what do you make of Jared's efforts? Tina wasn't great but I was more transfixed by his shortcomings.

I agree. Jared really doesn't come up to scratch and is no where near as good a dancer as the 4 fab dancers they ditched in favour of the newbies.
I really don't know what the BBC were thinking!

Anton has had years to prove himself though.

This was only Jared's first outing.

I'll give him another chance before writing off his Latin.

come on guys give jared a chance

In general terms I'd agree with you - he can't be judged on one occasion - but his paso in the pro demo the other week was fairly dire too, so a pattern does seem to be forming. And he is way worse than Anton ( whose shortcomings in Latin are vitriolically over stated by some forum members ).

I agree, and ironically their recap bit showed the worst part of their dance. At some points Tina had better arms than him!

Credit where credit's due, Anton did well last night, I thought he had a fabulous sense of humour and choreographed very well for Ann.

I'm actually much more looking forward to his and Ann's salsa than I am to Jared and Tina's Foxtrot although that is partly because I like the Foxtrot and don't believe Jared can come up with an adequate routine seeing as he couldn't do an up-to-par cha cha.

Perhaps Jared was a step too far in the DWTS direction. Let's just hope he gets some tips from a UK professional who knows what works for a UK audience. We like to see people dancing a CCC or Waltz with known steps and content, not just the odd bit slung together with cheese.

This what I think. I wasn't impressed with Jared but I'll give him a chance.

They shouldn't have got rid of Matt in favour of Jared, imo

Same here - I was a bit surprised that Jared's latin wasn't better, but will give him a couple more chances.

I was surprised because they already have a dancer (Anton) who has poor latin and can't really afford to carry another one. Anton just about gets away with it, particularly this year, as he is seen as being funny & popular and is good with the older ladies.

Anyway, I'm pre-empting. I'll see how it all progresses.

Have to say I never saw Tina. Her overdressed overtrying professional dancer grabbed all the attention for the wrong reasons.

Matthew Cutler reached world number 4. At age 22 and 24 Matthew was Amateur Latin world number 1.

Have just returned from a weekend away and haven't seen it all yet but will do so with interest.

As to Matt Cutler no one can or will ever touch him for class and ability in my opinion. Sadly sadly missed.

Agree with all of these. Anton's saving grace is that this ballroom is superb but you would think with the length of time Anton has been on the programme he could have at least try to improve his latin.

As for Jared I didn't enjoy anything that he has done so far but maybe he will improve stranger things have happened but he isn't even half as good as the ones he replaced and seriously don't care if he was on high school musical.

Hoping his ballroom is a lot better than the latin but seriously doubt it

Same here.

Maybe, due to his age, he hasn't much experience in teaching? It might be worth having one of the dance troup pros help him out.

I agree completely that they should never have got rid of Matthew.

(I approve of the hot Russian though )

So do i

Maybe it would help putting Jared into the dance troupe until he had more experience and knew the standard of dancing on strictly.

I really like Jared but his latin wasn't great. I've heard that he has mainly competed in ballroom dance competitions rather then latin and that ballroom is his thing. I hope then that his foxtrot next week is much stronger.

Is that the one with Kara? He's not pretty.

Tina looked better than Jared last night.

I didn't say he was pretty!

And yes she did. Maybe his ballroom is amazing. Maybe.

He's probably cheap to hire

Give the guy a break. Anyone who can carry off being Zac Efron's body double on the High School Musical tour has to be a dancer of the highest calibre.

I can't wait for Dave Arch's male vocalist to get laryngitis, so Jared can do his stuff singing as well.

I am betting that Jared makes more money with his boy band. I think he did this for other reasons and he has a huge mountain to climb. I do sense he is intimidated by the dancers who are far better than him. Hopefully he can up his game.

I'm not one of those people who bash Anton and Erin's latin; I find that tedious and ill-informed a lot of the time. Particularly Erin has a good record in terms of latin on Strictly, and while she's not on the same level as, say, Flavia and Ola in latin, she has a fair bit of latin experience and she can definitely hold her own in the pro dances, particularly when not dancing with Anton. Anton's latin is ropier, but its relative poorness is vastly exaggerated by forumites here, and it hasn't really proved to be that much of a problem. Arguably his greatest chance for victory was Laila Rouass, and it was as much her whiny attitude and lack of natural latin aptitude that hampered her as his dancing flaws. Anton always looks out for his partner first and foremost when dancing rather than showing himself off.

I don't want to jump on the Jared-hating bandwagon as I'm not a fan of pro-bashing, but I do agree that he has a relatively long way to go before he'll win a lot of fans on Strictly. He did look less impressive than the other pros in the latin pro dances. High School Musical is not the same as the ballroom and latin competitive circuit, so claiming that his expertise in those films means that he must be an amazing ballroom and latin pro seems a little strange to me. I hope he can learn from his colleagues and improve his choreography at least, to give Tina a chance - which she deserves, because she looks very promising.

Yes, I agree. It is just one routine and too early to judge.

I do think people get a bit fixated about this. The programme is about getting the best out of the celebs. If Jared's routine is to be criticised, it should not really be about this own techique, which actually doesn't have to be world class unless we're expecting the pro to take the spotlight and distract from the celeb's shortcomings.

It is really about the extent to which he gets the best out of Tina. Maybe he could have done better in that respect on Saturday (the judges certainly thought so), but it was the first routine and he was probably being overly cautious.

Also note that there were other celebs who may have danced attractively, but did not do a particularly good job in displaying the cha cha technique. So, allowing for those where it would have been a real challenge (Ola gets let off) what happened with some of the others? I notice that those pros are not getting the same level of criticism because the assumption is that the fault in those cases is with the celeb.

Also I'm still not clear as to what the people thought were the technical shortcomings. it all sounds a bit vague to me. .

There are some pros who always try to choreograph something which is true to the dance style and shows off their partner (e.g James in my opinion although some may disagree) but others where it is a bit hit and miss.

To be honest right now I just think he badly misjudged his choreography at the weekend. Rightly or wrongly, he needed to prove himself with that first dance as much as Tina did and the fairly juvenile styling he used did neither of them any favours. With any luck he'll learn from that and will in the future be able to prove his own dancing (preferably in the pro dances but to be honest at the present moment in time, he needs to prove himself an able partner to Tina as well) and his choreographic skills. Good luck to him! He had an awful lot of pressure on him this weekend and I genuinely hope he will be able to prove himself in the next couple of weeks, because from Saturday's dance I've really no idea what either he or Tina can do.

ETA: Vivacious Lady, I cross posted with you but I fully agree. It's much too early to write him off just yet and honestly the only real criticism I had of him from the weekend was that I hadn't a clue what either of them could do as a result of the characters they played and the choreography. In fairness had I not seen Kristina dance before, I could say much the same of her. Flavia and Vincent are the only ones left who regularly load their routines with basic steps and they have both been criticised in the past for making their routines too difficult as a result.

I noticed this too, so I was hoping to be impressed on Saturday, but unfortunately I wasn't.

This is how I feel........I like Jared and hope that he improves and that he gets the help and advise that he needs from the programme makers and the experienced pros. He has been employed by the BBC and perhaps in the end he might not come up to scratch.....so whats the excuse for Anton ?? 8 series he has been employed and he has never been up to the same standard as the others in latin, he has also more than once put his foot in it with comments made without engaging his brain but he has continued on Strictly regardless.....so why cannot Jared be given the same benefit when we have only seen 2 dances