There are multiple criteria. But some make less sense and stretch any meaning of the word entertainment, or have no relationship to dancing. People will comment if something that ought to be irrelevant, and should be in any other competition, turns out to be decisive - like what soap people appear on or how attractive they are or who the pro is .You could decide the winner on those criteria in week one. The problem is that the basic , irrelevant factors like looks and accents often prevail - and when they don't they may shape views on what looks most entertaining or praiseworthy.

Journey is important.Its clearly got something to do with what happens on the show. it looks a bit silly though if the journey has gone nowhere much , and the length of journey is likely to be misread - as moving from good to excellent may be as difficult, but less visible, than moving from poor to mediocre. On the other hand, if you have very good and excellent as your choice - and very good started way behind excellent , you can see why people may vote for very good.

Other criteria often mentioned seem entirely subjective. You can't, for example, usually measure who is trying hardest . Most people are not shown sitting reading the newspaper, and there's too little coverage to determine much else from lots of pictures of people training hard. In so far as there's any evidence, it might be hours spent training - though that also reflects ability to pick something up. It may just look as if someone struggling is trying harder, and adding small improvements may take as much effort as making big leaps forward. Even objective facts- like who started with what experience - are often partial, unknown or distorted - as Denise found out.

You could add qualities like humour content - when entertainment factor seems to matter - but even there there's a difference between Tom hamming it up, someone doing classic or funny routines, Chris looking funny, and someone getting 4's for being so bad. At some point not dancing but telling jokes, becomes an improper base to win on.

This year was particularly strange one. Louis got praise for adding basic gymnastics moves to his routine - increasing his wow factor and reducing his dance content. Thats equivalent to giving Paul Daniels votes for producing a rabbit from a hat in his dances. Its what he could do on day one.Its exciting but is it relevant? Denise on the other hand can dance some routines on day one and can do walkovers and splits, but these look far less spectacular and her dancing journey looks shorter.Can she ever get enough credit for her small improvements and reaching a higher standard than Louis, and what credit should she get for the walkover she could do on day one? There's no evaluation of which merits more, as the playing fields are different, and you can't compare Denise's detailed improvements with Louis's progress.