OK, OK, I know nothing - I really should learn. I still think the pieces of material they showed tonight looked hideous - a much more snot green than those in the clips. I promise I'm more than happy to be wrong.

eta: and it was worth talking rubbish and being corrected to see those jives again.

I think Harry could be in danger tonight. Out of all 6 he has the hardest dance to do (hard = notorious to fail the celebrities). Aliona needs to be very clever with the choreography and create routine that has enough content so they don't end up near the bottom of the leaderboard, but also prompts people to vote. Because at these stages public vote matter more and more.

Both Alex and Robbie are doing ballroom and although neither are as good as the top 4 and will probably score less than them, the public won't notice it, specially their fans, and they'll get the votes. So I think one of the top 4 could go this week

Holly's paso is going to be her dance this series. The music is both paso-suitable and very well known. She's very fitted to portray the character for Paso and has beautiful fluidity through her body which will help her with being the cape, and flamenco parts. She could even see some 10s for this dance.

Jason will likely top the leader-board if he doesn't make any mistakes this week.

Chelsee... I thought jive would be her dance. But The training footage last night didn't look so good. So will have to wait and see on Saturday.

It´s in my youtube link

The training footage shown today looked a lot better, she only needs to polish her technique somewhat before Saturday (Pasha said on ITT that the dance itself was ready to go).

Alex- Doesn't seem to be getting this so far she really needs to come up with the goods quick
Chelsee- Todays footage was much better, needs more energy in her kicks
Harry- Really needs to dance between the moves rather than going move bah move
Holly- Looks good but relies on the performance
Jason- Needs to stick his bum in
Robbie- Needs to make it cleaner still don't think he will go anywhere.

Pasha said on ITT today that Chelsee's mastered the Jive. She just needs refine it now and make it sharp for Saturday which Im sure she will as she has 2 whole days to master it.

Exciting times!

Yes, I just saw today's ITT. I'm afraid still not what I'd expected. Her kicks need a lot of "zest"! She's just letting her legs loose, is not picking up her knee, and even the kicks' directions are haphazard... i really thought she'd do much better than this.

From the footage I saw today Holly should be marked above Chelsee on Saturday.

But, still a couple of days to go. She normally learns her routines in very short time, so she could still improve from now till Saturday.

Honestly

Opinions aside, when was the last time that Holly scored higher then Chelsee And to do so again when Chelsee has the Jive of all dances?

Well, I would take it to the bookies if I were you.

Too be honest nearly all of them have obvious faults. Holly we have to wait to see if she can finally perform. Yet the obvious faults with Chelsee and Jason could be more due to tiredness if training a long time or polishing hasn't begun.

Just because it hasn't happened before doesn't mean that it can't happen in the future. What Holly has lacked up till now is the drive to do well. She doesn't lack potential. And the difference between them isn't much. Each have their own areas of weakness.

But as I said, Chelsee has always learnt her routines in short periods of time, which means she learns quickly. Therefore she still has tim to fix her mistakes. I would be worried if that video belonged to anybody else.

Even if Chelsee has a bad dance , Holly cant have a higher score than her IMO unless she is overmarked.
I think she is going to be fantastic with her jive.

Holly is nailed on to leave this week although it should be Robbie followed by Alex.

I think you can only know that when you have seen the dance.
Its entirely possible for Holly (or anyone else) to have a great dance and score higher than Chelsee without being overmarked. Chelsee is good but it doesn't preclude others from being better on the night imo

exactly - she hasnt done it yet and we are in week 10!!

Chelsee isn't a world champion, or a professional dancer. She's a beginner like Holly, and like Holly she has problems. And it's completely reasonable to think that Holly can do better than Chelsee without overscoring. Until the dances have been seen this can't be decided for definite.

But if you have made up your mind since now that Holly can only do better than Chelsee by being over marked, I will be expecting a thread on this topic started by you

Harry is safe, Alesha and Bruno have given him 10 and it's only Friday.

Well contrary to most posts on here, I think Alex and Robbie will be the bottom two and I suspect Alex will go, but really it should be Robbie. I think Holly is due for the great escape (from the bottom two) this week !

If Chelsee doesn´t make a mistake on the night, I can´t see the judges marking Holly higher then her Heck, Jason scored a 34 for his Jive, while that had a major mistake in it.

When Holly is even lower (yes, only one point effectively) on the leaderboard then Chelsee when the latter did a so-so performance (it divided people) then a Chelsee on top form is unbeatable for the likes of Holly (Harry and Jason is another story).

Still, I am wondering why people are expecting tens for Holly´s paso It would probably be the last dance I thought that would give her that score (she doesn´t have the sharpness for such a dance).

Because Paso is an expressive dance, and Holly is a very expressive dancer. I'm not talking about facial expression, but through body. Her body is very fluid and she has beautiful back movement.

