Yes & it was meant to be Salsa 😉. I bet on Saturday night she was ranting & throwing cushions & storming out in a huff 😳

I would put in a few laughing smilies if i could figure on which one it is Jan! Karen could hardly say it wasnt worth a 40 considering she was the only one who got 40 up to this. I bet she wasnt telling us the whole truth about what she thought!

I don't think Karen sounded all that convincing to me: 'at first I thought it was too disco, then I watched it again...' - she's a pro, she'd have spotted straight away if there was enough Salsa or not. Also, it wasn't just about content for me, it was about Abbey's execution which I don't think was brilliant.

Anyway, good to have the pro challenge (and Iveta) back. She's now officially my favourite new addition to the show.

Ashley & Ola looked and sounded a bit deflated....resigned even.

Very pleased to hear Karen say "where were the 10's?" about Sophie's rumba. I wouldn't have minded the 9's if the marking had been consistent for everyone.

And I also noticed some a buzzy bee flying around as well, no way a 40

Karen has succumb to the 10 mania of this series too. The issue with Sophie's top line in her VW was so glaring that there's no way it deserved a 10 even if everything else was perfect. But then again neither did Abbey's salsa. Or Patrick's charleston.


Didn't they? I kind of thought "Man up. You've been in the dance off ONCE. Mark Benton was in it FOUR times" though.

If Karen thought there was too much disco on first viewing it wasn't worth 10s then. You don't get to watch it over & over until it fits into what it's meant to be

Ashley is feeling the pressure. Possibly going to have a Scott Maslan style crash & burn.

The stuff about having to follow Abbey and his getting 35 four weeks in a row didn't land at all well. Either Ashley's got a very misjudged sense of humour or he's just a total dick.

Was Karen Hardy wearing a jingle bell ring? Would anyone know where I could get one?

I think it's fairly obvious he was joking about having to follow Abbey and I do understand his frustration/confusion at being stuck on the same score for weeks as it makes it seem like he isn't progressing/improving.

Aww I felt a bit sorry for them! They've had a couple of really crappy themes foisted on them whilst the others have had crowd-pleasing songs and routines. Plus, it must be slightly frustrating for Ashley who (whilst not setting the world alight with his dancing) has improved but has stayed in the same place on the leaderboard whereas others get a great big helping hand from the judges. He and Ola must also sense that they're now seen as expendable. Like Sophie & Brendan, they're not doing the tour so there's no real incentive for the judges to promote them and push them through to the final. If they don't go this weekend they'll most likely go the next.


He seems more frustrated than tired to me Jan.

He seemed about 5 seconds away from calling out the theme again to me, and I wouldn't really have blamed him. I think it's a big problem for him not being able to get over the ridiculousness of some of what he's being asked to do, whilst some people (Mark, Susanna) have managed to embrace it. I think it's holding him back.

Interesting that Karen said that Patrick didn't seem interested in being on Strictly at the begininnin 😳

I am still not a fan but his attitude does seem to have changed since his bottom 2 visit

I thought it was a bit of a weird/unfair remark from Karen. Patrick is quiet (you can tell that even Claudia is keen to wrap up any conversation with him because he's such an interviewer's nightmare) and even worse than Sophie at communicating enthusiasm but I've never questioned his desire to learn to dance and he's always seemed quite committed to doing his best for Anya.

Going back to the clips of Iveta yesterday, I'd suggest that as a professional her costume has been the "cheekiest" yet.

So Karen agreed with the judges that Abbey deserved a 40. Game set and match!

"If Karen thought there was too much disco on first viewing it wasn't worth 10s then. You don't get to watch it over & over until it fits into what it's meant to be "

The judges get to see the routine in rehearsals and will check then just how much Salsa there is. When I watched it back again and there does seem to be a fair amount of Salsa there. A lot of the dance was done a great pace and if the couple can get in enough required moves and still have time for crowd pleasing moves then all power to them.

I would like to have seen her discuss the execution of the steps rather than the content and 'energy' - because for me, I don't have any problem with the routine as choreographed and no-one could deny that Abbey put her absolute heart and soul into it.

In fact, that was what I said when I first saw it - "Abbey always looks like she's having a great time, even if the technique is a bit shit".

So the messy lifts and stumbly off-centre spins and skipping around rather than pushing down into the floor were my issues with her 40 score.

But Karen chose not to discuss that - in the same way that she chose not to mention Sophie's head positioning which made her look like she had a broken neck. She even suggested Sophie should have received some tens too. That's all I need to tell me that Karen's judgement is dead wrong (or more likely that what she said on ITT was not her real opinion).

So do I- but the segment never achieved what it set out to do ie tell us something about the props. All we learnt was what Jamie Capie and Joshua Grace looked like- two of the props people on camera and they told us absolutely nothing. By all means fill the time on ITT, but couldn't all that time and energy have been used to ask them some questions which they could have answered? Not exactly taxing or expensive.

"Energy" has to be one of the most over-used words on the show- a real cliché now. Surely the professionals would prefer to talk in more depth about their own area of expertise.

That's pretty much my problem with Karen on the whole - she's a highly experienced professional dancer, yet she's coming out with the same stuff that people on this forum do who have no dancing experience.

I'm just thinking back to Flavia explaining the key elements of tango, and the difference between being forward and back-weighted in the hips and how that affects the legs and therefore the drive across the floor. God forbid we actually learned something about dancing.

No doubt if Karen had said Abbey's dance wasn't worth a 10 she would have been commended by the Abbey detractors but seeing as she endorsed it she is seen as somehow lacking an understanding of salsa or overlooking errors. Funny how professional judges are so incompetent en masse. The BBC must be paying them to keep Abbey in lol.

Bumping up the thread. Patrick & Anya tonight & Ian with first training footage

I thought it was the best Saturday show of the series, but it wasn't quite as good as the way Karen portrayed it.

There wasn't 40% of Foxtrot in the AS. Karen said Len was right but didn't say the other three judges were wrong. I think she should have. She basically glossed over all the faults as if they can just be ignored by the judges.

From what Ashley and Ola said, I'm putting the Aladdin theme as another one imposed on them - including the song. Ola said it was difficult to imagine the Rumba from the song.

They weren't the only ones to suffer - I can't imagine Aljaz picking Saturday Night Fever for a Salsa - but at least they then had tens waved at them for some reason.