Yes, I agree Roseanne. In the dance-off it was clear that Mark would be chosen unless he did something spectacularly awful, like forget the entire routine.

In the past, the celebs were allowed to acknowledge that, and you'd often have the 'less able' one talking about how they were going to 'enjoy their last dance' or whatever - but I think the producers (hyper-controlling as always) have now Forbidden That ... and the more able(Mark) and less able (Tim) have to talk about the upcoming dance off as if either or them could win, so that it won't be seen as 'pointless'

Despite Mark's mistakes he still danced better than the lovely Tim. It was the right decision but I will miss Tim and Natalie.

Funnily enough actually doing proper dance steps rather than just stomping around is more difficult than swishing a cape... Never mind that Mark had bucket-loads of choreography to deal with overall (but focus only on the bit where he did basic quickstep (which is perfectly within the rules, and commendable of Karen to include really rather than going flat out on tricks) if you must), and danced the majority of it well.

I can't believe anyone thinks a better overall dancer should go out to someone who, even though he tried hard, just couldn't really dance just because the one who can dance made a few mistakes in the dance-off. This competition should be about the standard of dance, which, thankfully, is why the judges saved Mark.

Just for the record I never said a the person who made the mistakes should go out. I was merely stating a fact that it had been said many times by the judges in previous series that mistakes can cost a dance off - even with a useless dancer vs a slightly competent dancer. As I said before, it was not the logic I was questioning, rather the inconsistent application of whatever logic they use.

I don't know that it is inconsistent, it is just that different elements make up the overall standard of dance so the key element to the decision will vary from dance off to dance off. If you have two evenly matched celebs then a mistake by one and not the other might determine the result. If you have two celebs who are some way apart then an absolutely catastrophic mistake by the better celeb might determine the result. If you have two celebs who are some way apart and the better one makes a couple of minor mistakes then those mistakes won't be of sufficient detriment that they lose the dance off. In a case such as that, the rationale for the decision will be something else - complexity of choreography, hip action, whatever. That being so, we should not be surprised that there are sometimes different reasons given for the dance off decision.