So I'm just gonna get a bit technical here to explain the difference between Holly's strengths and Chelsee's strength. Craig also mentioned something about Holly's back movement, so I wanted to include this here so people who didn't know why back movement is important can understand it better. If you don't find it interesting then feel free not to read!

A piece of music has different layers. The most basic layer is the rythm (created by percussion). The job of feet are to portray the rhythm and only that. The sharper you can move your feet (sharp = fast movement + controlled stops) the better you can portray the rhythm since you can move right on the beats and not shuffle around in between them. This is what Chelsee has. She has strong legs which allow her to move sharply like you said. And this is what makes her so markable. This is where shorter dancers have the advantage, because they can move sharper. Alex and Anita have weak legs which is why their dances look more sloppy. Holly's legs aren't as strong as Chelsee, but not as week as the other two, plus she has the disadvantage of being a lot taller. So in that respect alone you are right, Holly can't match Chelsee.

But there's more to the music than just the rhythm. If we just do what we said above and dance rumba, all we do is step on 2, 3, 4. We use the rest of our body, i.e hips, back and arms to express the rest of the music, and that is essentially the feelings we want to portray with our dancing (will not talk about face here cause that's a whole new matter!). Back is particularly important because it is what connects all these parts of body together and makes out movement look connected. Just think back to the example Karen used on ITT this week with the arm movement without and then with back movement. You could see the impact that adding back movement had (Karen also talked about "body movement" with regards to Harry's samba once, if you remember). This is what Holly is good at, and it's Chelsee's weakness.

Obviously a good dancer is one who has achieve both these. Leg movement is more important than back movement (the rhythm is the most important part of the music). But back movement is harder to acquire. So as it is Chelsee is deservedly marked higher than Holly, but Holly has a better chance of becoming a more whole dancer than Chelsee, if she gets off her bottom and sharpens her movements.

I'm not counting on that happening this week. But this week Holly has Paso, which is not a rhythmical dance (not as much as Samba or Quickstep) so lazy footwork won't matter as much as long as she sticks to the right timing. But Paso is an extremely expressive dance, it's basically danced from your core, and this is where Holly has the advantage. Add that to the authentic music, and the fact that it seems to be Holly's favourite dance, if they don't go stumbling on their heads I think she's due a 10 or two from Alesha or Bruno.

Chelsee is doing jive which I thought would be a very good dance for her, not just because of her personality, but also because of her great legs, she could do a fantastic set of kicks. But what I saw from the VTs were sloppy. Possibly because Jive seems like such a cool fun dance and not as accurate and precise as other dances, Chelsee is letting herself go too much. If she doesn't rein it and clean up her dance, she will effectively loose her advantage over Holly. This is why I said this week Holly could be marked higher than Chelsee.

But, as I also said, Chelsee is used to learning things quickly, so since Thursday (the last I saw her dance) she had some time to improve the dance by Saturday. Pasha didn't look too worried, so I'm hoping that it will be cleaned up by Saturday.

But it would be nice to see Holly do incredibly well, maybe even better than Chelsee and Harry (he has a rumba this week, I'm not hoping for much). Just because a) it will give her confidence a boost after being in the bottom 2 for 2 weeks running, b) she will need the higher place in judges' leader-board to avoid elimination and c) doing a really good dance could prompt more people to vote for her.

All I want is for the top 4 to make it into the semi-final. I don't have any favourites yet (well, except the top 4!).

I think its so sweet how you are so pro Holly!
Not being biased here as Im supporting Holly after Chelsee, but Chelsee is the better dancer in my humble opinion.

I sure hope Holly isnt in the bottom two, I fear she will be though. Robbie's going to get the sympathy vote which given the circumstances is understandable.

God, I just looked at my previous post, it's like a little novel! I hereby apologise for it!

You're going by midweek vt's, which I totally appreciate. However even with Waterloo Road Chelsee has managed to top the leader board THREE TIMES now. You have to remember in Chelsee's track record so far she always gives it on the night itself...Considering the fact that Pasha himself said Chelsee had mastered the Jive steps by thursday and it was a matter of polishing and sharpening the dance by Saturday. Chelsee will have NO problem

Considering Chelsee doesn't have Waterloo Road or her Thursday night travel upto London anymore either this could be Chelsee's night.

I maybe wrong though, we will have to wait and see.

I'm not pro-Holly (or anti-Holly). I just like all the top 4 and want to see them all in semi-final.

I have explained the reasoning behind what I said technically in full excruciating details, just to show that my opinion isn't out of favouritism.... if you have a couple of hours to read it!

No need to. Its great you're so passionate. I truly genuinely say after Chelsee Im all for Holly going through. I'm not feeling Jason/Robbie at all.

Im just as passionate about it all...

don't apologise! it was a really good and interesting post
And I agree it would be great to see Holly score really well tomorrow for all the reasons you gave and make it through to the next round and even the top 4