I'm finding the judges voting this year very strange. There is a clear bias in favour of some of the contestants - Lisa and Victoria for instance.

I am also, like many others, finding the music choices bizarre which, I assume, is down to the producers desperately wanting to max out every joke, cheesy VT and faked bling moment for all it's worth. They appear to have a lot of control this year.

In other words, it does rather smack of manipulation, but of course I could be reading too much into it. There may be some here who know more and are closer to the show itself. I am merely an observer.

What do you think? Do you think the public vote is genuinely taken into consideration? Does it have any sway at all?

Yes. As proven by last week's result, if somebody is not getting the votes they will be in danger irrespective of how well they rank with the judges, and if somebody is sufficiently popular with the public they will be safe irrespective of how poorly the judges marked them.

I do see more a heavy hand of production this year which is a shame.
However we do get one bite at the cherry in the vote , but the return of the dance off has given the judges two

Sorry but I'm not sure what you're asking. Do you mean that the judges' comments are affected by who they know is getting high votes, so Lisa and Victoria are getting an easy ride because they're very popular? Or that the show is pretending to pay attention to the public vote but actually putting who they like in the b2?

Would that be Victoria who the judges scored joint-bottom?

The public vote must've had a massive influence last week since e judges scored her top 2 and she ended up bottom 2

BIB: this. What do you think? i don't actually know but I know there are some on the forum who check stats and keep a track of voting.

Thanks. I suppose I am getting more cynical with the rash of reality shows and the odd goings on in shows like X Factor where the whole thing feels rigged!

But if they overmark them and have a dance off, they are still in control, are they not?

Interesting thread. Its scary how incredibly easy it is for the powers that be to do whatever the hell they want to rig this show, we are never told the voting figures, we can only speculate.

They could have been fixing it for years. We would never know.

The Dance Off does several things to the results not least of which is giving the judges a second bite of the cherry.

People will vote massively for a favoured underdog to keep them out of the judges clutches.
The balance point where votes become essential cause surprises.
Some will not vote until the judges cannot overturn their vote.

Where the public have saved something is with the leader board ties not rounding down. The judges could get their act together and not have tied scores to regain control.

I'd be interested to know about previous years - at what point in the series did we get the 'shock' bottom 2 contestant? It seems convenient that Kimberley was in the bottom two last week, just before she was due to mime on the results show, and just when things were getting a bit slow. It could have introduced a bit of tension - if you cared whether she got knocked out or not, which I don't. She was never in danger with Fern being the other bottom two contestant.

I don't watch other public-vote reality shows, but for some reason I think SCD is the only one where the judges' votes count towards who is in the bottom two, or am I talking complete rubbish (again)?

Being a conspiracy theorist, it seems to me that if there was nothing to hide then the details of the public vote would be made public and the results would be called out in the actual order, not this 'no particular order' malarky.

I think ties should be banned

I think the judges should be made to rank the people they have tied ... so if 3 people are tied for 2nd place, then just grade them first, second and third within that marking.

That's just it. I mean, it's just a TV show and not life changing, but I am a fan (with an FF button admittedly) and I am just aghast at some of the decisions and the judging this year.

There are times when the blatant lying of the judges about someone's ability is just farcical and we just sit there and think, 'wtf was that all about?'

There is a very sound point or two in here - I know for sure - but I am not completely clear what your point is. I want to know because you always have an intelligent take on things, but I admit to being slow off the mark this time and I am not sure what it is you are saying?

Silly me. In all my bullet points I missed answering the original question.

Whilst I don't think they are fixing things as such. The return of the Dance Off has definitely changed the whole feeling of the show for the worse IMHO.

It will be in the last few weeks where unpopularity with the public will be made a mockery by the judges saves.

Dancing On Ice has the same system.

X Factor USA are experimenting with reading out their results on a week by week basis. It's only been for two weeks, but so far the same three people have been the top three in the same order for two weeks running, and if it continues like that the show is going to get incredibly predictable and dry to watch.

I would absolutely hate it, personally, if they revealed the votes on Strictly on a weekly basis. It would drain the show of all its tension just to please boring conspiracy nuts. It was bad enough in Series 6 at the end when they'd fouled things up so badly they had to reveal that Tom was top of the public vote on a second-by-second basis, just to calm people down.

I wouldn't like the results to be revealed every week because as Monkseal says it would make the series too predictable. However I do find it interesting when ITV publish the public vote at the end of the series just to see how close or not things were and how much it changed from week to week.

Ah! Thank you! I think you are right!

Have to agree with you on the US X Factor rankings thing. I thought it was a good idea, but now it's just tedious.

It also proved just how 'middle America' the USA really is, which kind of makes you want to give up and not bother watching the rest of the show

I don't believe there's outright vote rigging - the fallout for the BBC would be horrific (just look at the scandal when Blue Peter ignored the public poll to name a new kitten )

I do think the show is wading ever deeper into trying to manipulate what the public thinks. The judging has been even more inexplicable than usual . Posters here are quite cynical, but I'm sure a lot of casual viewers take the judges at face value when they say someone's technique is good.

There is a part of me that would like to see just how much the voting swings depending on the latest tittle tattle in the tabloids or weird VT on ITT.

I get the impression that the SCD fans can be very easily swung one way or another because so many invest such emotion into the whole show and their favourites.

A fairly large number of us don't vote at all.

I agree about the dance off and series six was particularly bad when someone who had been in the dance off three times still ended up in the final. In fact if the dance off had happened in the semi-final Lisa would have been in it for a fourth time.

I think part of the reason for its reintroductions was the lack of controversy last series when the contestants were eliminated in pretty much the " right " order. I don't think anyone higher than third from bottom on the judges' leaderboard got eliminated. In fact in the last two series the best dancers got to the final without the judges needing to save their favourites.

Totally agree with bits in bold above. It makes me squirm because it's so obvious. I don't think GBP is that stupid, but maybe I am under estimating the emotional ties some have with contestants?

I don't think they are outright ignoring the public vote, that would be fraud and the Beeb has enough scandal on its plate at the moment.

However agree with others who have pointed out how the judges or the producers can manipulate things and maybe influence voting then. Not seeing much bias towards Victoria, she's been in bottom two twice, it is the public vote that is keeping her in.

Difficult one with the dance off, is dance technique or public popularity more important? When there wasn't a dance off people were in uproar when good contestants went out ahead of rubbish ones, think Anne Widdicombe, she'd have been toast much earlier in the series if there had been a dance off then. When there is a dance off people complain that less popular contestants with good dance ability stay. I think I prefer the hybrid of DO initially then scrap it when it gets down to the last 5 couples