No problem.

I think she is probably quite demoralised because she has got the one likely to go first in the last three years.

Many pros fill the dance with things that have very little to do with
dance they are doing instead of trying to teach the basic steps of that dance. The celebs may give a better performance but in my book a jive should have jive steps etc.

I've hardly seen a couple more ready to leave Strictly than Gregg and Aliona. She kept facing away from him most of the night. He seemed prepared to go, almost eager, in the interviews. If they'd somehow survived the dance off I can't imagine anyone would have been tempted to vote for them next week. The strange thing is, his Charleston in the dance off wasn't dreadful (by week 2 standards).

I really like Aliona. Cant for the life of me think what she has done to upset somebody.

Sorry but I don't agree with this. We all know how hard it is to predict the bottom two for the first few eliminations. Now I have no idea what the revelations about Gregg's private life were, but he was by no means a dead cert to be in the DO. He's part of a popular long running TV show and who knew he'd be crippled by nerves? Who knew Scott would be as bad a dancer as he is? Same for Jennifer who is on a Marmite comedy show and she's also paired with an unknown pro. Only Judy was a safe bet to be a weak celeb, but even then paired with the popular Anton she wasn't a sure thing to be in the DO.

There's no vendetta, Aliona just hasn't been paired with an obvious contender (if there is any such thing).

I think if Aliona had been paired with any of the other male celebrities, she wouldn't have gone tonight.
Gregg Wallace is not universally liked and that definitely counts against you in a public voting show, more so than the dancing ability.

With regard to when things started going wrong for Aliona, I can remember years back she had frequent "answering back" sessions during Len's critique of her partners dancing and her choreography.
That did not amuse him and I assume he has some influence, things started going down hill from then.

No celeb is universally liked though. That said, I doubt if Aliona would have gone home if she'd been paired with any other celeb, except maybe Tim. The other weak male celeb is Scott, but he has a massive fan base to vote for him. It still doesn't mean Aliona is being singled out.

I've always liked Aliona because I feel if I was in a similar scenario to her I might have a similar attitude, we don't know whats all going on behind the scenes at this show and I'd imagine stuff like production favoritism and the like would be frustrating.

I know she gets a lot of hate on here but Anita Dobson went and set her up with her current hubby, so she mustn't be a dreadful person if Anita suggested that.

I do agree.

Gregg could have been the Dave Myers contestant but Dave Myers was liked. There has been a lot of paper talk about Gregg and Gregg does have a marmite personality, much like Julien Macdonald. I don't think his show was here nor there in regards to the likeability factor. The judges could have saved them too but didn't despite Gregg actually working to fix the flaws in his dance that the judges pointed out and Jennifer not.

Not being paired with a contender is a different thing. Look at Ola in the last few series. First, she had Robbie Savage who was all entertainment, no ability. Then Sid Owen whose only knowledge of rhythm is that he once looked it up in the dictionary and who spent the entire show with a face like a wet weekend in Margate. Then Ashley who could have been but was sacrificed at the alter of the Patrick Robinson love-in as a BBC employee. Now she has Steve who might do fairly well but is not considered a contender by any means.

None of these guys, with the exception of maybe Sid (and he didn't) were likely to go out first. Aliona on the other hand has had her last three partners as favourites to go first for various reasons.

I think Cranfield is right. She has upset people and is consistently going first. I like Aliona and admire that she is very straight-talking and feel bad for her on this.

She doesn't follow Kristina on twitter I noticed, wonder if there was drama there and if so I like her even more for that

I don't think that there's any vendetta against Aliona [who I like a lot]
Could it not be that Aliona is looked on as a dancer who is good at working with older celebs? Or one that won't take any nonsense?

I think all the stuff on the forums about pros "deserving a contender" is really silly. The pros are there as hired hands, none are indispensable, they are there to fulfil a character role on the show.

I'm pretty sure Aliona now has a franchise record of being the first Pro anywhere in the world to go out 3 times in a row in the first week. I'll bet Jonathan Roberts is LOL'ing!

They weren't consecutive seasons, as Jonathan Roberts wasn't in the pro lineup in Series 7 of DWTS, but he was eliminated first, three times in a row (Series 6, 8 and 9), with Monica Seles, Belinda Carlisle and Macy Gray. Not his fault though, considering his partners (what's up with tennis players - Martina Hingis left first w/Matthew Cutler and Andrew Castle was bad as well?)

And I do wonder what's up with Aliona. She was to be left off the show before Natalie hurt her foot last season. I guess they really didn't like Anya to bring Aliona back in her place.

