I agree! I never vote with my ovaries. I can and do appreciate the charms of the men, but I vote on the strength of the dancing and the partnerships. So this series I would love to see Pixie, Frankie, and Caroline in the finals. They're all lovely dancers who bring different qualities to their performances.

Agreed. And possibly Kevin's choreography went overboard this week as well.

I agree about pixie and frankie, but not Caroline. She doesn't seem to be improving, a bit like jake really.
Last edited by sey77 : 08-11-2014 at 22:39

Trent has been commended on his choreography most weeks. I really hope he stays, he's a great asset to the show.

He is doing a Maslin

I suspect his salsa flattered to deceive but it's still the dance with the biggest wow factor for me.

I also liked his tango.

My expectations were raised and have been largely disappointed ever since.

I still live in hope

Exactly what I thought. Salsa was the only dance I enjoyed.

Yes

I too thought he was decidedly mediocre last night and felt guilty for expecting too much from him. The others are catching up fast and some are passing him aren't they?

I think he's doing a Scott Maslen & I think Janette is hindering him.

Unlike most of the others he doesn't seem to be enjoying himself, he treats it like a chore.

There are sign he may have peaked too early it has to be said, that's two OK but not great dances in a row now.

Janette's rumba choreography was incredibly lazy - I counted no more than 4 basic steps in the entire routine. Everything else was her wafting around him whilst he did a bit of armography. I've seen far less able male celebs do an almost identical routine - and get similar marks for their efforts, so I don't think it was undermarked, as much as Alison was overmarked and somehow managed to get the same score - but her overmarking was based entirely on her ability to upsell a dance to the studio audience and judges!

Had Janette given him challenging choreography, I suspect Jake's innate talent would have meant we got a fair to decent male rumba, but she didn't even push him to get basic steps right. I read another thread yesterday where someone mentioned that Jake had said he's just learning routines and Janette isn't necessarily teaching him technique. For me, that's the crux of the problem. If Jake had basic technique, he could have sold the hell out of the routine, no matter how basic it was. But she isn't even bothering to push him to get simple rumba walks right, or to fine tune the hands, which would have covered a multitude of sins if the judges could say 'beautiful arm extensions'.

I suspect the two of them are a fatal combination together - his lack of time and a fairly obvious disinterest in dances that don't personally get his juices flowing, and Janette's laziness in her teaching methods, poor choreography and an over-reliance on a single week's dance score way back in week 2. Whilst Jake needs a kick up the bum to make him up his game, someone also needs to give Janette a telling off, and hopefully the pair of them can bring their standards up. If they did, we'd have one of the most competitive male line-ups Strictly's seen for a long time. Whilst Jake has been wasting his lead, Mark, Simon and Steve have all upped their games, and techniques, massively, and are seriously challenging him for 'best male celeb dancer'.

I don't think he is getting worse. he was undermarked last week. His rumba wasn't great but rumbas rarely are and the choreo was too safe.
He is still my fave along with Pixie.

Rumba always difficult for the guys, especially if they're married. Just saying.

He's an actor. Since being in EE he's had steamy sex with 5 women, two of them teenagers. It's never been a problem to him before.

Exactly! One thing for a non-entertainer with no experience of acting (and whose spouse has no experience of watching him acting) to be uncomfortable with a rumba but not an experienced actor. The problems are a) too high expectations by people who didn't get that the salsa was a lot more about show than actual dancing (by him) b) poor choreography and c) poor tuition - either because, as I believe, Janette herself has fairly superficial technique or there isn't time to put in the hours or both.

He seems to be the same character in every dance he does, surly, mean,moody, slightly threatening.....etc.
People keep saying he is an actor , but he doesn't seem to have any range, just a one trick pony.
He has become boring IMO

In response the the OP- I think this is the level everybody expected Jake to be at, not one of the front runners but quite good and a bit of a dark horse. His Salsa made everyone expect him to be always that standard, and that's quite a bit to ask!

Same with Simon, his Jive/Charleston/Quickstep are where people expected him to be when he was doing his Tango/Rumba/Viennese Waltz. Expectation is a killer!

I don't think he's necessarily getting worse - his rumba wasn't good but it wasn't terrible either, and he's never been great at anything other than fast Latin.

I think it's a combination of him having very little training time and Janette's inexperience at ballroom and Latin - she's a great dancer, but she's a salsa specialist, so no wonder their salsa was their best dance. She learnt ballroom and Latin later in her career, so is obviously less experienced at teaching and choreographing it. She's far from the first pro to fail to fix basic mistakes (OIa with Chris Hollins' hand shaping springs to mind), but she needs to start doing that if they're going to go far in this competition.

He does do surly and mean very well.

Maybe not getting worse but everyone else is getting better.

He is a very limited actor.

He's not getting worse, he was just never that good in the first place. He quickly reached the standard of a typical male middle of the leaderboard journey contestant that gets voted out in the quarter-finals and he'll stay there until he goes. There's no comparison between Jake and the top 3 girls at all, they're all much better than him in ballroom and the weakest of the girls in Latin (Frankie) is at least as good as Jake in that regard.

This is a good post. Being shallow here - I don't think the uniform, lovely as it was, particularly suited him as being buttoned up to the neck made his head look even bigger and highlighted his bald pate, bless him! Some men can carry off baldness, but he isn't one of them. Not that this puts off his many fans of course...

Told you I was being shallow!