Aliona is a bloody fool.
Harry has the potential to be the best ever male celeb on the show & she just keeps faffing around.
Let him dance!

Harry's is potentially one of the best dancers ever and he's going to lose because of Aliona's stupid choreography - such a shame, the stupid woman.

I bet she never wore her tie at school.

I really liked their dances last week and this week. And this week I wasn't really fond of very many dances - don't think the theme week worked this time.

As someone who normally supports Aliona, I am afraid to say she got it badly wrong tonight.

Harry did whatever dancing he had to do well but it was a poor routine.

I'm getting to the point that I can't actually watch them dance as I am so irritated with her

I would have definately supported (and voted for) Harry if he had been with someone who choreographed routines that showed off his talent but I will not spend any money on a phone call (or several) with Aliona and her odd routines. Poor Harry

I agree with you Buddy. Pros could simply not bother their celeb finds difficult.
I think there is a comment elsewhere by someone that they would rather see Harry dance a low content routine well than another celeb dance a high content routine badl, .but we don't actually know what Harry could have done with a high content routine. He might have started off well (since the bit he did do in Aliona's routine was good) but then it could have fallen apart, or alternatively he might have sustained it all the way through and it could have been brilliant. We can speculate, but we're just left not really knowing.

How can you guys judge what Harry's real potential is when all you see of him is 1.5 min of dancing on Saturday night and altogether around 30 min of VTs and interviews?

It's not like Aliona is sewing a piece of garment where she can just stitch a bit more fabric at the end if it's too short. Adding more content means more time spent on learning the routine and less time available on learning the technique. Which means Harry's dancing won't be as good as it is now. So you can either watch a routine with great 40 seconds of dancing followed by faffing around, or an average dance full of content, much like Lulu, Anita, Robbie,... Aliona has chosen the former and by doing so has separated Harry from the pack of average dancers.

We can judge his potential because of what we see - even if it is only 1.5 minutes every week. The guy is a natural mover, he's musical, a quick learner and can perform - can perform in front of a live audience too. This means he's already streets ahead of some of the other celebs. In fact, the only other celeb near Harry's level is Chelsee and she trains the least amount of hours every week and Harry trains the most. Jason and Holly have to work their socks off to produce less technically competent routines than Harry.

Aliona is a great choreographer, but by choreographing what are effectively show dances ever week, she could lose the chance for her and Harry to win.

PS You are missing the main point though - Aliona does not produce routines that keep to the rules of each dance and it is alienating people.

If Aliona doesn't start giving Harry the dance content he can clearly manage she WILL lose the glitter-ball for him. Just like she did with Matt last year; another highly talented and capable dancer.

Whilst "Show dances" are eye catching and memorable it leaves no where to go. Jason may also suffer from this if Kristina goes back to the high theatre of previous weeks.

Yet Audley's routine still had more Jive content than Aliona has managed to choreograph for both Matt & Harry together & likewise for her Tango tonight. Her style of choreography is more suited to Americas' DWTS where the routines seem to have very little of the specified dance content (try watching on mute), but are still scored relatively highly by all 3 judges including Len & Bruno & they are also noticably less critical!!

Having looked at the Tango again, it is top quality entertainment with a stunning performance from Harry. He must have really enjoyed performing that routine. I'm going to enjoy watching it again and again.

But I love the Tango and would have liked to have seen more Tango in hold, which I think could have been done and still been very entertaining.

I totally agree with you on this. I posted something similar on the spoiler thread. I felt she lost it for Matt last year and I fear the same this year unless she sorts it out.

Reality is back to dance purists against couples providing Saturday night entertainment. Why does anyone think that the BBC provides all the props? Its for entertainment of a mass audience REPEAT MASS AUDIENCE.
Goodman is a complete toerag who had two digs at Aliona tonight for no good reason. I couldn't see much difference in the time most of the dancers actually danced a routine and so called "faffed about". He is engaged in a personal vendetta which is either manufactured for effect or just being bloody minded.

I think Aliona's dances are far more memorable this year than they were when she was with Matt. Perhaps its the extra training time. Yes, they lack content, but they're very entertaining and I find myself watching them again and again. I think it helps that they seem to have great chemistry.

Apart from the one issue of how much Tango in hold there was, IMO the choreography and performances in Aliona's Tango were the best of the night.

Harry may not mind if he doesn't win the glitterball as long as he stays in to the final, has a really enjoyable time and learns to dance really well. You can argue over quantity but lately, not the quality of his dancing.

May, being the operative word. What if he does mind?

Selfish woman.

For what it's worth I thought that Aliona's last two dances were two of the best examples of choreography on the series so far and have elevated Harry from an also-ran to a contender.

Plus surely the point is this - if Harry's getting it so right in the pure tango (etc) sections of the routines, to the extent that Len and others are moaning about the lack of content, surely the credit should go to Aliona for training him so well in the fundamentals

Rubbish.

This is not about being a dance purist, it's about playing fair. Why should Aliona get away with choreographing show dances every week, whilst other pros work their socks off to choreograph their allocated dance? And a mass audience does not equal a stupid audience btw.

Just great chemistry? What's the point of training for so many hours when the basic idea of the show is that the celebs learn to master (esp. if you have the natural aptitude for it) the ballroom dancing techniques and Aliona was too lazy to do that or too obtuse to show what Harry is REALLY capable of doing?

If the technical content is really so spurious then they might as well turn up next week and do a contemporary number (those with no shoes on and two of them groping each other and looking angst because most contemporary dances look like that) or simply turn up and do a pure disco number?

Why not just do some tap dancing just to show the judges, and give them two fingers up their ars*s so to speak, just because they are 'entertaining'?

While I still like and understand lens point of view and marking, I think you are very right in the other points. Specially in that he singles out aliona today when almost80% of the other couples did bend the rules as much as she did. I ldo not mind Len having a go all the other days, but today?
Please, with the exception of Anita and Russell (jason at a push) all the other couples had plenty of faffing around.

I won't put Jason in the QS-content rich category by any stretch of imagination. Did you completely forget Chelsee and Pasha's tango? It was full of content, even despite the wardrobe malfunction incident.

The content is there - but the 'faffing about' really makes the performance become its own thing. What I like about her choreography is the storytelling and originality. That's sort of the reason I also really enjoyed Holly's performance tonight too. Both of the performances seemed too short - I wanted more from them. That's a good thing though - it makes me want to see them back next week to show us what they can do next. I don't think she needs to stretch him too much yet, she's adding enough each week to grip the audience it seems and I should think he's safe for a few weeks yet (fingers crossed his dances go well) but I'm pretty sure the later he stays the more impressed Len will be. Its too early for Harry to peak anyhow. I think, personally, Jason might lose the trophy to someone else who has more of a journey, and Len's nagging is adding to Harry's chances in the long run.

not sure that is correct. One of the better male dancers that I can recall was Ricky whittle and his partner does "perfect" choreographies, and yet he lost to someone who was not even half the dancer he was? Last year Scott Maslen was also naturally quite good (not as naturally beautiful dancer as Harry or Ricky) and also had the same beautiful choreographer and teacher, yet he didn't win either.
Honestly, I don't believe that aliona cost matt the trophy, kara and artem did, they had it all (great celeb dancer, beautiful in love couple, good and entertaining chorograohy, drama with Len) and matt (even though I was a fan) would have never won over them, not even with a more traditional choreography.

As much as some purists are turned off by her routines others like me find them sometime more beautiful/interesting than the more traditional ones and make us pick up the phone for them when we had no intention of doing so.

Yes, you are so right. I forgot to add that one. On reflexion I should have said anita's and chelsee and Russell and Jason at a push.