My sentiments exactly.

The mass audience does not know nor care about the difference between so called 'show dances' or strict adherence to ballroom standards. In the case of the latter there is not one contestant ever that reached professional standards in strictly. Every dance I saw had props and 'faffing' so your argument is invalid. I don't even see how it can be seen as playing fair either Aliona is subject to the same scoring system as everbody else with an additional Goodman penalty to boot.

The Tango did get on my nerves as they had them dreadful masks on for about 30 secs of the dance.

Harry is hot and needs to just do a perfect dance without gimmicks. Aliona needs to chill out and make the dance more traditional. For instance, a lovely Quickstep could get Harry the full mark of 40.

For know all he needs to do is stay in he finished third again with the judges although Alesha did over mark again probably to counter the petulant Goodman. The public vote is the decding factor regardless.

You don't know what the mass audience cares about and as someone who has never had a dance lesson in her life, and has learned everything she knows about each dance from watching the show, I know when the choreography lacks technical content. I'm sure millions of others do too and that doesn't make us dance purists.

I can tell when a pro is aiming to get public votes by using the WOW factor and Aliona's 'problem' is that she is doing this with a partner that has enough talent to WOW the judges and the public. Usually pros do this when their celeb doesn't have much talent.

And Aliona is subject to the same scoring as everybody else. Her scores reflect the level of skill and technical content just as the others do (I thought they were overmarked this week tbh). What you really want is for her to be marked higher because she produces fabulous dances. The trouble is those dances don't include enough of the specific dance. Any of the pros can do what Aliona is doing. What do you think Natalie did with Audley this week? Until now she has stuck to the rules of each dance, but this week she knows their performance is very weak on a technical level, so she took the risk of including a lot of faffing about, so they ended up 2nd bottom of the leader board hoping the public vote keeps them in.

As I said, any pro can do what Aliona is doing, but they don't do it with a partner like Harry.

I agree and it's a shame, because Harry's tango could have been great. I watched it this morning again, and there wasn't much tango in it (and I only know about dancing from Strictly). I love the tango, it can be great, but those two faffed about too much (not Harry's fault).

Aliona & Harry will do the Hokey Cokey next week...if they fail to to put a single limb in or out...is it still a Hokey Cokey?

No...and if Strictly is OK to go down the route of "modern/free/interpretive" dance...let's start waving goodbye to ALL the current professionals...because then we will not need international standard ballroom/latin dancers will we?

Well, I know about dancing, albeit from a earlier era, and have had lessons extensively in both ballroom and ice dance and their is too much non-dance material (if we assume that SCD means 'Strictly CD'.
A few seconds in hold doesn't constitute a proper Tango, Quickstep or whatever. Over the years since its start SCD is slowly going downhill and is gradually becoming a nonsense and certain pros are ruining their celebs chance of winning, particular a certain Harry Judd.
I guess it's a matter of entertainment for the masses a la X-Factor with the obligatory baying audience which is on the increase.

Totally agree with this. I have no dance knowledge but I said it had no tango in hold whilst I was watching. It was a great freestyle dance but not enough tango in it. Its not a freestyle competition!

I used to like Aliona but her constantly doing her own thing is starting to grate on me. Its not fair on the celeb dancer who actually has some potential. I thought exactly the same in her Grease Lightening routine. Great dance but no jive in it.

Exactly. This is where Kristina is very clever. Where she does make the most of Jason's ability. He does not come across as good a natural dancer as Harry or Chelsee yet she choreographs around his ability well.

This is what is sooooo frustrating with Aliona. Harry CAN dance and she needs to do routines that show this.

Pasha seems to have learnt very quickly to have plenty of content and push Chelsee to dance properly.

I don't think Harry will win with Aliona as partner as she is not as good a choreographer as the other professionals.
She has been very lucky with her partners but just does not make the most of them.
She really needs to up her game and give Harry more to do as he is quite capable of doing it.
I think she needs to open her eyes and ears and listen to the judges comments, they are saying that Harry is brilliant, but the choreography isnt.

Another vote of agreement from me, Buddy () ...

I do wish Harry had been paired with someone else. It's obvious Aliona doesn't listen to anyone and expects the public to keep Harry in ...

Exactly!!!

