I thought the dance was well structured and storyboarded but to me, although she did the steps in the right places at the right time, I just felt it was all so wooden and lacking in touch. I felt a 6 to be in order and thought the 7 and three 8's was way way ott imho...

Totally agree she looked, Stiff and Awkard.

No its not just you.I think she was overmarked.

nope not just you. She faffed abaht swishing her skirt with all the agression of a little girl playing Princesses.

Couldn't believe the scores she got.

From Nicole Cutler blog:

Alex & James – Paso Doble

This is a difficult song to create a great Paso dance to – I remember Brendan & Sarah Manners using it in series 2 & it was a good song choice for them so hopefully it will be a good choice for Alex & James too.

Alex’s interpretation of the song in the long intro was very good and believable, the acting part usually is always very good for her apart from last week but I was glad to see her back to herself. They began their Paso content with: Promenade to Counter promenade into Twist turns into Pivots, all nicely done but I felt it lacked upper body strength, shape and extension from Alex – she can give it a bit more ‘oomph’ I feel! They had a nice Paso highlight and drop but it looked a little like Alex hangs onto James sometimes and in turn causes her to look like James is pulling her into the next position instead of Alex moving her own body weight. I feel that this is a general problem for Alex and one she should focus a lot more on fixing. Their Chasse capes were good although there was a timing issue. On the whole I thought the use of Alex’s skirt was a little excessive and instead of enhancing her movement, it exaggerated the overuse of the skirt use in place of movement. Despite Alex not being a very aggressive dancer in this Paso, I did feel that her characterisation was in keeping with the theme James created as Alex still looked herself in the dance without compromising herself.

Content: 6 Theme: 7 Overall: 7

****************************

I personally think scores of sixes and sevens are alright, but eight is overmarked.

Massively overmarked- should have been in the 20's.

However- Alex is in that group that always gets a little more score wise than the 'bottom' group (ie Audley and Rory) who get scored properly.

Its always a tiered scoring system in SCD- not sure why but its always been the same.

They will be lucky this week with another in-hold ballroom but James is storing up trouble with the fast latins IMO.

It was be nice to Alex week , James obviously influenced this weeks scores with his hissy fit last week .i thought she danced awfull

Not just you ... it's was damage limitation from last week.

Compare her dance to Karas last year .................. and compare the scores?

She was. I think they were overcompensating for the remarks the week before.

Way, way overmarked. Don't dislike the girl but she does appear very wooden and stiff.

It was a good effort, I thought, particularly given her upset last week and James saying she hadn't an aggressive bone in her body.

We can all get exercised by over-marking or under-marking (I am guilty of this myself) but, in the end, Alex ended up at about the right place on the leader-board - and that's all that really matters.

Totally.

After she'd finished I thought - oops!! Craig with a 5 max, the other with 6's and bottom 2 was beckoning... Couldn't believe it - three 8's come on judges lol!!

Hi peeve. Sorry to disagree - anything over 24 was overmarked for me and 31 was fictional lol.

I liked Alex's dance, the marks seemed fair to me.

She must be getting the sympathy vote for her pitifulness last week. She'll just drop out halfway without making any impression in particular.

Hi Peeve,

but why should she get the apology marking- none of the other contestents get 'we feel sorry for last week' scores??

She should have been further down on the leader board IMO and was helped wonderously- I wonder what her home voting position is??

Hmm, I think maybe the dance was a tad overmarked, but in the context of the rest of the dances that week, the score was probably fair. I think putting it on the same level as Anita's tango, just behind Chelsee's dance was probably the correct position.

probably to compensate for the judges telling the truth last week during her awful rumba

When you compare their dances to what we've seen in years gone by: Alex, Lulu, Robbie, Anita and Holly & Harry (dues to lack of content) were ALL overmarked.

But then if virtually everyone is getting overmarked, it's not a massive problem because they are still finishing in the right order on the leaderboard.

It's inevitable we're going to see dances score more highly these days though, because Alesha is more generous with her marks than Arlene was. So everyone is getting 1 or 2 more points than they would have done in earlier series.

Alex has been overmarked just about every week for me. She's not the dancer the judges seem to want her to be, and no amount of clever choreography from James can disguise the fact she's about as wooden and uninteresting as the desk on which I type this.

I do agree that as long as the leaderboard positions are about right then the marks themselves are pretty much irrelevant, but week after week I find myself querying why Alex has been placed above others who have given more of themselves in the dance.

Week 5 leaderboard:

Jason & Kristina............37
Holly & Artem................35
Harry & Aliona...............34
Chelsee & Pasha..........32
Alex & James................31
Anita & Robin................31
Lulu & Brendan.............29
Robbie & Ola................26
Russell & Flavia............22
Audley & Natalie...........20
Nancy & Anton..............14

compared with last year's Week 5 leaderboard:

Scott & Natalie..............39
Kara & Artem................37
Matt & Aliona................34
Patsy & Robin...............31
Jimi & Flavia.................30
Michelle & Brendan......29
Tina & Jared.................28
Pamela & James..........27
Felicity & Vincent.........26
Gavin & Katya..............26
Ann & Anton.................16

I really don't see that the scores this year are more generous, and I still maintain that Alex was in the right place on the leader-board. Does anybody really believe that any of those below her deserved to be higher placed?

I didn't think she was grossly over-marked compared to the others.
I always think Nicole Cutler is fair, and she finished by saying.."I did feel that her characterisation was in keeping with the theme James created as Alex still looked herself in the dance without compromising herself."
She was probably lucky. the character James had created suited her kind of timid approach (there was certainly no aggression, in my opinion)..so in that respect "it worked"..for me anyway.

Yes Alex was overmarked... but then again so was Anita. Both should have had 2 or 3 marks lower.

I think she was overmarked too.
Way too much time faffing with her skirt & then she was like a ragdoll in hold.

I won't be sorry to see her go.

The judges know some of the worst dancers are going to do well on the public vote, they could be trying to compensate.