So far, I'm not warming to her ... she came across as a bit hard and cold. I know it's early days and it's difficult for someone coming in to an established set up, but then there was 'the lift'.

Why penalise your new partner in their first week, when they need the most support, just to make a big impact yourself?

Of course that's all a load of suppositions and hopefully I'll warm to her in the next few weeks

I agree, I actually feel sorry for Nicky. Hope she doesn't come off as too competitive or it could affect her partners chances

She is new, it was her first appearance and yet you are rushing to judgement already.

She is a professional dancer who wants to win. Good for her.

Judge her dancing and teaching ability.

I think she was silly putting the lift in.

And she said she'd do anything to win didn't she. lol.

I think she'll be an interesting watch this series. In a way I don't see her as too dis-similar to Katya (both feisty, maybe seemingly cold at times, but still neverthless with their eyes firmly on the job at hand). It's almost a shame that Katya didn't get Nicky this year but, well, we'll see how Karen does.

As far as I remember Katya stuck to the rule book

I can't remember if she did or not, but I certainly remember Katya being a strict one, so maybe she'd never dream of putting a lift in whereas maybe Karen is one of those types that thinks rules are there to be broken. Besides, most of Katya's partners weren't very gifted in the dance sense so she couldn't really afford to put them at an even greater disadvantage (on the board) that they were likely to be at even when they had stuck to the rules.

Nicky has a lot of work to do - I hope Karen focuses on that for next week.

She does not remind me of Katya at all. The "headache on legs" discipline of teaching basics however much the cleb protested was not there at all. He did not appear vey different in the finished dance as from the first day of training clip. Karen appears to have seen his strengths, of holding a pose and musical timing. She worked the routine to look flashy in front of the live audience and give him as little trouble as possible. Hopefully she will work on a simple polished routine for next week

Sorry posted without finishing, its her "Teaching ability" which is not looking strong just now, plenty of time to change though

Surely teaching ability means teaching the correct rules of the dance. Putting a lift in? completely unnecessary in my opinion

I'm still dumbfounded as to why they got rid of Katya. I bet she would have been great with Nicky.

Can't take to Karen at all, would've much preferred to see Katya with Nicky. Thought her choreo pretty awful. Hope it improves.

Exactly my impression! It was pretty, showy and wafty - very much a DWTS sort of waltz, I think. I mean, I liked it, but his posture was truly awful and not helped by choreographing him with his hands in his pockets, a truly WTF moment...

As for the lift, I predicted the petulant outburst from the judges about it (although I thought the objection might come from Len). This was such a scripted set-up that I am amazed how many sensible people fell for it. Karen got helpful tweets from fans when they saw the lift in the training clip last week, but tweeted back that we'd understand when we saw the dance. Since there was no earthly reason why a lift was crucial to the interpretation of the song, it's obvious that the 'professional reason' for including it was because she was told to do so.

Strictly is a pantomime and needs a villain to jeer. It's Craig's job to be that villain, and various pros take turns to defy him (Brendan, James, Artem and Aliona have all played that role). Nicky is safe for at least the first few weeks, as the army of Westlife fans will keep him in whatever his score, so Karen was given the role of rule-breaker this time round, just so the judges could pontificate about rules, mark them down and create a bit of controversy.

Just my opinion, of course...

Didn't like Karen or her dance style. Both rather brash and American in tone.

I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt re the lift. She may not have known I mean, Artem in his first year didn't know about the whole 60% in hold in the AS thing.

She did know because a fan who saw the training clip with the lift in tweeted her about how it was against the rules, and she replied with something along the lines of "thanks, i already know but when you see the dance you'll see why i took the professional decision to include it".

I'm not going to give her the benefit of the doubt. It was shown in their training clip, loads of people tweeted her about it being illegal. Then she chose not to change it - she knew and went for the controversy probably with the approval of the producers. It attracts attention to them and let's be honest if it was Aliona doing that then the forum would probably be screaming even louder about the choreography.

I wasn't impressed with the rest of the choreography either. They spent too much time out of hold and the hands in pockets just looked awkward and emphasised that his posture needed work...

who cares really 'HOTT' competition right there.

Ah. Well then if she did know, she's got no-one to blame but herself.

Yes, I think this is likely. She could have been pressured by producers to include one - hence the 'professional decision' part of her tweet on the subject. It certainly didn't naturally fit with the lyrics or song tempo - it was rather randomly placed.

The amount Craig went on about it also does suggest it was implanted to cause deliberate controversy. It gets the judges to look like they're serious about the rules (which, frankly, are hardly employed consistently). And it gets a reaction, job done.

As for Karen, I don't think her and Nicky have much chemistry but we'll see what happens in future.

I find it a shame that SCD seems to only recruit Latin specialists these days - Karen being yet another. The standard of ballroom teaching and choreography is bound to suffer when the pro cast has become so unbalanced.

True. I'm one of the few who didn't take to Katya though and am not sorry to see her go. Just couldn't get past her quite cold and cocky nature.

If they've drafted Iveta in, then she was probably close to being the one to replace Katya, which bodes well on that score, as she's a 10-dancer who leans ballroom.

Cometh the Hauer, cometh the....