But as I said before, my issue with this whole thing is that Katya and Ola (to name but two) both criticised the judges, but didn't get called out. Dan said to Katya "the judges know what they are talking about" and she replied "no they don't".

If you are gonna call one person out for disrespecting the judges, you should call out the others. Which is why I think Len may have issues with Aliona.

It may be the truth that Aliona knows more than the judges and if she followed everything they said, she would be trying to hit 4 moving targets.

She would have been better not admitting that she doesn't actually follow their advice. She should have stopped after saying that she listened to their advice and respected them.

I dont think Aliona's choreography is perfect but I do see lots of good things about it. I'm glad she doesn't change it to something more like what Len would choreograph.

I think Aliona might be in for a bumpy ride from the judges again this week. She got criticised for lack of jive content last year with Matt even though the characterisation was great and from the looks of ITT, she's doing the same thing with Harry this week.

She might get an absolute mauling!

But then she might also get saved by the fact that others are faffing around, as Len might say. Kristina and Jason's looks and Brendan has already said there's very little rumba content in Lulu's rumba this week.

In that case they deserve to be at the bottom of the leaderboard- there wasn't much content in Lulu's foxtrot last week - and she was overmarked as well. It was worthy of a 5 - not a 7

Hi all,

Matt and Aliona Jive last year was in Movie week! Austin Powers.

Len said he loved the dance, Matt was a bit light .....good job, Craig said he loved it.... Matt lost a section..timing and Bruno said the Matt got the sixties mood without losing the jive which he said Matt did very well!

From the comments, I thought that judges really liked this routine. Len referred back to time and again when talking about Matt acting ability, if it was such a dud routine and it lacked necessary jive content, I don’t think Len would have held back at the time, instead he said ......good job and gave it a 9

Scores C 8 L9 A9 and B9 Total 35

It may not be bad for Jive content.

Last year Jive week was during the worst of the snow, when they had to go to the Outer Hebrides to film for Countryfile. That resulted in very little training time.

As someone else pointed out, there is a talking start to the song and that is the bit that Ian was reviewing. As soon as they got to the music Aliona was jiving (Harry missed his cue).

She doesn't need to change it to choreograph more like what Len would choreograph. Trust me, if Len choreograph anything, it would like those seventies-retro ballroom numbers. Yikes!

Why can't she just take it as a challenge to choreograph BRILLIANT stuff that STILL sticks to the spirit of the genre she's given? What gives her the right to choreograph a supposed jive routine (Austin Powers) to an excellent celeb jiver Matt with almost no jive content? Now she appears to be repeating the same with Harry's Grease Lightning number. What's with Harry seemingly doing those round automatic robo-vacumn cleaner mopping the floor at one point of their dance? Completely ridiculous! I hope I am proven wrong that the cameraman failed somehow to capture those pertinent jive bits in their training clip shown thus far. But I seriously won't hold my breath!

I think last year Matt's Jive had to be simplified due to lack of training time. I dont disagree that his jiving could have been better. The routine may have been partially altered due to lack of training time to something they could practice while waiting for a plane.

Matt did a great job acting the part, but you could see him looking out of the side of his eye at times to check that he was still on the routine correctly. That wasn't typical of Matt, as he was a fast learner and could always deliver the routines with confidence.

I REALLY want to be proven wrong this Saturday with Harry's jive. The same we see, maybe it was too long the introduction? I really hope we see some jive moves, so far I only see a two-bar drunken sailor and a few precious seconds of lame kicks and flicks and the rest are just faffing about.

I reckon they will put Jason on first, and follow with bl@@dy Lulu- they will save Harry and Nancy till last

Is there any X Factor overlap again this week?

Not sure - I wouldn't be surprised if there was though

I would imagine that would help define the dance order if there is

Quite.

But there is - and how many times have we been here before with other contestants - a concerted effort going on to 'sell' Lulu to the public right now. Zoe Ball seems to have told to big her up at every possible opportunity ... :yawn:

My guess is that much of this may be driven by some of the comments on forums like this one, where people have commented in a negative way about her personality/reputation, and the producers are trying to counteract that.

If so, what they clearly don't understand is that tactic doesn't make her appeal more - it makes people's opinion of her more entrenched. That's what happened to Lisa Snowdon.

All off-topic rather, but I expect more biased marking as far as Lulu's is concerned ...

I've read a lot of conspiracy theories but this one takes the custard-cream!

Glad not have disappointed ...!

Not really. It was actually Aliona's choreography that kept Matt in an "underdog" position - not because there was anything wrong with it, it was great in its own right, but because it frequently attracted criticism from the judges for subjective reasons (she did nothing technically wrong or illegal, they just didn't agree with the decisions she made).

If she had choreographed whatever ideal dance DS users had in their minds, and Matt was a runaway favourite walking it all the way through, it would probably have strengthened Kara's support and increased antipathy towards Matt. The GBP love underdogs and go cold towards teacher's pets.

