In my opinion...


Susannah - under marked, and I don't even normally like her. Should have had a ten

Sophie - still wasn't as good as her charlston but she did much better and I enjoyed it a lot, should have been 8s and 9s

Ben- actually did some steps this week and was penalised for it? I feel that usually he is overmarked for dances where he doesn't do much, but this time he put in a lot of content (albeit with poor technique)

Fiona - under marked and will probably go out as a result

Ashley - should have had a ten! He improved massively.

Patrick - so many messy lifts... he was good but should not have got a ten. All the judges say that for a dance to get a ten it must be perfect and perfect it was not! Annoyed with Darcy

HOWEVER on the whole I thought the whole evening was much better, and much less faffing/props thankfully.

Just tonight?

That's what I thought too.
I seldom agree with the scoring.

No the scoring is always awful!! But I guess tonight it angered me more than usual...

Patrick had to get a ten, otherwise there would have been a ridiculous three-way tie for first place. If the judges hadn't overmarked Susanna it wouldn't have happened.

Ashley is not ten material, nowhere near. He throws his arms into position - one of those who hasn't grasped that the transition is just as important as holding the line.

Fiona was rubbish. Anton was worse.

I'll agree with you on Ben, because to mark him last and equal to Dave was ridiculous - it wasn't worth a 4 at all. Straight 7s would have been fair.

Sophie didn't actually dance a whole lot of AT, so as much as I like her, if that's the rule for Natalie then it can be the rule for Sophie too.

I can't tell if Susanna is not doing the footwork correctly and that's why she goes off balance EVERY time she takes a step in hold, or she is but her top line is collapsing any time she has to actually move.

Very weak tonight. The discussions about Natalie have been a wonderful way of them distracting from the fact that without her, this group would be the weakest we've had in all eleven series.

A 10 should only be given when a dance is as near perfect as is reasonable to expect from a celeb.

I thought all Patrick's lifts were a bit messy and the last one was almost a disaster so worth a 10 it wasn't.

Susanna's waltz by comparison was faultless, and it is much harder to give a waltz a WOW factor but they did. Worthy of a 10 x 2..

At the other end of the leaderboard :

Dave - he just can't/won't dance but thinks he does! If the judges marked him correctly he wouldn't get more than a 3 from any of them.

Step away from the Sherry

I'm a big Patrick fan but how can you give 10 to someone after admitting they messed up? Silly silly Darcy!!

Sophie wasn't perfect but I was really surprised nobody gave her a 9, it was an impressive routine well performed.

I thought Mark was even worse than normal to the point it was absolutely pathetic, and Fiona was also pretty bad.

I was glad to see Ben get a 4 though, its about right and he should have had similar scores last week IMO. I'd like to see him and Mark in the DO personally.

Yes it was messy but he did recover. He also had some very complicated moves and transitions.

They will often overlook a messy ending if the rest of the dance was good, though they are not consistent with this.

Well, I'd like to see Anton and Fiona do one more ballroom dance before they fall through the voting floor.

So wish the GBP would stop voting massively for Hairy Dave - he says he tries, but that was a right John Sergeant stomp tonight - and all that tartan and the VTs would have lost him the true grit Scottish vote. And Karen Hauer was the pro dance who ..... oh well, never mind.

So delighted Abby recovered with her charleston.

Brendan and Sophie undermarked - is that to push the public vote up, or to make Sophie come to life in the dance off? Could go plonkers the other way if she's allergic to the Red Light.

I don't think a 10 is more special than any of the other numbers i.e. it should still be used in comparative marking. I'm happy for Patrick to get a solitary 10 if it prevents a ridiculous three-way tie for first place, which would have boosted Dave up to 4 points for last place, and shortened the difference between first and last place to just 5 points!

Obviously the better option is for Darcey, Len and Bruno to consider using their 1 to 5 paddles to better distinguish between the couples but hell will surely freeze over first.

ETA: Susanna is starting to remind me a little of Pamela Stephenson in that I see a lot of wobbles and loss of balance throughout most of the dance, but other people don't seem to see any of that.

Agree with most of this. Ashley's weak technique was masked by the speed of the dance. It wasn't terrible but it wasn't a ten by any stretch. IanW mentioned on his IIT segment Ashley struggles with his pivots/spins (something I've pointed out since seeing his first ballroom), it wasn't as obvious but it's still there.

Thought Fiona, Anton and their routine was terrible. It's so embarrassing watching him dance Latin.

Thought Susanna danced really well was expecting Bruno to give her a 10.

You wanna respond to that with an actual explanation why you don't agree, or...?

I don't drink, and I'm in my twenties so if I did, sherry would not be my drink of choice.

Len thought Abi, Ashley, Patrick and Susannah were only 3 points better than Dave - and Ben was worth an 8. Proof that the show is a joke.

Abbey was overmarked - not by a lot, but she was - and that threw it out a bit.

Patrick's wasn't worth a ten, but was better than the rest, nonetheless, and that one mark showed it.

Patrick should not have got a 10 because of the mishap at the end. Len should never have given Ben an 8, kicks were poor and he completely screwed up the last section. Craig as ever was the only judge to point this out, and gave a fair score.

A lot of over marking to make up for the missing best Dancer imo giving that last dance a 10 was a joke surely.

Agreed, the scoring is aways horrendous and it was unbelievably obvious that they had planned for Darcy to give a ten whether he screwed up or not. They are so desperate to find someone else good in the competition, as all the original front runners are waning (Sophie...)

The over marking tonight was crazy bad, Ben and Patrick in particular.

This series has been the worst ever for it.

Fact: we don't see what the judges see, we see what the director/producer want us to see and this is inconsistent amongst contestants.
The sooner the direction improves the better.

All overmarked and Patrick wasn't a '10', but I'd have given it to him to make him top of the board because that was the one dance that I didn't judge,I just enjoyed.

Agree with this. The lifts were scary but he completely relaxed into every feature of the dance, the jazzy stuff, the very smooth in hold bits (no gapping any more, good Anya, good Patrick!), the fun on the steps, those mirroring hands in the air thingies... it was pure enjoyment from him and from Anya throughout. Hurt my cheeks with smiling by the third rewatch

I'm intrigued to where you get this impression...thought she was head and shoulders above everyone else tonight both technically and choreographically

I agree that there was overmarking and Patrick should have received 8's & 9's. The ending looked awful & it almost ended in disaster. Big mistakes have to be reflected in the scoring. Patrick himself realised he messed up and seemed positively embarrassed by his scores especially the ten (no eye contact with the camera).