Errr, feeling the need to jump to my own defence here.

Firstly, the comment came from a daft column about a cartoon character who uses ridiculous extremes to make a point.

Secondly, I like Total Wipeout too, it's straightforward slapstick comedy in the grand tradition of It's A Knockout and it has no pretence to be anything else.

The point I was trying to make was not that TW fans are dim but that anyone who was challenged by its intellectual rigours may be unaware of the deleterious effects of Ann's continued presence on the integrity of a show where the whole raison d'etre is the acquisition of new and exciting dancing skills. That's what makes it entertaining - not the tiresome and studied larkery of inadequates. If you circumvent the endeavour with end-of-pier antics, as with Sargeant, Hollins and now Ann, you undermine the one thing that separates Strictly from lesser celeb/talent shows and you remove the imperative for anyone to actually try. You may as well just aim it at six-year-olds and forget about everyone else.

Thanks John.....I wasnt particularly fussed by what you said in the 'musings' but people were jumping on it in this thread and it just pushed my buttons on a bad day I think.

They have commissioned 2 more series of Total Wipeout so I am happy anyway

John, you've summed up my feelings about the disrespect Strictly is suffering. Every time someone says "It's only a TV show!" I blub inwardly. It soon will be, the way we're going.

parthena

You could argue that Total Wipeout at least involves questions of tactics and physical ability and that the people who do well progress on ability and a bit of luck. SCD has no such logic determining who progresses - so the equivalent of the guy who falls off the first balance beam for 20 minutes can do well in SCD as long as people like watching someone hopeless failing repeatedly.

Strictly's problem now is that you can't have one competition with people who are doing different things ranging from the dancing equivalent of sack hurling to a 1970s Olympic Floor routine. Its not certain that it will resolve into a narrower dancing competition - and even if it does its not clear if the main competitors will be there when it does ( watch Scott and Pamela in the yahoo poll) Its also not clear what anyone who can dance should be doing. If the votes are going to the comedy acts you either follow and aim at entertainment or have few votes. Does Kara spend more time on doing spectacular tricks or go for more marks from the judges by doing something more technical? If you have to spend training time and performance energy doing dynamic tricks, its a bit much to expect perfect steps and lots of them too. Even worse, the judges seem to be even more confused and are voting, or not voting, for entertainment or steps or both - almost completely randomly.
.

Perhaps it's the judges, or to be precise 2 of them, who are intellectually challenged by the problem of marking consistently.

(Now wait for the debate on which 2)

I'm all for one episode in the series to become "Strictly the Dark Side" in which the voting is to eliminate, not to save. Preferably the one just before Blackpool.

I think the new changes in Stricly and in the Result Show stink!!! Why turn Strictly into Dancing with the Star II. Now we have them standing around all night waiting for their turn, all looking hysterically happy and supportive of the other contestants etc. We have the two couples in danger interview UGH and this ridiculous separation of the results (to add drama and tension, no it is just irritating). Claudia is decoration and does nothing really and Tess, I am afraid, is rather plastic. No wonder James is taking the micky out of the show with his latest Happy Happy Happy interview on ITT. Now we have manically happy contestants behaving like the Osmonds, where EVERYHING is marvelous or Disneyland employees who fear for their jobs if they are not smiling all the time. Strictly we the original show and it should have been left alone. I adored the old crew of Darren Lillia Ian etc and have no idea why such a good teacher as Ian was left out this year. No, lets have the drama queens Brendan and James instead!! Now they have made Strictly rather fake and Hollywood. WE ALL KNOW the Results show is recorded on Saturday night so why all the nonsense of ......last night.....Oh please.

erm, wot he said, only i can't , like, put it so suck, succinc, say like wot he say with the posh words.

Agree. As the beeb deliberately sold Ann as this years JS the public were set along a path right from the start. The spontaneous voter support for the underdog was taken away.

If they are to continue his way they should give the judges 2 scores to mark. Dancing & Entertainment perhaps that way the viewers might actually understand what the judges are seeing. At the moment I have no idea what Len is marking on & he is supposed to be the B&L expert.

They could have a separate 'Technical Award' for the dancer who has amassed the most number of points, based on the judges' scores, during the series.

Absolutely, couldn't agree more. Last year people moaned it was getting boring and needed changing; this year it's been changed and people (not necessarily the same ones of course) are still moaning.

Classic case of being unable to please all the people all the time; and doing well if you manage to please some of the people some of the time.

How could you kaycee .

The standing ovations prove that BBC pleases all the people all the time.

The standing ovations (along with the hooting) prove weekly that I can hold back from destroying my telly.

parthena

"And they are all on their feet! Look! They are all on their feet!"

If only I can throw a shoe through the TV towards Bruce's turpee!

You need to acquire a rubber brick to "safely" throw at the TV just to save on insurance.

Looks for a spare bathroom sponge - oops, the requisite hurl has dislocated shoulder

parthena

You did not hurl brick,
hurl brick you did not?

Shame, no feedback for BBC then.

Just shows how quickly audiences can learn 'choreography'

Excellent post Dancing Girl. It is also so insulting to the viewers to think that we would buy all this '' everything is so wonderful this year nonsense''. I've stopped watching ITT this year for the first time since it started. I cannot take anymore of Claudia's everything is wondeful/excellent/brilliant mantra that she trots out everytime with everyone.

Repeat it sometime on BBC3

Nothing wrong with the show 12 million viewers can't be wrong. Reality is dancing belongs to a bygone age for most.

Not if you consider the number of dancers who auditioned for So You Think You Can Dance and the number of dancers/dance troupes on Britain's Got Talent every year.

I agree a repeat would be nice - I know I can watch it on iplayer but I'd rather watch it on TV than my laptop if I miss the Saturday show.

Get rid of the props and the mezzanine (no-one's using it now anyway, cos the stairs are crazy long).

So would I ! but really she's got no chance of getting on there unless SCD runs for another 10 years.

OK out of those 12 million how many had gone to a dance in the last 12 months. This does not include disco's which don't have a place on this show. It will be a tiny number.

If they scrapped it and brought back the likes of the Generation Game I don't think I'd miss Strictly too much.

I've enjoyed the Generation Game for many years, with several hosts.

Whereas, I think I've had enough of SCD after watching it for about 6 years.