I just wanted a rant about how awful I think tonight's leaderboard is!

IMO the judges are trying to boost the celebs who they expect to struggle for votes - Simon and Mark mainly - by pushing them up the board at the expense of others. Jake was slaughtered by the judges despite another strong performance, Steve even more so despite being really fun to watch and making a huge effort. Even Pixie was a bit underrated I thought. I don't know what these people need to do!

I think the judges are putting a few people like Jake in danger to try and get their fans to vote in the hope it will force Judy and/or Scott to the dance-off, but that seems a very dangerous game to play and I have a horrible feeling it could backfire very badly. I'll be really annoyed if we get something like a Jake V Caroline bottom 2 but it honestly looks plausible based on those ridiculous scores!

At the other end of the scale though, I do like Frankie... but 10? And Craig's first 9 of the series? My mum kept commenting on her head not being that well positioned, yet not one judge noted it... bizarre.

Yet another conspiracy theory. How sad

If you don't want a Jake v Caroline bottom 2 then vote for them!

I have! I just hope enough others do...

I thought Jake was undermarked, Simon overmarked and Mark deserved his score tonight.

Jake does give a good performance but the routine wasn't right (janette's fault) and his uppper body shaping is off - steve just made too many mistakes despite the routine being fun

Spot on.

I couldn't get over the fact that all the judges (except Craig who, let's be honest is the only judge who scores correctly) gave Scott's dance a 6 and Sunetra's a 7

The gap between these two is as wide as the Grand Canyon. Alison also vastly overmarked by the 3 amigo's

Only one mark difference between Alison and Sunetra ...... really????????
Total nonsense.

Darcey scoring Alison the same as Jake says it all!

I didn't notice that... someone should confiscate whatever she's been taking for all our sakes!

I like Scott, but to give him 1 mark less than Jake & Sunetra is pretty nuts. It's the public's job to keep the likes of him and Judy in if they want to, the judges don't need to overmark them.

For a moment I though Danny was back in town THE HORROR

I assume you mean Donny? That would have been the biggest Halloween horror of all!

I couldn't believe that!

Yes Donny

I too thought the marks were ludicrous in parts tonight, and I thought Darcey was the main culprit. She doesn't seem to realise that if you mark one couple a 7 & the next couple is better then they have to have an 8.

But I disagree that Jake was undermarked. There was little if any of the correct body shaping that is an essential element of paso, and he was always too square to his partner which made the whole thing look stiff and stompy. His worse dance to date.

Definately the scoring tonight was the worst it's been, someone needs to have a word

I have no problem about the higher marks (or the lower ones come to that), but the bunching in the middle of the board is getting a little confusing, leaving reasonably good dancers almost on a par with the highest scorers of the less able ones.

Darcey never scores below a 5. Watch it carefully and she never does. It's like she doesn't have the heart.

With regards to Steve, he deserved his score. He was out of time at several points and you could see him trying to think about how to catch up.

On the whole the marks were very well chosen. If anything Jake was grossly over marked. His dancing was horrendous. Same goes for Judy.

They don't. have to get an 8. 7 is a range - it either includes a 6.6 and a 7.5, or 6.5 and 7.4, or it starts somewhere closer to a 7 and ends somewhere near to 8.. You can be almost a mark better and never see that mark.

The only mark that matters is the final total . That has to put people in the right order. To get them in order, someone has to add the higher mark that splits very good from better - as in distinguishing a 36 from a 37. With Craig marking low, someone often has to go too high to get to the right total.

The judges can't mark the people near the bottom of the board realistically - compared those at the top, or the strong mid field. You have to give the poor performers some higher marks and positive comments , or the anti-judge vote just rewards them with a 30% vote and they overstay - taking better dancers down before they go.

As I said, the only thing that matters is the order. The individual marks serve all sorts of purposes beyond reflecting how good anyone was on an absolute scale. .

No, they don't "have to" get an eight and the only thing that matters is the final total.

However, a judge worth it's salt (and under no orders or pre-ordained scoring system) should know that all judges should score comparatively. That is, they should all score each performance with regard to the ones they've previously seen. I don't give a toss about giving crap celebs encouragement but it's possible to do that whilst still using a full range of scores and marking people by comparison.

I've just caught up on iPlayer, and I'm extremely frustrated with the leaderboard.

Mark's clearly being pushed up the leaderboard due to lack of votes.
Frankie, a 10? Really?
Jake's score was a tad harsh - deserved a higher score than Simon.
I've never been happy with Sunetra's scores or her position on the leaderboard - undermarked every week!

I think the bottom four was fair, though. Steve had so many mistakes - I thought it was awful, so him and Alison being tied makes sense, to me.

I just hope two of the bottom four are in the dance off (or Frankie or Mark due to their ridiculous scores) because I'll feel cheated on behalf of everyone else. The scoring last night was some of the worst I've seen on the show.

Agree with all this.
Judges started with high marks and gave themselves nowhere to go after that.
Frankie's 10 might have been a bit too generous (but I really liked her routine) but after giving 9's to lesser performances 10 was appropriate.
Darcey is the worst culprit and Len now seems to be judging "the performance" rather than the dance!

Exactly.

Perzackerly. I know people will be dismayed to see their favourites further down the leader-board than they'd like, but I think the order reflects the performance levels pretty well. The only one I'd disagree with (slightly) is that I think Steve did enough to be above Alison on the leader-board, not level pegging with her, and I hope he's not in trouble as a result.

Above all, we do have to remember that this is not a dance contest, but a Saturday night entertainment show and therefore it is pure pantomime. If there's any manipulation going on, it's the sort that encourages us all to huff and puff and get outraged, so that we discuss it around the water-cooler on Monday, keep the interest going and the BBC winning the ratings war. That's the only agenda here, folks.