Just watched tonight's "nerve wracking" finish where two middle aged rotund men who couldn't possibly win (or dance) had a dance off while everyone stood around pretending to care - ....think from now on i'll just watch the last 4 weeks....so much filler in this show.

Interested how the hardcore SCD fans feel - is the show still "exciting" to watch or are you all feeling a bit bored by the cliches and forced drama as well?

Overall it's still nowhere near as bad as X Factor for dragging out "nothing" for 3 months and doesn't have Nicole Scherzinger making everyone sick with her sycophantic bullshi* but still there has to be an end for these types of shows soon?

Channel 5 2016 friday night line up :

Big Brother
SCD
X-Factor

The DO is often a suspense killer (I would ditch it) but I think the emotion was all there and it was plain to see yet again how much the show means to the participants.

I love Strictly as much as ever.

isn't the result of the dance-off itself almost always easily predictable?

TBH this whole series is just dire.

Cant take to any of them, not one person makes me want to watch. I go through the motions of watching, but it lacks something that all the other series had.

not sure what it is, but that " joyous " feeling I used to get seems to have gone from this years.

even the judges seem worn out and tedious, Tess and Claudia rave but its empty.

Just doesnt seem to have the " Buzz " of previous years.

Totally agree - and I don't think it's simply because the contestants are any worse than previous years just the fact that it's exactly the same show time after time........think would help a lot if it started mid november and just had a 6-8 week run......it's this relentless dragging out of every training montage, every hint of a tear etc etc

Just for comparison, three years ago (the difference between 2013 and 2010 and 2016 and 2013), Big Brother was averaging 2.8m. This year, Strictly's ratings have pretty much been anything from 9m upwards.

Don't go placing any bets.

The point of the dance off, is to give a reason for people to watch a Sunday programme.

The number of contestants has increased over the years to unmanageable proportions, simply to match X-Factor and justify the length of the series.

That's why the early rounds can seem so dire. You can pretty much guess who's going out even if you get the week wrong, so it is rather predictable.

Not much context going on there - I'm sure they were much higher in 2010 for SCD than they are now - which is understandable as its very hard to keep a blockbuster hit like SCD feeling fresh.

Not really knocking the show or channel 5 but given they have had a wee bit of relative success taking BB then maybe they would be interested in keeping these shows going for the die hard fans when their natural shelf life is complete - which feels to me like now but more realistically 2016-20-18.

Sadly I feel the same. Watched Zorro on Film4 instead and now can't even be bothered to look at the recording of the results show.

I thought Dave stomped his best and was extremely gracious in defeat. He has no reason to feel anything other than pride in the way he has carried himself, and his joy and passion has been obvious to us all SCDers

The advantages of a show like Strictly, are that you can record it and later wizz through it missing out the trivia and you'll miss nothing of significance and be done in thirty minutes, less on the weeks Bruce isn't there.

Exactly Doghouse - I LOVE making hour long channel 4 shows last what they should - which is usually about 15-20 mins or in the case of Deal or no Deal about 3 and a half minutes.

Sometimes I still pinch myself and wonder at the fact the public are allowed to wield such power over the adverts. It's beyond joyous.

Nope. They around the same, if not lower if I remember correctly.

The ratings are about the same as they were in 2010.

Worst dancers in the dance off - how boring, what sort of entertainment show is this?
Best dancers in the dance off - what a farce, what sort of dance show is this?

Take your pick.

Exactly, there is no pleasing some people!