Very well put PM, I have often thought this but couldn't put it as succinctly as you have. Tess was a great prop for Brucie, and much as I loved him (warts & all) he had a great ally in Tess who was there to catch him if he should fall.
Nevertheless, I still feel there is something missing in the Presenting Team - kills me to say it, but it needs a man.

I don't mind tess and yes i'm about to type this ...

i wouldn't have minded seeing tess paired with ...

are you ready for this ..

vernon and no i'm not joking!

Charming. Never fails to amaze me how rude some people are on this forum.

Are you sure? Or has somebody else written them and published under her name?

No idea but writing a book is hardly rocket science so quite possible she did it herself. Women have been known to write books.

Very true.

She does need someone to bounce off the judges, She's so inept.

Tess is fine. She does what she has to - which is to introduce whats happening next, add any jokes they write for her, act when something untowards happens, chide the judges if they are mean , and most importantly keep the show running to time. She's also doing a good job pointing out who is good. People may not like aspects of the role, but its what the role now is- and she's doing it well. The show would be drastically changed without the jokes, and the role of Bruce, and now Tess, in challenging the judges, has become important in containing the anti-judge vote. Pointing out who is good shouldn't be necessary, but many voters otherwise fail to see the obvious, and its become an important role for the compere to provide another perspective - in case the judges are being ignored again.

Zoe is doing well what Claudia can't do - which is to ask relevant questions., listen to people's answers , and not go off on incomprehensible, rambling, tangents, or ask awkward questions that leave the poor celebrities wondering if they heard right. .Unlike Claudia, who belongs on edited shows late at night, Zoe benefits from being even more experienced than Tess at keeping live TV moving on time. She's also got lots of experience in keeping things clear, and to the point - whether the audience is BBC radio listeners, ITT viewers, or kids watching Childrens tTV.

I have always liked Tess. I have never taken to Claudia with her "I'm too grand for this rubbish" attitude. Remember when she mucked things up and larked about when Len was trying to show her perfectly simple dance steps? