Water cooler conversation:

How about ditching the pro number with (usually at least borderline lousy) live guest act and replacing it with
either

1) Reprise of judges' fave dance from the main show (a la DWTS)

OR

2) Last week's eliminated couple gets to do the dance they would have done if still competing (came up because of Thom's dear departed paso I think )

No.................................... I don't like that idea sorry!, I like the pro's dance and the mix of guest singers,.....

I definitely like the idea of the reprise of the Judges' favourite. But I suppose they'd have to film it much earlier in the day to allow for wardrobe and makeup etc.

Agree, the pro dances are getting worse. Why not go back to showing us how proper ballroom dancing should be done? Nobody needs a barn dance.

I suspect that of the ten million viewers, the majority would like a bit of fun like the barn dance and few would want a very formal 'proper' demonstration dance. Just look at how many serious ballroom dancing programmes there are on mainstream TV channel - zero.

The judges' favourite won't work on Strictly because of the dance-off. On DWTS there's no dance-off, thus over there the judges do not have to save their favourite should they end up in the bottom 2. Imagine the judges choosing a favourite dance and raving about it, and later the dance ends up being performed a third time in the dance-off?

Surely a reprised dancer getting eliminated sans dance off is little better. I suspect they know the voting pattern enough to know what dance to choose by the time it is reprised.

No thanks

I'm sorry but I love the pro dances!
The musical guests I could do without, unless the quality of them improve (Culture Club - seriously..?)

I love the pros dancing on the results show. It's my favourite thing about the results show.

I also think that having the judges pick someone out as their favourite dance would just make certain people look even more 'teachers' pet' than they do anyway.

I wouldn't mind if they got rid of Lens' Lens and spent longer talking to the saved contestants and Pros instead

I like the eliminated contestant idea

Since a different couple seems to get chosen most weeks I doubt that. They don' t choose the highest scorer every time, either.

Can't see it working. if they deserrved to go, it ill be a case of seeing again someone we were pleased to see go finally. If they perfom something well, it will make the point they should not have gone, and undermine the credibility of the show. Imagine Ali Bastian coming back in the final , and outperfoming both finalists .Or some of the earlier shock departures coming back and doing the best dance of the week.

I'd like to see Len's Lens extended slightly and drop the musical guest slot.
I love the pro dances and think they should be kept. The barn dance probably wouldn't have been everyone's cup of tea but it's nice to see different styles of dance and I would encourage them to do more styles we don't usually see. As well as doing all the classic styles of dance too, obviously.

Now that Bruce doesn't have to get home for his cocoa and slippers, I don't see why they can't revert to a live results show later on Saturday night, which would knock the stupid spoilers on the head.

Shake things up eh?

The pro dances are my favourite part of Strictly.

Don't think pro dances are a problem per se, but some of them are a bit naff IMO, including some of the ones they do with guests.

No thanks, the pros get precious little time to do decent dances as it is. The pro number to the guest artist, however terrible the singer is, are the closest to a pure ballroom or Latin pro dance we get nowadays!

Often the act overshadows the dancers (unless you are Kevin and throw yourself about with great abandon to a slow song )

Len and Bruno fly out to Los Angeles to do Dancing With the Stars after the show so Bruce's retirement makes no difference.

And with a 9-10m audience on a Sunday night for the Results Show it seems unlikely the BBC would revert back to a Saturday night show.

Plus.... the spoiler thread on here is great!!!!

To extend the results show a bit and have the judges favourite dance.

Strictly isn't really a dance competition it's an über-camp light entertainment show. If we had a judges' favourite then why not have a 'viewers' favourite'? It would make more sense. The majority of people watching Strictly aren't interested in how technically perfect the dances are otherwise there would still be a television audience for proper ballroom competitions and there isn't or rather not one large enough to make it viable. That's why pros often ignore the rules and seek to entertain viewers. They understand what the show is about. That's why any attempt to take dance more seriously on the main show will not work. ITT might be a more suitable venue for more exploration as demonstrated by an earlier edition this week when the pros discussed dance steps, core, etc.

It is not the technical best dance that makes judges choice every week on DWTS.

The one thing I am missing from earlier series is the occasional professional guest. I don't see why we cannot have guest performances from dancers that are top of their field, i.e. the current 10 dance world champions, or the formation world champions or something along those lines, just to show how it's really done...