' week 1 rumba and the one he did towards the end showed that he didn't really progress much at all. He started off quite good, and ended up in more or less the same place. He did get better at remembering routines as he went on.

(Although to be fair, I think it's generally overstated how much people improve over time. At very specific things maybe, but their overall standard of dancing doesn't really shift that much, especially as they keep changing disciplines every five seconds)

Based on week one opinions Colin Jackson and Ricky Whttle shoud have walked it and Darren Gough shouldn't have got within a month of the finals, never mind winning it.

I can't remember seeing anyone who was the obvious choice in week one ending up winning it. Who am I forgetting?

Alesha maybe I cant remember now how good her week 1 was.

Matt DA's wasn't particularly impressive either - only really Alesha emerged as a contender early and then both Kelly and Penny scored better than her week one. Tom was obviously in with a shot early on but again outscored by Austin whom a lot reckoned would win that year - dead wrongly. Ramps was obviously a contender early on but a lot of winners and runners find their form later and that's even without considering whom the voting public do and don't take to their hearts. It's too early to say really although Matt does look like a very good bet.

Alesha was third out of 7 on the leaderboard for her opening week. She had 31 points v Penny and Kelly who had 33.

Yes.

Matt's obviously by far the best dancer on this basis. He looked like a pro. I can't remember seeing a better first dance, even with all the comedy rubbish stuff at the start.

Timing, performance, technique.

We've not seen the ballroom, but he's so far ahead of the others that everyone will be playing catchup on that performance.

Dance-wise, Matt is the one to beat.

I think that Jimi will be hampered by Flavia's over ambitious choreography.

True, but the first example quoted about his ballroom and you're using an example from his latin which wasn't as good. However good or not a ballroom dancer he was it was better than his latin. You're probably right about lack of improvement but some people do seem to find favour later using because they learn how to give it some a bit more and lose their inhibitions.

It can be about whom entertains you on the dancefloor - hubbie said that he supposed Ricky W's dancing was very good but Chris's made him smile - yes it's not technically the best man winning but it's not all down to the Cola chops cuteness of the partnership.