No one was the underdog last year. If anything, Pamela was top dog with the judges towards the end, for some bizarre reason.

And no one has presented any actual "evidence" that Matt would have beaten Kara if Aliona had choreographed differently, either.


How? They were never in the bottom two and finished second to an incredible pairing. How's that "suffering"?


It's not so much denying saying what she said so much as denying she meant what Len thought she meant. Her comment seemed ambiguous. She said something like she listens to the comments, but doesn't take them on board. That seems slightly contradictory; remember she's not a native speaker and might have a shaky understanding of what "take on board" means. She listens, as she said, but perhaps by "not taking on board" she meant she doesn't take them to heart or let them bog her down or control her.

I agree it's not a smart thing to say, particularly when professional dancers are dropped from the show for no apparent reason. However, I suspect that most of them know more about choreography and dance than any of the panel.

Len's main skill is nothing to do with his Blackpool gold medal for something-or-other that he won in the 1960s - it's more to do with his gift of the gab and blagging himself as a job as head judge.

I know this is slightly OT but I've been meaning to ask for a while now.

What is everyone's problem with Lulu (apart from the fact that she obviously can't perform the routines, which has plagued many a non dancer through the years!)?

I'm not being funny (I could be, if you want. I have lots of unused jokes. No? Ok! ). I genuinely have absolutely no idea what she's done to tick so many people off even before she appeared on the show! I certainly haven't come across any negativity about her before (but then, I suppose I haven't exactly looked and I don't frequent the DS showbiz threads very often, as I don't like the tone most people use when referring to people they've never met and don't know).

If someone could please explain (briefly as I don't want to drag this off topic really!) , I'd be very grateful!

sorry hun, I'll bow to your knowledge, but I could have sworn that the judges and ex pros the week after were critical of the lack of jive content.

He could get 10s, not joke. After all, I've said this many times in his Blue Peter Days, he had a five-day intense training from none other than Darren and Lilia, and WON the amateur ballroom competition with Zoe Salmon!

Are you kidding!

Whatever your personal opinions of the panel with the exception of Alesha they have all got years of experience in dance in a variety of genres and Len in particular has been one of the most respected judges for years.

Whether the dancers agree with what the judges say or not it is something they should keep to themselves or joke about a la James Jordan.

Lulu may well have the problem any other celebrity contestant who is constantly shoved in our face by the Beeb does (over exposure does not go down well). Couple this with the reality of her ability vs expectation and the anti feeling is multiplied.

That's it?

I thought she'd done something terrible ... I've been reading and contributing to these boards for some years now and I don't recall quite this level of vitriol levelled at anyone before (although it's come close; however, because it's been a gradual thing over the series, I've seen it develop). This, however, seemed to come out of nowhere from all quarters and seems to be more personal than any of the criticism I've seen directed toward others.

I wondered if she'd killed someone's pet or stolen their child or something!

Poor Lulu. Every time I've seen her on ITT (and in any interviews, which I have seen today in one Saturday magazine), she seems very humble and only wanting to do her best.

And ... I have to be honest. I don't remember seeing her on ANYTHING recently aside from SCD. So i don't know where this exposure thing has come from, either.

Still utterly confused!! However, it has made me want to support her, simply because I'm rather sad to see all the dislike that's being hurled toward her for seeimingly no reason!

And, to keep this*On topic* ....

I have to say, I found Aliona's apology to be ... a little bit of a 'non-apology', to be honest! She DID say she didn't pay the judge's comments any attention the other week (irrespective of whatever else she said). And Len's comments re Harry's shoulders etc were perfectly valid. Even I as an armchair SCD reviewer can now see the problems with posture and other things (especially after watching it for so many years! I saw Rory's problems in the first week and was rather pleased to have them verified by the judges afterward!).

it may be that Aliona is aware of the problems with posture etc and is working to counteract them (it wouldn't take long, for goodness sake, as Harry is a natural mover and could be stunning if he sorts out those minor issues); or it could be (as I got the impression from the original interview), that she is more focused on delivering the dance and not working on the basics.

I could be wrong, of course (I often am!), but that's what it said to me as a casual viewer (who actually LIKES Aliona!).

If Matt had been able to put together 5 days of training for last years jive and not had to suffer the stupid Austin Powers theme then I'd agree he'd have been looking at 10s.

However, as was said on It Takes Two afterwards he managed the grand total of 4 hours training for that jive! Filming the SCD Xmas special took up Sunday and Monday then they flew to Uist for Countryfile filming. Due to bad weather they then didn't get back until late on Thursday.

In that case I do think Aliona simplified the routine to account for the lack of time and it probably was a good thing that Matt had some previous jive experience

With Harry this week there won't be any excuse for lack of jive content so I hope the bits shown so far are intro only and marking out. I think it could be a good dance and a chance to show off some choreography in a week when I expect lots of faffing. I