That's exactly what I thought. I was trying to make sense of such unlikely vital statistics and wondered if the poster was being rude.

Neither of the Quicksteps tonight were worthy of 10s in my opinion. I'm no dance expert but after almost 10 years of watching Strictly even I can spot gapping (Abbey) and loss of topline (Sophie).

My problem is that the two of them were scored 3 marks apart whereas I'd have had them equal (although in terms of enjoyment, I preferred the more traditional feel and choreography of Sophie's Quickstep).

And they should BOTH have scored higher than Ben, Craig!

I don't think she should have had 10s across the board either, but I do think she deserved better than a 7. She really came across as enjoying that dance - more than I've seen before - so I was impressed and thoroughly enjoyed it.

And as others have said, to mark Ben 8 and Sophie 7? What the actual F, Craig?? Whilst I enjoyed the whole effect of Ben's dance, most of the focus was on Kristina, and Ben hardly did anything. The whole thing showcased her. And where was the "too much faffing abaht" critique? (Lovely dance altogether, though.)

I must admit myself mystified by the judges comments and scores.

On Saturday we had two QS's
The first criticized for not maintaining the topline, scored down.
The second gets 3 perfect scores despite a topline with more bounce than tigger

Ben is apparently a gay icon, well he certainly gets the gay vote from the judges (even CRH is guilty of this)

The judges do not like Mark's flat feet and score accordingly BUT they never mention Patrick's flat feet and score him much higher

I can only surmise that Ben, Abbey and Patrick are the judges favorites and they intend to keep them safe by giving high scores???

Oh No !!!!!!
I've joined the conspiracy theorists :yawn:

I think Craig let himself down with that 7. It really shows that he's not very objective or fair when it comes to the judging. |f he was equally harsh with everyone it would be okay. But he isn't. He gave higher marks to some dancers who Sophie was better than, or equal to. Very biased.

I thought the problem was less that Sophie was under marked (I thought the dance was worth 8's so Craig compensated for the over marking of the other judges) and more that Abbey was so grossly over marked that it created the illusion that there was a greater disparity in quality than there really was. I thought they were about equal (which only Craig's score reflected) but I enjoyed Sophie's more because I liked the more traditional theme and Sophie can out style Abbey any day.

Admittedly Craig scoring her lower than Ben was a bit unfair but no more so than most of the scoring on Saturday from all of the judges.

I disagree with people saying Sophie is better than Patrick, I would say they are even. They have different strengths but are equal, if that makes sense. But it IS disgusting that Sophie received that 7. She upped her game and gave us a different character which is what she was asked to do by Bruno in judges' comments the previous week. Improvement!

I would have given Sophie the same scores as Patrick this week, and marked down Ben considerably. The lifts were 10s but he played a supporting role to those other guys in that number, not leading man.

The weird marking continues. It's tough to figure out what game the judges are playing this year!

Sophie still is not strong in her core and looks shaky at time. I thought 7 was ok, would have given it 8 myself. No way was it worthy of a 10, but then neither was Abbey or Natalie, and Susanna's was worthy of it for dramatic effect but possibly not on the dancing, either.

They have all been overmarked for less than perfect dances. For once I agree with Craig - a 10 should only be given for absolute perfection, not just because they are at Blackpool!!

I just rewatchd sophies dance as I half missed it the first time round, a 7 OMG shocking score, the dance looked completely natural it was lovely. well worth a 9

It was better than Abbey's.

Sophie's QS wasn't worth 10s but it was certainly worth more than a 7 from Craig. Craig definitely undermarked it, although I can't disagree with the other judges' scores.

On the other hand, the gapping throughout Abbey's entire QS was wide enough to drive a bus through and therefore the routine wasn't worth three 10s; it certainly shouldn't have received a 10 from the supposed expert head judge, Len.

On the night I though Sophie was the ONLY one marked properly. The rest were well over marked.

The judges votes for bad dances are high, so when it comes to the better dances they have no where to go but up....maybe they need a 11 paddle lol

I don't know, I can't remember exactly, but Ashley and Patrick, as well as Soph, were marked pretty fairly, I thought.

Abbey, Susannah and Nat - too high. And it started with Abbey's score, which was ridiculously and unwarrentedly high.

I was a shocked as Craig.

Great description

Craig marked Sophie's Cha-Cha the same as her QS

I do wonder if the judges have an idea of the voting and are marking Abbey higher to avoid the bottom two again....

Part of me sort of hopes it's a plot or something, otherwise the judges are not to be taken seriously at all, in any way.

It's disheartening.

I did think it ironic that on ITT tonight (Monday) Craig defended all of his marking over the weekend, but wasn't even asked about Sophie's 7. I'd have loved to have heard what he had to say about that.

Sensible - Brendan and Craig squabbling in the ITT studio wouldn't be a pretty sight

[quote=Tissy;69843950]Great description

Craig marked Sophie's Cha-Cha the same as her QS

I do wonder if the judges have an idea of the voting and are marking Abbey higher to avoid the bottom two again....[/QUOTE]

I would not wonder, you have it spot on and it's been going on for years.

To be fair given it was the first dance you can only argue whether a score was fair or not is when compared to other scores. By scoring it 7 rather than 9 Craig gave himself scope to score other dances relative to it.

The other judges painted themselves into a corner. By scoring Sophie a 9 it meant that if they thought other dances were better they could only score it as 10 and did. Relatively speaking Craig's scores seemed reasonable (didn't necessarily agree with all) with the exception of Ben whose 8 was a little weird.

Remember if everyone had scored as Bruno and Len did then top of the leaderboard would have had 9 points and bottom 7,! It's as well someone differentiated.

The problem is we have no idea how they award their marks . There should be a feature on SCD with each of them explaining how they award their marks, technique, interpretation etc. for each of the named dances .

I know Len did a slot some time back for how he awards his marks which was a complete farce, something like you get a mark for turning up, another mark for knowing your name etc,etc .

Worst was Bruno awarding Emma Bunton a 10 and declaring it was to keep her away from the dance off

Surprised Craig was shocked at the scores from the other judges - we sit here at home guessing what score the judges will give and more often than not get them correct

I'm usually pretty good at the guessing game, but boy was I wrong on Saturday.