Originally Posted by Miriam_R:
“She didn't get away with anything on these forums, she was slaughted on the BBC forums back in the day (think they were still around when she was, unless it was here on DS).
The were pob picky with Rachel just like they are with better dancer (Natalie, Kara etc), as they then have to critique them on a different level to some of the other contestants if their is an obvious imbalance of talent.
It wasn't that Lisa was great in her own right, but just one of the better ones of the series. Rachel was better than her but I actually think she was better than Tom Chambers (overall in most dances, though not quite all), and I think if it weren't for Camilla's amazing showdance and people liking him more than her and Racel (as some found both girls cold and lacking in personality) then he wouldn't have won, imo. But he was very liked, personality wise (despite some thinking he gurned too much) and, becasue he wasn't bad at dancing too (like Lisa), he could actually look half decent more often than not in comparison to some of the others that were near dire.
When Tom won I don't think he was the best dancer overall by the end (in terms of dance quanity), and I think his Ballroom was better than his Latin (which I tended to cringe at sometimes) but he still seemed to get through even on that slight imbalance. He did a nice A.Smooth too, so sometimes he could look really good on individaul dances, even if not all. People seemed cold on Rachel even though she was a better all round dancer technically (imo), hence why she found herself in the BT, as well as Lisa who found her self there (quite abit) because people always seemed really annoyed with her for whatever reason. It was the usual "she's up herself, she's vain, she's nasty, she's fake, she's trained, she's not gebuine" and all that usual stuff that gets banded around about people's personalites (by plenty that admitted they had never met her in person). But as for the judges, she was better than other dancers below her, so she prob stood out in that context alot of the time to the judges, and to be fair she wasn't rubbish by any stretch. Her marks may have been overinflated, but what's new n Stictly, happens all the time plenty of previous years (so why just focus on her). Ben prob gets marks regularly that don't reflect his dancing, so this year th the judges aren't just over-marking bettwr dances to poss help them along, but anyone now that shows grade A effort (even if the improvement is minisucle but still partionise the celeb that they've improved lots all the same). All is just my opinion.”
She does tend to dine out a bit on the "I once dated Clooney thing" and she was bit desperate to be liked by Brendan who IMO was an arse that year and the public in general (I know from personal experience that tends to horribly backfire). Her latin was also pretty piss poor in general - which in fairness was a pretty universal failing amongst contestants that year in general - we had two stunning rhumas, some of Christine's was good, Rachel's was good but a tad underwelming and Tom's was fun but eratic in quality and ditto Austin (very good jive and charismatic paso - and some camp fun with the CCC but some of it was forgetable and not great),