His Austin Powers impression was brilliant, I'll give him that....although choreographically I hated it

Hey, why has no one suggested Flavia yet? I think he would have done well with her. Her choreographies also tend to be different, but in a good way.

Flavia's record is one losing final, same as Aliona.

I don't think Flavia would have got Matt any further than Jimi.

He may possibly have won with a different pro but he has for my mind produced the most entertaining routines of the season and we have to thank Aliona for that.

His work schedule meant he was often slightly under rehearsed and up against someone as technically and artistically competent as Kara he was always going to struggle.

They both knew their showdance was going to be divisive but they just went out and delivered - fantastic performance for the audience not the judges

We will still be talking about Matt & Aliona in years to come.

IF I HAD to pair him with anyone else it would probably have been Ola or Erin as they may have brought the fun out of him a bit more. Matt was a very good dancer technically but I never felt the connection with the enjoyment of the dance (imo... I know others did) and I think this is because he seemed too focused on winning to get the 'feel' of the dance. (Not sure if i'm explaining what I mean very well).

Alionas choreography wasn't generally to my taste but then the world would be dull if we all liked the same things.

Having said that I probably would not have changed any of the pairings... well, maybe I would've given Ann to Brendan just for the fireworks possibility

To just look at the position he came misses the point. A couple can go far without the pro ever getting the best out of their celeb, or have the pro get the best out of the celeb and yet go out early.

When I compare how good Matt was at the start compared with how good he was yesterday, although there is definitely improvement, I don't see huge improvement compared not only to finalists this year, but also to how much previous finalists have improved.

There was no lack of effort to improve on Matt's part, so you have to look at Aliona. Forget about how far they go, as Aliona can't control that, but what she can control is whether or not Matt fulfills his potential. To me, he didn't do that, and I don't think he had a chance when I look at routines like the American Smooth.

It was the same with Rav last year. He was undoubtedly poor, but there have been a number of dancers as poor as him over the years who have produced better routines because they had a pro partner who knew how to tailor their routines to get the best out of them.

Matt may not have won with a different pro, but I am confident that you could have partnered with any of the other female pros and he would not only have still made the final, as I think he did that despite Aliona, but that he would have gone into the final a better dancer.

Having seen the demographic breakdown of voters for reality TV shows including SCD, X Factor & BB, it is a fact that
SCD's audience & voters are predominantly female.

I observe a pattern of voting in SCD that male contestants can go far, even win, in spite of lack of dance ability, if the female voters like them.

In Matt's case - he's quite a good dancer, but more importantly, he's always been popular with the female viewers; and I think it was popularity rather than dance brilliance that got him to the final 2.


It's a valuation - which is a subjective as opposed to objective fact.


See above.

I agree.

This expresses my opinions more eloquently than I could. I was saying after Matt's showdance that he probably could have performed that routine in week 1; it had minimal dancing and it wasn't a culmination of three months of ballroom dance training.

I don't think other dancers are 'better' or 'worse' than Aliona, but for the purposes of Strictly, I think that many of her choreographic choices didn't allow Matt to perform to the best of his potential. I think that partnered with Lilia, Erin, or Natalie - who choreograph very well to their particular partner's strengths - we may have seen more stand-out routines from Matt.

That said, congratulations to both Matt and Aliona, worthy runners-up.

Aliona.

As with several of the others, they got this pairing right.

Its not entirely about the dancing, and we dont know how another pro would fare chasing round the country, training in any space they could find at any time they could get, because most of the others had a spacious dance studio with mirrors every time they wanted it.

I think what people have to remember is that Matt had severely limited rehearsal time, so it's impossible to say how much better he could have done with anyone else.

I was frustrated at times by the choreography, but we really don't know how long they had to put these routines together, as rehearsal times weren't listed this year. On Friday's ITT they very briefly mentioned having four hours one week! But they brushed over it a bit as they didn't seem to want to make excuses (all credit to them, really).

Annoyingly for them and us, the one week he had a clear schedule they had to learn a ludicrous four dances.

We'll never know and the important thing is that they got all the way to the end, did all the dances and were deserving runners up.

Tough one to call I reckon. I think both Aliona and Artem's approach to SCD is to be experimental with choreography - and in both cases, despite them ending up as finalists, it has had pluses and minuses for me. Kara ended up making errors from time to time and both she and Artem got injured, and some of Matt's dances got mixed receptions from both judges and viewers.

To an extent this sort of boundary pushing is something else you see in DWTS, Lacey and to some extent Max strike me as the two pros whose work tends to divide opinions.

Stupid BBC, now *that* would've been comedy.

Poor old Aliona, maybe Matt didn't win because Kara was better than him?

Always bearing in mind that *better* is a subjective term of course

Possibly, but in much the same was as imo Kara won because of predominantly female voters voting for Artem.

I'm so glad Matt wasn't paired with Natalie - I struggle to understand the love for her and the dislike for Aliona. All Natalie ever does is show herself and her ego off, to the detriment of her celeb. I hate her choreography. Evidence the Rumba this year which had her posing and flouncing around, while Scott more or less just stood there like an idiot. Everything she does is about showing herself off. In fact, having watched the showdance afew more times, Aliona did the reverse, she did a little too much standing around (possibly because of her back injury) while Matt was doing the bulk of the routine.

I'm so glad Matt wasn't paired with Natalie - I struggle to understand the love for her and the dislike for Aliona.

The thing is with choreography, it is just personal choice.

I don't think anyone has said they dislike Aliona as a person, but her choreo is certainly not to everyone on DS's liking and that is fine. But she can't be blamed for Matt losing, same as the judges are not responsible for Kara winning.

SCD is not a dance show, first and foremost, otherwise the likes of Gavin and Ann wouldn't get far. But at the end it comes to the forefront, and of three excellent dancers Kara deserved it most IMO

I think Kara is one of those rare creatures who appeal to both sexes - so I think the female vote was just as much for Kara as Artem.


I cannot understand this comment - the choreography for the jive was clearly arranged to showcase Scott's talents as were several other routines.

Kara didn't appeal to me, neither did Artem, but there you go .

I didn't see Scott's jive so I can't comment (although I understand it was good). It's just that I find the dances of Natalie's that I have watched seem to be as I described above. Just my opinion and observation and why I'm so glad Matt was with Aliona and not Natalie - quite apart from the fact that I fail to see the problem, he came second, which is no shame on him (or Aliona). How bad can she be when she comes second in only her second year on the show. In fact, where were the more seasoned pros (with the exception of James) given that a newby won the thing?

It's a mistake to rank the pros on where they finished. FOr example, Darren didn't go from being the best celeb in series 2 to one of the worst in series 3. It's just that when you go from Jill Halfpenny to Gloria Hunniford you're not going to do anywhere near as well.

Matt was always going to the latter stages because of his natural ability and his popularity with women, no matter which pro he was with. Aliona needs to be judged on whether she got the best out of Matt, not how far they got, and on that score she didn't to well in my opinion.

I can't agree on Natalie. The Rumba may have been focused on her, but the Rumba is all about the woman, and as Scott was poor at it, it made sense to protect her partner by taking the focus off him.

If you look at their dances before Scott starting having issues with fatigue, she put together a number of classic routines that showcased him brilliantly. The quickstep, Tango, VW and Jive all did that, and the AS would have too had he not gone horribly wrong. Aliona has rarely done the same for Matt. I think Len summed her up well last year when he accused her of being more about me than we.