It does seem like there's a lack of connection, or perhaps synchronicity is the correct word, between most couples.

Russell made it too much about him. Flavia is the teacher, not him.

Robbie hasn't mastered the basics, so how can he go further?

Alex has been aided by James's more traditional dances, but she needs to give it more attack.

Anita can't keep up with Robin, or at least it looks that way. Perhaps they need to step back a bit.

Holly is much the same with Artem. You have to walk before you can run. If she was better in training - fair enough, but her struggling to keep up should really have been adjusted for with a less demanding routine.

Harry is in the Aliona show. He always seems to do about 30% of the dance to 70% Aliona. Not sure if that's because Aliona wants to make it about her or she thinks Harry isn't that great and knows how to get judge's favour.

Chelsee has a supportive partner who seems to have good banter. If there's a wow dance, they'll probably be the ones to expect it from. But it's not definite - she always seems to make mistakes; perhaps being off Waterloo Road will help.

And Jason is stuck cube rooting movement vectors to send to the motor cortex, whilst Kristina is seemingly all about the competition. No love between them, but a professional relationship.

I think they need to focus on teaching steps and technical moves in the first few weeks - having the theme and gimmick weeks (Broadway, Halloween, arguably Wembley) were a bit like sugar rushes - nice at the time, but not good for the long term.

I think there are 2 problems, whether you like this year's celebs or not:
1) the judges are not giving much constructive criticism. I think that means there are less 'stories' to get invested in - in previous years I've really cared whether someone can fix their hips or their hands or learn to let go, etc, but I don't feel this year like it matters, they'll get 9s anyway, and I don't feel the celebs care either. Without the tension, the dances are less involving, imo.
2) the lack of training. I think this really matters. I don't say i want to see someone crying and running from the training room or arguing with their pro or all the usual stuff we used to see, but before you got an idea of how they're getting on, and it made them seem more human. Now we get the little comedy films. We're this many weeks in and I don't have any real sense if Jason and Kristina get on or if Harry even likes dancing, etc. (I've had to be away in the week and not seen as much of ITT as I would normally, so maybe others don't feel this, but I think this year ITT also presents joke versions of traning rather than showing us what's going on in the ones I've seen.) I don't even know how many hours they're doing - I used to live for that stuff!

I think Chelsee and Pasha are fantastic, don't I Pash , and I think Jason, Harry and Holly have done very good dances, and Holly makes me laugh. I think there have been worse years and I don't have any couple I can't stand, which is really unusual. I don't mind that nobody was clearly brilliant before they started. But I think the way the show is done now builds up less suspence that they'll fail, so you feel less pleasure for them when they get through it, and at the same time makes you expect too much of them - 'Jason's about to do a Jill Halfpenny jive'. So there is less Wow.

I agree with a lot of your post anyway (and JTNorth's), but this made me laugh so much!

Good post and I agree. It is all style and no substance.

Excellent point - it seems to be uncool to be self confident.

You're making it seem as if all the celebs are stupid and the pros are asocial and not capable of teaching.

I feel the same way there is no one I want to win really, by this time last year we were Kara mad voting at least twice every week.

Last night was the first time i voted in this series and it was for Holly as I didn't want her to go out before Russel or Robbie and i Thought she might so I voted.

I don't feel any personality from Harry, Alex is so over marked and I really don't see what the judges go on about I thought her paso was terrible all that skirt wafting, and last week she was trying to keep up with James. Anita is average, Jason is a bit inconsistent, Robbie is terrible.I just don't get Chelsee all that praise last night because she stood behind the screen on her own and danced??? I don't like her shoulders either she hops round a turn and gets a 10 from Alesha.

I'm just not feeling it this year lol

No, I don't think it's that but something seems to be missing according to many of the comments posters make in the wider forum and I'm trying to figure out what it might be.

As others have said, it's increasingly difficult to know how well the celebs are doing in training and how well the couples get on together. Almost everything seems 'packaged' and every couple seems to have its own target audience!

Maybe it's like the old wrestling matches in which nearly everything is scripted and not much is real?

*That's a joke by the way*

If dancing is moving toward pro wrestling it is because both are focused on the same pot of gold -- what promoters reckon will bring in bums on seats on Tour. Is the Tour grossing half a £million per night now? With pro dancers paid £11K per night, celebs and judges more?

All now want the meal ticket, not least Ann Widdicomb and her friend Craig R-H who invited her. The Tour tail now wags the Strictly dog.

I agree that the problem wasn't Wembley but rather the poor quality of dancing highlighted by the grand venue. Chelsee appears to be the only natural dancer amongst the current bunch of celebs.But she still keeps making mistakes in her routines, even when she had more training time for the Samba.

