Considering how difficult the quickstep is, and having done it about a hundred times myself, I thought Alex and James did very well and were actually undermarked. I thought they might have got a couple of 9s. And I enjoyed the music - a quickstep classic number often used by the Hiltons.

I enjoyed her dance, and she comes across as a nice person.

I also think she's been given higher marks because the BBC want cheap advertising for the one show. She was dragged round the dance floor and the audience arent that stupid.

I don't think the actual numbers are that important, I don't think it really matters what the gap is between first, second and third what matters is where they actually place imo. I think she usually places where she should on the leader board.

I think she's coming along nicely - improving a bit each week. That's the sort of dancer I like, 'cos she's actually learning. I actually found the same to be true of Chris Hollins - was he the most amazing dancer ever? No. Did he improve dramatically and become a Strictly contender? Yes.

Just to say that I never intended for this thread to become an Alex-bashing one. I don't watch the One Show so I have no particular bias towards her and she seems nice enough from her VTs on Strictly. I just can't help but think that the judges maybe wouldn't be so forgiving of her mistakes and timing issues if she worked for GMTV rather than the One Show. She is still better than several of the others so should be in the competition for a few weeks yet. I just wouldn't like to see her get a final place ahead of someone more deserving simply because she is the Beeb's star.

she must be getting the Welsh votes to stay in