As I've said before, the team challenge, plus the low marks the judges gave Beth, were all geared to getting Beth into the skate off and sent home. It didn't work though, the public like Beth and can see what the judges are doing, always under marking her. The only person who needs to go home is Karen Barber, she's so biased against Beth and for Kyran she's a joke

If that is so, how do you explain the fact that she gave Beth a score of 9.0 and Kyran a score of 8.5?

I don't particularly like Karen, but I also think she's possibly the least biased against Beth of all the judges.

She was definitely complimentary and positive about her tonight.

It's hardly surprising. Stupid team challenge. Although Suzanne peaked with Stay.

I am not sure who they wanted out tonight. If they know the votes they can calculate. The show narrative was that it was time up on Kyran, Beth or Hayley. But they may have wanted to just change the tune and counter past impressions with Suzanne and Hayley. If they thought ahead, they would also be mindful that Suzanne's Music was the best , non Ray, routine left for the skate offs - if you don't want her in the final you want her doing something else in later skate offs. Suzanne v anyone has that effect. This weeks twist works for Kyran and Sam, but who do they think will want to watch the two people most in the bottom two?

They may want particular people in the last stages,and to remove their competition, or they may just be totally incompetent. As it is, they have now lost two of their strongest female contenders after they came second on that week's scoreboard, and ruined their own competition doing it. They are spinning a story, but they ruin their own message week on week by demolishing someone they built up last week, handing out dud routines, and marking similar routines differently. Tonight was a classic - after telling us who wasn't competing on merit , they then organised a vote that allowed the same people to survive, and took out the last person they had just built up to compete with Ray.

I don't think anybody could have predicted Suzanne messing up in the skate off.

I doubt that the team challenge- as stupid as it was- was designed to get anybody out. Personally, I think it was more a ploy to get more votes. According to that leader board, Beth and Hayley should have been in danger but they probably both have strong fan bases who may haven been panicked into voting for them more than normal.

In the past the Team Challenge has been designed to get rid of a weaker skater who has proved popular with the public like Denise Welch & Andy Whyment by provoking votes for the better skaters with the twist. With 6 champions left to still employ it was always a risk.

In those instances it probably makes more sense than to use it in a series of champions. In the past I would probably have wanted it to put the weaker skaters in danger, but I'm not sure what they were hoping to achieve if that's why they used it again this series.

This completely. A fall or error does not mean a person should go unless it's a close skate off. I think we all thought Suzanne would be saved on paper but she didn't do her routine well. It was the right result.

Also I'm not so sure the team challenge did her in - it was more the over marking. The other girls were below her on the leaderboard. Of course she may have always been the least popular, who knows

I seem to remember when Matt L made a mistake in his skate off, he was still head & shoulders above the other guy (Shayne ?) in the skate off; had he been against someone who could skate equally as well as him (Matt), then Matt would have gone.

In the skate-off tonight, I really expected Suzanne to go through with no problem, but Kyran produced a really good skate (one of his best, I thought) and Suzanne not only made mistakes, but I didn't think her skating was her best either. Hence - Kyran rightly (imo) saved.

You may be onto something here. The team twist didn't help her as it negated her leaderboard advantage but maybe she lost out on votes to Beth & Hayley due to being a little overmarked. It was definitely her best performance since her 1st one but the 10 was a little OTT.

If there had been no twist, and Ray, Hayley and Beth do better than Suzanne and kyran the only way Sam escapes the skate off is to beat Suzanne in the vote. There's been no evidence of that happening in past weeks voting, and much evidence his vote puts him one place above, or one below Kyran.

But thats not a valid reason for anyone not to vote for her. Its not her fault, has no consequence, and she's in the right place on the scoreboard anyway. The problem is that the twist saves one of the people with a voting problem, and four people get votes in an order unrelated to the content of their routines.

Its more likely that Beth being undermarked, and being bottom of the scoreboard helps her vote, and that Hayley just gets votes regardless as she is the biggest same channel TV star.

I was quite impressed that the judges were so consistent in their approach to the skate-off when it meant losing Suzanne over Kyran. In comparison the Strictly judges make up their own criteria to suit their own agenda each week.

I also thought it was striking that the choreography Kyran had in his own series was much more suited to him than anything he has been given this year. Back then I assume he was T&D's priority when choreographing new routines, whereas now he is getting the 'afterthought' routines.

It is possible but we'll never know. Sam was very very good tonight - I think based on that and a potential rebound vote he would have avoided the skate off anyway while Beth and Hayley have a stronger vote, though we don't know that their vote didn't go into overdrive due to the twist.

In any case, Suzanne probably would have been saved but completely messed up. She could still be here now and being in a skate off might have aided her next week but she blew it

I agree with this. I thought Sam's routine was excellent, and probably the most crowd-pleasing of the night, and he was in joint second place overall with Suzanne before the 'twist'. Suzanne also outscored both the other girls. In the end, she didn't attract the public votes but would probably have still won the skate off if she hadn't messed it up.

IMO......she thought she had it in the bag.....by talking down the 'weaker' players in the show (Todd 1st week)......plus her comment yesterday to Kyran about being in the skateoff before. ...as if he wanted to be reminded of this!!!! Reminded me of her emmerdale character....and look what happened to her! !!!

Totally gutted about this. Suzanne was far the better skater than Kyran. Shame about her mistakes. She was the best out of the female skaters and er cocky how exactly? There was nothing I saw of her to show her as a cocky person - Ray yeah maybe but not Suzanne.

I'm pretty convinced though that if Ray found himself in the skate off and fell that he would still be put through. I just can't see the judges sending him out.

But I thought that Suzanne had been sidelined for the last few weeks with lack-luster routines. I fear the faves are getting the best choreo and it shows!

That's not really true. Suzanne was a much better performer than Kyran but skating skills wise he was just as strong and that's where the result comes from. Look at what they both performed well in the skate off and Kyran achieved much more than Suzanne did. She attempted more but not much actually came off. To talk about Kyran's minor error is irrelevant because he still actually managed more successful moves than Suzanne. Her performance may have pulled her a bit closer but the mistakes took away from that side of it too and it wasn't enough.

This wasn't a Shayne Ward (mediocre at best) v Matt Lapinskas (not particularly likeable but very good) situation. It was two very competent skaters with comparable skating skills and mistakes, at least the amount that Suzanne made, were going to count.

It's a shame because Suzanne at the top of her game was better than Kyran - indeed she was probably better than anyone bar Ray and she could challenge him on some aspects. Music performed well (not even flawlessly) would have beaten Kyran comfortably but you have to perform on the night and Suzanne didn't.

Of course, she shouldn't have actually been in the skate off at all but that's another debate entirely...

Suzanne should never have been in the skate off, but must not have been getting the votes. After seeing her first performance it was hard to believe how wrong things went for her. I felt she was the strong contender to Ray. It's a great shame she is gone.