I've seen things in newspapers that make it seem something Strictly will be shown this coming weekend.

But is that the proper start of the series -- or is it some kind of intro show that will be followed by a multi-week gap before the contest really begins?

Launch show, where people who don't live for spoilers watch to see who gets who.

Good questions.

The first live shows are Friday 27th and Saturday 28th September. Presumably 7 couples perform on Friday and 8 on Saturday.

That's a shame, still a while to go then.

I'm sure there's usually a three-week gap between the launch show and the first live competition show so the couples can train. This is nothing new.

It may not be new but you get all excited at the launch show then it all goes quite for weeks, there must be a better way.

I agree. Strictly's even the cover story on some magazines this week (including at least one tv listings magazine) even though it won't really start for weeks.

I get keen to watch it, then it seems to go quiet, and I might even fail to remember in time for the first show of the actual contest.

There seemed to be no problems like this last year, one of the highest rated series in fact.

Sorry, but what does the series rating have to do with what I said?

While the launch show is a good idea, I'm not keen on the 3 week hiatus either. Earlier series announced the contestants and pairings "off screen" and the first show was dancing.

Now the forums spend 3 weeks discussing the pairings and potential with little more to go on than seeing some random jigging about in the launch show.
Then we get finally to see them dance and we discover that Joe Kalsaggy is a dancing wardrobe and Michelle Williams dances like a badly strung puppet

They used to have a show to introduce the celebs with Bruce and Tess, it wasn't live, but it was a week before the first live show and a great way to start the series

6:50pm tonight its due to start on TV

One week before would make sense. It would fit into the regular schedule. But a gap of -- how many weeks is it? -- i just find annoying.

Is such a waste of publicity, everyone is ready for the show now.

.....Except all the dancers!

I'm sure most of the dancers would like to start straight away too.

Terry, you are aware that they need to learn what they're going to dance before they can dance it, don't you?

It would be nice to see the celebrities learning as they go, much more entertaining than this constant boring quest for perfection, that's why many feel that banger racing is more entertaining than Formula 1.

they are learning as they go

Hmmm - I wonder what those who don't like the existing format would come up with instead ?

To get a non-dancer to at least be able to perform some sort of routine on tv does take some hours of practice. The first live show could be truly diabolical if they didn't get some time in private to work it out. Not all of the celebs are fit enough to cope with the training let alone the routine performed live to start with - you've got to give them some time to acclimatise. Proper dancing is so far removed from what most people perceive it to be as far as the training goes that in some ways I would like to see some shows explaining what is involved in learning to dance from scratch. They also have to crash-course the learning. Most people would learn to dance once a week until they got fairly good or fairly into it - these celebs have to work several hours a day for 3 weeks to get to a decent enough standard to be able to put on a show. How else can that process be managed ?

I don't dislike the existing format, but I would make changes to improve it.

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It would be nice to see the early stages tho

We have seen the early stages, in the training clips. You haven't seen the early stages because you're expecting a gay Muslim foreign BBC-affiliated porn star to pop up at you singing Liza Minnelli whilst burning the flag, reading the Guardian and causing cancer. Most of which you won't see in a training clip.