[quote=Toasted Toad;62859754]Why the sudden surprise? Craig has often been extremely rude in the past - "dance disahaster" and similar. He was quite right - Nicky's dance was dreadful. I've always respected him for being the only one with the courage to say it like it is. I don't always agree with his marks - it would be incredible if everybody agreed about every performance - but he does his best to mark genuinely. That's been the refreshing thing about Darcy this year - we have another judge who is prepared to do the same thing. She's not acerbic like Craig, but does not try to be artificial like Len and Bruno, with their pre-prepared puns or OTT gesturing.

Craig has never acknowledged hard work, he deems it irrelevant. Would he mention it if a celeb had worked only two hours but nevertheless produced the best performance? No. He feels that the thing that matters is what you bring to the dance floor. Nicky's dance was pretty much without any redeeming features, particularly at this point in the series. Craig did not hesitate to say so.[/QUOTE

It was certainly not Nicky's best dance but compared to Lisa's effort it was in a different league. Faults in technique V no technique. The second half seemed to be shaking her fringes again. Craig failed to fire the same venom in her direction. That is why people are annoyed. However I feel judges should be giving constructive criticism not negativity to score points .

He did hesitate when it came to Lisa and hers was dire. Second half consisted of shaking her fringes...... again. Worst example of double standards I have ever seen on Strictly.

The judges biases 2 years ago stopped me from watching last year. They were routinely vile to Matt Baker and fawned all over Pamela. I think they were rude to Tom Chambers as well.

I believe Craig is still sticking to his ideals. With his background, he rates performance very highly, and regards it as making up for a lot (although he has now hinted on ITT that he is going to start coming down harder re technique). I don't agree that Nicky is so much better than Lisa technique-wise. His routines might incorporate more moves, but everything is poorly executed and poorly put across. Lisa has the redeeming feature, which Nicky does not, of stage presence. That rates highly in Craig's book - maybe more highly than with some people on the forum, which is why he is getting criticised this week. But look back through the years and you can easily see this pattern with him. It's not favouritism, it's just his performance values. You don't need to agree with him on this, just understand him.

That was Aliona's fault more than the judges, and Pamela was decent enough, was never going to beat Kara but still a decent dancer. Wouldn't call that one favouritism necessarily. That said, Scott Maslen had the sun shining out of his derriere at the start of that series, undeservedly so too! That and Ricky Whittle put me off Natalie for a while :/ But that said, Bruno and Alesha last year were TERRIBLE with Harry and their pathetic fawning

Pamela was routinely over marked in my opinion.

I have to agree, Terry, I find that sometimes you post comments just to provoke a reaction.....whether you do that intentionally, I don't know....but you always seem to post the opposite thoughts of the status quo..

I apologise if I am totally out of line, but as an ardent DS thread reader, it is something I have noticed by going through some of your historical threads, too.