Which makes me wonder how these celebs are going to cope with learning and performing more than one dance per show and up to five in the final as the contest progresses.

Chelsea is not a natural dancer. There is absolutely no spring(bounce) in her footwork. She copes and is probably in the front runners of a very disappointing series.

I have always recorded SCD and normally kept the recordings for 4-6 weeks after the final. This year the only recording I have kept is showdance week - there has been nothing I want to rewatch that much.

The VTs are so naff but apart from that I still have not pinned my colours to anyone.

I started liking Harry but find him so smug these days and I am now split between Chelsee/Jason according who dances best each week.

Is the lack of progress evident in this season down to the celebrities or the pros? Probably it's a mixture of both. The producers are to blame for too much show and props and for getting rid of the best dance teachers.

I think it's more to do with the fact that they now have a live pre-show where partners are revealed. The celebs and pros used to have about 6 weeks to get a grounding in ballroom and Latin before they learned their first dance and to develop a partnership.

Now, they spend 3 weeks getting to know each other and learning the first dance.

The difference is startling for me.

The judges scores often seem very inconsistent with their comments this year, especially Craig. Len's comments appear to be particularly harsh this year, but I don't mind this so much as it seems to counteract the other 3 judges' embarrashing fawning over Harry's chest, which has resulted in overmarking for his relatively average performances!

Of course Chelsee is a natural dancer. She has the lowest training hours yet dances better than the others. Even mighty Craig said that Chelsee is a naturally gifted dancer.

Chelsee - you don't like her acce"nt - you find it hard to understand everything she says. Luckily Pasha probably stopped listening ages ago, and just gets her to dance.
(PS She is definitely my favourite contestant, I can see her in the final, but I don't think a hugely female - my supposition - voting GBP will let her win)

Bruce - not diehard but already dead. His timing is way off and I hate it when he wastes time milking the audience and interrupting the judges. but his (non-adjectival) admirers call him a legend and refuse to see how rude he is. No lurrve

I have to agree with Holly Berry, but my words of opinion are that i dont see much `punch` in the dancing. Theres potential but no punch, apart from Harry who i think is the best and i think he has so much potential, and Jason is very good

Im sat there really wishing and wanting to see and feel the punch, but dont. I also feel that the judges have been giving far too high scores too early in the series, too willy nilly.

8 is a very good score but now it is seen as sort of average/midly good, i think its due to the judges giving too high scores out too early

To be honest, the only real punch i see is with the professionals, i always look forward to watching the professional dances, they are jam-packed with punch!

Do you mean Len?

But seriously, I have to agree that the top couples (at least there's four of them) are somewhat lacklustre compared to some other series (not series 7 though!).

I can feel some statistical-data delving coming on!

Does seem to me like the judges are trying to manipulate the voters like a line of trolleys (and failing). Except on Wembley Saturday Jason managed to shove a dozen extra ones on the end, hence the rapid back pedalling by the judges. It looked to me like it was meant to be Jason at the top of the leader-board this week before the Wembley show even began.

As for Chelsee & her apparent humbleness. She is a very typical insecure young Actor as is clear by her own admitted silly past decisions.

This is an example of SCD vintage 2011:

All week and on ITT we were getting reports about how difficult Alex was finding it to do the tango. I started to envision her being in the bottom two along with Robbie (I suspected that there would be an Anita bounce and that Russell was good for another two weeks - one out of two isn't bad!)

Instead she tops the leaderboard - out of nowhere!

Next week Anita could be top of the leaderboard with Jason and Alex in the bottom two.

It's that kind of season! If the dancers were producing great (well good enough) dances then this would be SCD heaven but it all feels so hit and miss with 9s and 10s being given almost on a whimsical basis.

I can no longer read the SCD compass and I'm all at sea.

I think they are more about promoting themselves than taking the dance competition seriously. To many gurners winning have them all convinced the dancing isn't that important whereas appearing pleasant and unthreatening is.

This year Strictly is nowhere near as competitive or interesting as DWTS where they cover their training issues, the working relationships, and they are clearly stressing out in the desire to do well and both teachers and celebs want to win and think the way to do that is to work rather than produce the best comedy skits.

Basically there is a lack of competition in this competition.

Not enjoying this series as much as previous ones. By this time I always have a favourite based on their dancing, this series it's based on personality alone. The only celeb I feel has shown any great improvement is Alex but I don't think it's enough to win.

The celebs keep saying how hard they are training. It would be interesting to see some stats on how much time is spent training (rather than faffing about) and how this translates into how well they are doing in the competition.