How many of our winners have been Bottom Twoed before the final?

I think sometimes a Bottom Two appearance causes people to lose confidence in the couple and think "why bother" voting to save them.

I get where the OP is coming from. This is the first week I haven't used one of my votes for Natalie. This week though I'm worried about Sophie, so I gave two votes each to Susanna and Ashley and gave the 5th vote to Sophie.

My theory is that the general public will vote for Natalie because it's only on here she's not liked by a lot of people.

I've probably jinxed Sophie now!

I vote for the acts I prefer & Natalie snuck into 4th place on my own personal leader board.

Being in a dance off could knock her confidence.

slight error in your comment - i really like her , she is the best dancer

SNAP, SNAP!!

Agreed 100%

Yes, they did her a favour there but I disagree that her Rhumba was seriously forgettable, I'm still remembering it now. I thought it was beautiful.

I expected much from NAT tonight and in some ways she delivered but not as much as I wanted. You see I want more from someone with her dance background. Also if she would stop camera spotting it would be a blessing.

Overall though I think she and others are getting a lot of unfair criticism.

Only Natasha and Alesha.

Its not a problem. The dance off is there to save the competition from some, but not all, the extreme nonsenses thrown up by the public vote. Natalie on the lowest vote could otherwise go out against anyone - and the whole competition would become pointless. . Natalie as long as she is the best dancer with a dance off won't go out - however silly the vote is. What the dance off can't do is stop there being a silly result if the vote puts two top dancers into the danceoff. It can only always preserve the best of any two who end up in it any week, and preserve the the best of all into the final, It can't necessarily save the second or third best - so you can end up with no competition still.

If people don't vote for Natalie, because she's thought safe anyway, the only resilt is to make it more likely she will knock out her competition before the final.

Well I like her, and she got five free online votes from me.

I have noticed the slight fall off in Natalie's performances over the past couple of weeks but wondered if this was a definite ploy as she had been too good too early in the competition and attracted a lot of negative criticism as a result. Designed to make her less of a front runner? Or am I being too much of a conspiracy theorist?

Personally I find her performances leaving me a little cold. Maybe it's her personality but I just can't engage with her.

Anyway she's the 7/4 favourite on Odds Checker so I'm guessing the judges favourite must be backed up with a sizeable public vote.

Or is it just due to the back/exhaustion and she is not training so much? She is getting the routines down but the fine tuning is having to be shelved?

The thought has crossed my mind, but I try not to speculate.

I watch Natalie and Artem separately from the rest of the cast. I watch them because they are there, but they are not part of the competition for me.

Poor Natalie's Corrie character is working against her imo, and as for her being a trained dancer -wasn't that as a child? Only going by what my daughter, who trained in latin and ballroom as a child, said to me. She stopped dancing at aged 12 as it was interfering with her studies, she's now 30 and said she wouldn't have a clue and would have to start from scratch if she were to take it up again.