In the Dance Off judging Darcey expressed shock and surprise that "both men were in the Dance Off". She said she found it "very frustrating". Bruno echoed this sentiment by regretting that "both men were not to be in semi-final". Darcey might ponder this theory: it was her blatant favouritism and over-marking of Patrick for the past few weeks that caused the GBP to react by voting for Susannah and not Patrick. He must have been very low in public support to go from joint top of the leader board to the bottom two. I was expecting Susannah to be out this week, and to be honest, much as I like her, she deserved to be. I thought she would be in the DO with Ashley, and that Ashley would survive. But the increasingly clear attempt to get the two surviving men into the semi final and at least one of them into the final has had the opposite effect. I think that overall the men have been weaker this year, and the public has recognised this. Patrick must be aware that he doesn't have public support, and will need to pull out all the stops in the semi-final if he is to make the final. If he is in the DO next week, especially against Susannah, he will undoudbtedly survive. If it is anyone other than Susannah, the judges will have a problem. So Darcey, it was at least partly your fault that both men were in the DO this week! Moral - mark fairly in future!

Oh goodie another conspiracy theory.

there should be no judge voting from now on and it should be the public vote only

The Series 6 public vote was the one that made the mathmeticians work out the better voting terms and conditions: in the quarter finals the topmost couple are not safe from the dance off, as we saw yesterday: I voted for Patrick as I wanted to dave him from the dance off. Others voted for other contestants.

Totally agree with you especially if the judges use it to get their favourites to the final week

It would make little sense for them to advance the dancers they deem less able.

I actually think it was the Strictly Celeb Picking Elves who skewed the result.

Out of 7 male celbs, we had an almost septugenarian, one comedy contestant with no sense of rhythm, one comedy contestant with a sense of rhythm and shot knees, a Julien, a slow moving Rugby player, a young actor with a hectic schedule and a new baby and an older actor with a quieter personality.

The problem for the SCPE is that they have also been trounced by the girls in the personality/appealing to the voters side of things as well.

Hopefully, next series, assuming the Powers-that-Be get their every third year female winner this , the SCPE's will be able to get a more even spread.

An excellent summary, I hope the producers are watching.

Thank you for this - but could you expand a little for me? What are the better voting terms and conditions?

This ^^ The show even emphasises the fact that "no couple is safe", the only ones responsible for Patrick being in the Dance Off are those members of the public who like him but didn't bother to vote for him.

I thought this thread title meant something else entirely

I have been voting for Susannah because I wanted to, not because I was reacting to any supposed over-marking. In fact, I have sent a few votes Patrick's way as well on a couple of weeks.


As for why Patrick was in the DO - he had relatively little public support. It is the voting public that decided NOT to vote for him or to vote for others instead of him, not Darcey's.

After last week my first thought was that no way would the judges want 4 women & 1 man in the semi final so by hook or by crook they would want at least one woman in the dance off. However they shot themselves in the foot with the ludicrous 10 for Patrick and the astonishing attack on Natalie - 'YOU are in jeopardy tonight', with a face like thunder and looking as if he was getting ready to dish out corporal punishment, when she had done everything her professional choreographer asked her to do, and done it beautifully.

If they had simply marked what they saw, Susannah & Kevin had done the job for them by putting themselves deservedly at the bottom of the leaderboard. The vast over-marking for Patrick was presumably intended to simply get him far enough up the board so that at least 1 man would be through with the other voted through from the dance off if necessary, but the public saw through this scam and it would appear hardly anyone bothered to vote for Patrick

Hoist by one's own petard, so to speak.

I don't think that rubbishing the obvious collusion as yet another conspiracy theory holds water as how else can 4 supposedly skilled and professional judges all get it so wrong for such a slightly above average rumba?

I actually understand Darcey's 10 for Patrick this week. It probably didn't deserve a 10, but as a performance, I thought the dance was excellent.

So this week I sent one vote Patrick's way for the first time. Because I liked his dance and because I felt he needed all the support he could get.

And I think the reason for needing support was that a fifty year old dad doing the Rumba was probably not exactly a turn on for younger voters.
(not saying it looked like that, but he has emphasised his age, and then this week that he is a father of grown up children).

When Darcey made that remark about being frustrated because both remaining males were in the dance off, I thought "ah...this is going to get some comments...". And of course it did.

I understand her frustration too, but I don't think any conspiracy is involved. It is just that she had to choose between 2 very able male dancers and she was probably thinking that there was at least one (possibly 2) of the females who should be there instead.
It was Darcey's way of telling the viewers that she was not happy with having to choose.
That's all.

If she had then gone on to choose Ashley over Patrick then the 10 she gave Patrick would have been seen as a sham.
So she had no choice but to save Patrick over Ashley. But in doing so, she made her personal feelings known.

I do think that some aspects of SCD are 'fixed' in small ways.
But I don't think this was one of them.

I believe this relates to how they deal with ties in the judges' vote. Originally, they would leave a gap in scores after a tie, which actually initially seems logical, but then gives the judges' part more weight, particularly in say protecting ties at the top.

This week we had judges' points : 6, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2. Before the change that would have been 6, 6, 4, 3, 2, 1 so everyone from 3rd down would have been a point further back.

It is actually more of an issue near the end, particularly when they had SFs of 3 leading to a final of 2.

The problem was glaringly highlighted when the judges came out with 3, 3, 1. It left the contestant with 1 unable to avoid the bottom 2 and the dance off. In a similar situation now, the judges' result would be declared as 3, 3, 2. And if the bottom person then won the public vote they would go first overall, since in the event of an overall tie the public vote takes precedence.

It might not have been much to do with the guys. She could have said the same thing if Abbey and Natalie were there too. It could have been a veiled reference that "Susaanna should have been in the dance off then all the better dancers would have been through".