Bad decision by DS, i have never needed either and frequently pine for the *rolleyes*.

See below for the accusations of arrogance/cockiness etc.

As for suggesting that his tears were just for himself, I think that is pretty harsh. It was clear from what Thom said that the two of them had become good friends and I think that had just as much if not more to do with his tears. That is exactly what I mean about people ascribing unpleasant motivations to what they see because of their preconceived ideas of what a person is like.

Ah - thanks.

Me too, *rolleyes* was one of my favourites. I miss him

I wonder who it is spends money voting for the weakest contestants? Personally if SCD was a just popularity contest then I would have turned off years ago. It's only the striving for improvment that makes it watchable for me. If it's the same for everyone else than you can only assume the people that lift the bottom three dancers out of the dance off have got far more money than sense and do it only out of a misplaced sense of wanting to spoil the show for those who value the effort the celebrities make.

Because no particular order means no particular order - it doesn't mean not in any order. They don't tell you who is one to ten in order every week or even 10-1. But they can put someone last to build the drama and the order may be just mixed up. All sorts of perms are possible - 135792368 10, 543216789 10 or whatever - its just none are defined as particular.

Free online voting, I suspect. I don't think people vote to spoil the show.

Actually, I think that phone votes are more likely.

Probably a large group of Scott fans (from the Radio) have his number (it is the same number each week, if I recall correctly) and they only need to look up the tv guide to see when they can vote for him.

And they don't even have to watch Strictly for that!

Besides, phone votes you can do anywhere, can't see someone going on-line on their phone whilst out and about.

I don't understand the backlash over the couples "first reactions" speeches, particularly the attacking Pixie.

Those little segments are obviously just a small fraction of what are probably a couple of minutes interviewing between the couples and whoever they're talking to. I imagine they ALL get asked the same questions and pretty much all give the same answers ("How sad were you to see Thom and Iveta go?" "We're very sad obviously" "How relieved are you to be through to next week?" "We're so glad we're through and so excited for next week"), but the edits are done to show just a few seconds each, so obviously they're going to alternate the questions used.

I think it's a nice mixture of sadness for the departing couples and happiness for the saved couples (which is actually a nice touch for those voting for the likes of Pixie. I imagine the voters quite like to know the couples are happy to go through after their votes!)

Its got nothing much to do with support or personality or dancing. The SCD vote did the same to Ray and Spooney as its done to Simon. Small biases mean a lot when there's a lot of people competing for small votes - because the large numbers are going elsewhere. Its all about getting a fair small share related to your ability, and it doesn't take much to turn a small fair share to a tiny unfair share that puts you in the bottom two. He's also probably being hit by the votes going elsewhere for all sorts of other reasons.

This series has plenty of people to suck up votes. The people who vote on the dancing, have lots of other, better, choices, to vote for. There's 4 good dancers - thats more than usual.. One of those is from Eastenders, and the only really good male. The representative of Casualty is quite good too - channel and time slot may matter. . There's one fun candidate who may be attracting that vote, with little opposition, and being large may help too given some past BBC reality votes. Ola may have a personal vote, Judy may have a tennis fan. Scotish regional, Anton fan, and oldest contestant, vote working for her. Scott may have a radio 1 vote. Add those all up and the rest may indeed be fighting over voting scraps

You also have the negative voters, These seem to vote for whoever gets the worst marks. Some are just anarchists, others are anti-judge, others see low marks as an attack on them. Scott moaning about how he has worked hard and been undermarked, resonates with others. Some seem not to get the whole point - that someone is going , and just try and save whoever is most in danger.

If the people at the bottom pull in a vote on lack of merit, and the people at the top do on merit, its inevitable that its going to be people in the middle going home. The less of a support base they have , the quicker they will go.

There's not much they can do about it. Telling people their votes for the weakest are wrongheaded, just results in more votes for the weakest. Telling people to vote for the people in the middle is silly - as most people will never vote for everyone they think ought to stay till next week. People will vote for one of the best if they vote on dancing , or who they like most - not to stop the middleground going unfairly early. They can't even ask people to vote for who should go - as its open to tactical voting and the negative vote would target the best performers. .

I found Simon's gestures whilst under the spotlights waiting for the results very odd. Was he trying to communicate that he was/wasn't sure he was in the dance-off?

Because they wanted to squeeze as much drama as they could out of the situation, which was unnecessarily cruel to Mark.

As for those calling Mark a cry baby, he was emotional but he didn't cry, but I can quite understand why he was upset.

Someone's got to be announced as the last one to stay in, and it's cruel to whoever it is. Either they choose a different person each week or put the names in a hat for the order. Whatever they do, it will always be cruel to one person.

Omniconsumer93 said Yeah to Scott being kept in. I wonder if he/she and all the others who vote for him also stand on street corners in the hope there'll be a car crash they can cheer at.

If I was the producer, I would choose the first two to be called out and randomly draw which one was first, then I would arrange all of the other celebs to be announced as safe or not in a specific order.

That fulfils the criteria 'in no particular order'.

I think they do something very similar to what I described.

Yeah, its a bit of an odd thing to latch on to, and inaccurate given editing.

personal prejudice I guess.

So maybe 1 then.
Why did you include all the other quotes that don't back up your claim?

I suppose in the face of no actual evidence you're going for something you think you light be avke to contive to fit your claim

OK, but if it were me I'd just say I was mistaken.

As for your final paragraph, I think you may have taken an inference that was not there.

Rolling eyes at another FM had to go as it contravenes the rules of posting ( which I think in some areas are ridiculously namby pamby but I don't get to make them). Having said that, rolling eyes at a situation would be fine.
BUT it was far more frequently used to be rude and patronising to another FM so it had to go

That's a shame because I used to pop the rolling eyes FM's into my ignore box, it was efficient for removing those with whom I was unlikely to wish to correspond.

I remember on another forum someone who used to rolleyes all the time at anyone who dared disagree with her, but oh my word if you dared to use it back it was like fire and brimstone the world over. Honest you would think you'd have shot her puppy! And heaven help the one person who dared point out they used it all the time.
I learned some very colourful words that day!!!

Wow.

I voted for Scott because he showed a lot of improvement this week, I haven't voted for him in previous weeks. I also voted for Thom and Alison this week, so it's not like I'm using all my votes on one person.

I voted for Frankie thrice this week as I have done bar last week. I really hope she pulls out all the stops this Saturday. As much as she's brilliant already, she will need to really wow everyone in order to solidify her place in the final I reckon.

I agree and I generally like Alison - Judy is having fun and she is getting better - Scott really isn't. Haven't seen result show yet.

Still only takes 15 seconds of a 2 hour show so I have no problem with it at all.

Ah glad someone else thinks the same as me. I have said similar on a couple of other threads, you just said it much more eloquently than me.

I must admit I'm starting to warm to the idea of limiting the voting to the bottom half of the table - it might mean that people vote for those in the middle who are in danger because you can't possibly vote for every couple that you think are less worthy than the duffers you think should go it isn't possible.

Doesn't mean he's better - people vote for all kinds of reasons some of them possibly not good ones. Who is voting for Scott and could they please stop?