He differs from the others, marking much lower, then for the last few dancers he is completely in line with them, with 6 (6,6,6), 7 (7,7,7) and 8 (8,8,8) as if the scores for the last few couples were predestined.

Craig is marking correctly. It's the other judges who are weird.

I always wonder why Darcey and Len are so reluctant to give anything below 5 - Darcey only gave one 4 last year... I wish her marking was a bit more like Arlene's.... eg. last night Dave deserved about 12....

They put something in his drink

Actually, I think I agreed with Craig's marking, harsh though he is. There's no point giving marks if the dance isn't good.

I thought the judges were all over the place with their marking. Craig was the only one who I could make sense of

Craig for me is the only one that marks correctly.

I think it was more or less the same as always - Craig marks about the same as the other judges for the "good" celebs (Abbey, Natalie, Patrick, Sophie), just under them for the "alright/has potential" celebs (Susanna, Ashley, Rachel, Mark, Fiona) and wallops the "bad" celebs (Vanessa, Julien, Tony, Dave, Ben).

The only mark of his that interested me was Deborah's, but he's never 100% predictable.

Agree about Deborah - reminds me a bit of the situation with Nicky's charleston.

Craig's marking was very accurate imo.
The other three judges were ridiculously generous.

Craig's marking is really accurate early on, then he takes a fancy to the most obvious "performer" and overmarks them and winds us all up.

An 8 form Craig is worth a 10 from anyone else.

Technically based on his own previous marks to other couples Len was under marking the last few.

He marks correctly most of the time. It's Darcy who I think can be decieving with her comments in relation to the then given mark. She seems to be very positive (in the main) when giving feedback but then gives a mark just lower than what I think is refelctive of what she's said (which is fine in the mark sense if going lower than the over kind reaction, but odd in the sense of how it has not always linked to her comment). However she could go even lower, as could absolutely Len Goodman! Sometimes I'm wonder if he gives marks on turning up, smiling and effort and enthusiasm, on top of the technical aspect of the dance and the performance side of. Maybe he thinks it's encouraging to give contestants marks that don't demoralise them, but, do that just with the comments, not with over-inflated scores to give them an over-sense of their achievements.

I think that Craig is making sure that marks in the early rounds don't soar too high. We need to see both a Latin and a Ballroom dance from each couple before making up our minds.

That seems sensible.

Agree

Craig is the one I most agree with in terms of marking.

I still can't get over Darcey giving Vanessa a 5 even though she had NOTHING positive to say about her performance ( and she normally always find something to praise)! Way too kind.

^^This.

A 5 for Vanessa seems fair to me, Craig always under marks from what I can see.

We usually agree mostly in line with Craig and get fed in with the others, they don't mark in line with heir comments. There was one set of marks we were particularly surprised by after no positive comments but I'll have to watch it back to remind myself who that was, possibly Julian, Deborah or Vanessa. I thought Craig was a point too low on Tony as I suddenly found a soft spot for him trying so hard and getting slated, but he was usual Craig.

When we are starting with some of these marks from the others it doesn't leave far too go in the rest of the series.

I agree Craig is 'usual Craig'

Someone can only wind you up if you let them.

I don't bother about the marking too much so long as the relative positions of the dancers seem about right, which more often than not I think they are, certainly this early on.

What confused me about last week's scores was Darcey saying to Tony that the improvement was 'phenomenal', or something like that.

However she had given 5 to Tony the week one waltz and then gave 4 to the 'greatly improved' Charleston for week two. Very confusing.

Darcey and Len are in the least consistent judges generally.



However, I can't believe that Craig, Darcey and Bruno gave Vanessa a higher mark than Rachel!

You don't get marks just for being pretty, you know

I find Lens marking the most annoying. He gives a higher score just out of sympathy as the others may have marked lower, but when he gets into one of his moments and says he didn't like the faffing around or there wasn't enough in hold it's quite ok for him to mark lower