Still waiting for an answer to my question.

Why on earth would anyone want to conspire to effect a Harry win?

In fact, in any series, why would judges have a preference for any particular celeb to win? How does it benefit them or the BBC? I've never understood this attribution of mysterious motives to the judges or BBC, but if we wanted to assume they were there, then surely it would be easier to contract with Chelsee for future work?

definitely not

You seem to be confirming the point I had intended to make. Chelsee's highest-scoring dance which topped the leaderboard in its week was her semi-final Paso.

And I have no argument with those here who have implied that the rules are changed at the drop of a hat to suit certain objectives. I would merely like to see some PROOF that the 'rule' in question ever existed in the first place.

[quote=Vivacious Lady;55624619]Why on earth would anyone want to conspire to effect a Harry win?

I was rather hoping that somebody else would chime in on that issue. For me there are two obvious potential reasons for the charade which was foisted upon us. Both involve business considerations.

She didn't top the leaderboard that week, Harry & Aliona did.


You've been given plenty of proof: Kristina's tweet; Darren's interview statement that he wanted to re-dance his SF waltz but wasn't allowed to and the fact that Matt Di Angelo's highest scoring ballroom (waltz) was excluded because he danced it in the semi. What more proof do you require exactly?


Please elaborate, as I can see no clear reasons at all and have no idea what business considerations you might be thinking of. The obvious business consideration to me would be that Chelsee is a BBC employee - she didn't win, though.

Maybe more people just thought that Harry was better than Chelsee on the night. I honestly don't understand why you are making such a big deal out of this.

I love talking about Strictly but this thread and the other one started by the OP are becoming tiresome.

And as regards "business considerations" I would think that shoe was Chelsee's. She's more of a BBC employee than either of the other 2 finalists. I'm sure the BBC want to be seen to be ensuring that the forthcoming McFly tour is more of a success than it would have been if Harry hadn't won SCD - yeah right.

I think it will be interesting to see who wins the majority of the shows on the SCD Tour. Unlike previous years when the runner up wins more shows - have a feeling Harry will be extremely popular!

With all due respect I didn't think I was making a big deal out of it - although quite a few responses would seem to indicate that my theory is a big deal to the Harry fan club.

I didn't ever before recall an instance of just a single judge offering a verdict on a performance. A possible reason presented itself, so I offered it because I believed that it could be of interest to other users of this forum.

I believe my argument is sound. From Craig's criticism of Alex we know precisely what he was looking for from Harry in that Charleston - "extreme".

The videos are freely available on the internet. Compare Harry's facial expressions and movements to those of Jason in his dance. Would you consider them to be "extreme"?

Compare Harry's characterisation to that of Alex. Does Harry look any more "extreme" in his delivery?

Each observer is free to form his/her own opinion on whether or not Harry's delivery would have been considered "extreme" by Craig.

It makes perfect sense to me that they would not have wanted Harry's performance to be exposed in the manner in which the performance of Alex was.

It's unfortunate for Harry that he had to tackle that particular dance at that stage - it's one of a few were bags of character is an absolutely essential element for a high-quality performance. Harry's personality is simply ill-suited to delivering the sort of expression of face and body which comes so naturally to Jason and Chelsee. For me that is a massive weakness in a dancer.

But it doesn't prevent him from doing most of the other fast dances well. I've watched his Quickstep several times now, because I thought it absolutely superb.

To me it was quite obvious that the reason they only had time to get one judge's opinion was that Bruce waffled on for far too long and the show was over-running. Rather than cut Bruce's lines later in the show (God forbid!) they decided to cut the other three judges comments for that particular dance. Shame but I totally blame that idiot Forsyth.

The only thing we know about Craig's reaction to Harry's charleston is that it was worthy of a 9!

Yeah, the blooming BBC conspiring yet again to get one of their 'employees' to win.

Oh...hang on.

People who think the BBC care in the least about who wins are quite frankly deluded

OK - try this for size. Protecting the annual revenue streams from programs such as SCD which involve tens of millions of phone calls from the public is a very high priority for the BBC.