If it's like every other workplace in the world, there must be issues going on behind the scenes - that we'll never know about. But I applaud Strictly for not turning certain pros into perennial winners who always get the pick of the litter, a la DWTS.

Johnny Ball's partner is listed as Iveta officially so it doesn't actually count as 3 in a row even though it likely would have been

In terms of runs of awful partners Lilla also had a 3 season run of bad partners before she got the boot.

Me neither. I know she took umbrage when she was partnering that Rav chappie - you know, the ex-cop crime reporter bloke because Len said something about not making enough of his strengths. On ITT she said something to the effect of, "What strengths are there that I should be making more of?" That was sooooooooooooooo true, too!

Since then I don't think she has said anything controversial. She's very good at what she does, she certainly worked hard with Greg who was dreadful.

Fair do's to him, he was gracious about being the first to go and I think he had found the whole thing more stressful than anticipated but I wasn't sorry to see him go, didn't like him.

I'll miss Aliona though. Hope she gets a really good partner next year.

Don't forget that Greg was pretty awful. He was embarrassingly unfunny with his slapstick nonsense.

He has little charisma - very much a marmite celeb.

Above all he made it clear that he expected to go first and that he was more than glad to go.

I think you actually have to be there dancing, and not been officially replaced by Iveta because of injury, which was the case with Johnny. So its 2 in a row.

She certainly did, actually. It was in series 9, dancing with Harry Judd. Her routines had involved a "lot of faffing" (something which wasn't really as prevalent as it is nowadays), and it got to the point that (in her Waltz - or was it the Tango?), Len exploded. He told her in no uncertain terms he didn't like it, and that he wanted to see more traditional dance content.

In the ITT which followed, she then uttered the forbidden words "I do listen to what the judges say, but I don't necessarily take it all on board" (or similar). Len then proceeded to mark their subsequent routines lower than all the other judges, including Craig.

Despite this, they went on to win that year, which must have pleased Len a lot.

So, Aliona isn't Len's favourite, and I'm sure that has been the main reason for her lack of popularity with the powers that be.

I was going to mention what Aliona said on ITT as well. It's the only thing I can think of that might earn her a black mark. But I do agree we don't know what's going on behind the scenes - wish we did!

Aliona has certainly had a run of duffers, but I can't see this being some form of punishment! Why bring her back in the first place if that was the case?

I know she had been originally been dropped last year, but they didn't have to bring her back then, or now.

Katya, Anya, Hayley etc. are the ones I feel sorry for who were seemingly dropped for no particular reason.

No, it's nothing to do with ITT or choreography from what I've heard. .

I think Gregg gave it a good go on Saturday, and they seemed to be getting on reasonably well. The maid theme made me feel a bit uncomfortable though; a bit carry on/what the butler saw. On the whole I have no problem with them going although I do think it unfair that he didn't get a chance to do some ballroom.

Gutted Aliona has gone, not gutted Gregg has. At least we'll still see her in the group dances.

50% down to Aliona's perceived attitude, 50% down to Gregg's unlikeability and lack of any dance skills.

Put 2 marmite personalities together, and you are asking for trouble - especially as Gregg seemed to court bad publicity at every stage. He was the bookies favourite to go first from the moment he was announced as taking part, well before he was paired with Aliona, and he did nothing to improve on that in the month between the launch show and this weekend.

Although I dislike him intensely, I actually do feel sorry for him, as it's clear that he has read some of the comments on the internet, and it must hurt to see that he isn't as well liked or as popular as he clearly thought he was. His agent did him a huge disservice by getting him to do the show - which is as much a popularity show as a dancing contest. Out of my circle of friends family and colleagues, no one liked Gregg, most of us watch Masterchef despite him ( bit like we watched Strictly despite Bruce), but as well as being unlikeable himself, he really just couldn't dance, so his only hope of survival was that one of the even less able dancers was in the dance off with him. Had Judy or Scott been there - he would have survived - he was just unlucky that he was up against Jennifer who danced a more technical dance full of content better than Gregg danced his Charleston.

I think both he and Aliona are going to be glad to have gone, and it will be interesting to see what stories appear in the media over the next couple of weeks.

Ooh! Do tell us more!

If she did say that on ITT then she's incredibly rude which is part of why the public are not that enamoured. She seems sulky and openly shows her dislike of her partner. She should just get on with it ... it's hardly the worst job in the world.
She's had a winner and a runner up .. which is pretty good going. I hope they drop her tbh .. they've dropped much better dancers with much better attitudes than Aliona.