Harry is such a naturally talented ballroom dancer. But I really hope this year Chelsee wins the final, and I wish for Harry (because of Aliona) to get second again. It would be the worst feeling being SO close, yet so far.

if Aliona wins can you imagine how many more props and faffing about she would do next year!!!

that is very nice of you, can I ask what has Harry done to deserve such a charitable thought?

except not being a brat and working his arse of in training every week (more hours than any other contestant) and giving a 100% and committing fully to every performance, regardless of what choreography he is given...?

Unfortunately Aliona seems to inspire a high level of dislike in some of us. I'm afraid the celeb partner always bears the brunt.

I wouldn't like to see Aliona win either and consequently Harry would be consigned to the also-rans of SCD history. That's the way it is. She's one of those Marmite-characters and she does have a lot of detractors as well as passionate advocates.

If you are getting so worked up about a contestant on a saturday night light entertainment show to the point that you are revelling in the thought of a nice person who has done nothing but work his back side off week in week out, falling flat on his face, then it may well be time to back away slowly from the TV and go for a lie down

Oo, eck, LN.

Not sure about the revelling. But it's the concomitant of having a favourite. There's a 'villain'. So aptly named for the role!

I don't want a lie-down. I want more dancing, more controversy, more to natter on about. I quite enjoy not liking Aliona. Don't deprive me of my 'villain'. No FUN!

I wouldn't want to do that, sorry carry on as you were...

all that hard work Harry does for charity, climbing mountains for poverty stricken Peruvian kids, running marathons for the brain injuries trust and cancer research....

that dastardly swine!

Phew! Harry will get his reward in heaven then! Sounds like a lovely lad. I tend to think these boy-band fellas are all a bit....shallow.

I am clearly wrong.

Wish he'd had a different partner. Natalie would have been fab with him.

Don't blame me! Harry is an excellent dancer, but Aliona's not giving him the chance to showcase that he can be one of the best male celebs to have participated Strictly! If you give 100% on training that produces less than 50% of actual ballroom content, do you think such is a deserving winner to someone (say Chelsee) who's given maybe 90% of her committment (she's working a full day time job at the moment) and produced more than 60% of the ballroom dance content?

If so, then I should spend a lot of time doing mathematics and expect that I will score a distinction when I take the physics exam!

Has anyone actually thought about Harry in this huge great debate.......

May be he is asking Aliona to tone down the content of the dances because he isnt able to cope with anything more than what she is giving him?

He tweeted himself that he only managed to get the waltz on the Thursday.......

There is some much criticism on this forum, none of us know what goes on in their training room, none of us are inside their heads, none of us know what Harry is capable of and maybe what they are producing on a saturday night is what he is capable of......

He has made it clear that he struggles with each dance - he doesnt find it easy at all but he is improving week after week - that much is obvious

I don't want Harry to fall flat on his face and I agree that he's a hard-working, talented contestant, however, I wouldn't choose to spend my money voting for him and Aliona. To be honest, I won't be voting anyway as I'm not in mainland UK and have no way to vote but if I could vote, unless they completely messed up on the night I'd be more likely to vote for Chelsee & Pasha (assuming they get to the final) as I prefer their partnership.

If we were voting for the couple we want out each week and the couple we don't want to win, I certainly wouldn't vote for Harry & Aliona because Harry definitely doesn't deserve that but I enjoy watching Chelsee & Pasha dance more than I do Harry & Aliona and, unfortunately, Aliona's choreography has a lot to do with that.

To be honest, everyone's struggling in their training. Chelsee had 12 hours of training time due to her work in her QS week, and yet, despite Pasha putting nearly 80% of pure QS content in it, she managed to get it right. Even up till Friday evening in their interview, Chelsee wasn't quite sure if she could remember or produce the dance on the actual day, and as history had it, she did, and marvellously so (though not without mistakes).

I think Harry is talented enough to learn proper ballroom steps. For example, it's actually EASIER - not more difficult - for Harry to remain in ballroom hold in his Waltz rather than doing those shadowing at the second half of his routine, which Craig and Bruno picked up his flaws and so didn't give him the ten.

If he remained in hold, which he did marvellously and flawlessly in the first half of the waltz, he might actually make Strictly history and get a perfect forty scores (or minimum 39) from the judges at such an early stage of the competition. After all, Bruno's only problem was with his hands in the second half of that waltz, when he's faffing about. Craig said the same thing on Monday with Zoe at ITT I believed. Len already said he would give Harry a ten if they had remained in hold (which Harry already mastered, perfectly I must add) for longer.

So there. Why is Aliona sabotaging Harry's chances of doing well with the judges AS WELL AS with the viewers at home?!