The potential spanner in the works - to be avoided at all costs - is the possibility of the public crowning a celebrity who is widely acknowledged not to be the best dancer.

If that happens it makes a mockery of the concept of letting the public decide, and asks the question if the BBC doesn't give a fig about the dancing, and is doing it that way only as an excuse to benefit at the expense of the phone bills of the millions of dance lovers out there. That wouldn't be good PR.

But if there is a danger of that happening, and the BBC can arrange it so that the celebrity the public crowns APPEARS to be the best dancer - problem solved.

I have an alternative theory which my gut feeling is telling me is more consistent with what we actually saw there, but I'm not in a position to support it with a reasoned explanation.

I am very sorry but i would like to try and bring a touch of humour into this thread

I can see that you have spent time on this and it is not my intention to belittle the effort you have put in, but maybe some of the wieght of this can be lightened for you

If we just call in Moulder and Scully

The truth is out there

Chris Hollins. No one could possibly claim he was the best dancer that year. And for all the journey crap, Darren Gough was in no way a better dancer than Colin Jackson or Zoe Ball. Rachel Stevens was a much better dancer than Tom Chambers. All 3 won, the integrity of the show (such as it exists) did not suffer.

penny, I am not sure what you are getting at in your last post (it's a little difficult to interpret), but just so you know, the BBC do not make any profit from telephone calls made to any of their phone-in programmes. They aren't allowed to, which is why calls to the Beeb are charged at the base rate of 15 pence (landline - mobile calls may be higher ) and not the extortionate rates charged by commercial channels.

Does anyone remember how Matt Dawson was praised up a lot ? It seemed very odd at the time but it al became clear when it was clear that he'd been contracted to work for the BBC. It's quite fun spotting the little 'adjustments' in each series. People do, notice ! I have no problem with Harry having won, though.

Wow! You have opened my eyes.

The BBC funds fifteen weeks worth of salaries for all of those professional dancers, celebrity expenses, sets, props, utilities, broadcasts, telephone operators, web site operators, vote counters, independent poll overseers etc. and doesn't benefit from the millions of pounds of revenue generated by the voting?

I now see the BBC in a completely new light.

They get the money from the tv license fee.

Hi,

The BBC cannot make any money from phone ins. It is against the BBC charter.

Any money charged for phone votes is purely to cover the charge of the external company that runs and administers the phone vote.

This is not the case for commercial channels.

I hope this helps (although it probably doesn't in this case)

(BTW I have been typing this at various points for six years to answer the same point so yes I do know what I am talking about)

"Cynical and arrogant exercise in deception"?

Pffttttttt...

Was Harry the best overall dancer on the show?

Almost certainly not - his fast Latin was not great and, despite the marks, I wasn't totally convinced by his rumba.

Was he the best ballroom dancer on the show?

Almost certainly yes if a little unexpressive.

Does the implication that he may not have been the best overall dancer on the show or the fact that he managed to convey a shining impression in the final despite barely coming within spitting distance of a Latin step matter?

Not in the least

because

Was he the most popular celeb on the show?

Yep and probably by a country mile.

He was a BBC employee long before he started Strictly, and that didn't stop them slating four of his first five dances! And they clearly didn't want him in the final or the semi- it was the public that put him there.

I think this sentence encapsulates your entire problem.

I suspect you'll still be typing this for another six years Mike, assuming Strictly continues that long! I'd love to know just how people imagine the BBC make millions from the phone votes when they only cost 15p compared to the vast amounts the XFactor, etc. charge for their phone votes. And the Strictly phone lines are only open for about 35 minutes instead of 24 hours!

Likewise the 'conspiracy' about lines for one celeb being jammed so you can't vote for them! Sometimes I think we could do with an FAQ thread... although some, like the endless 'Where's Nicole?' threads we had a few years ago, have died down, others seem to be annual runners!

Great, so now we have a conspiracy theory that is seemingly crying out for motives.


By "foisted", I presume you mean "voted for by the general public, with no marking from the judges".

Care to expand upon these "business considerations"?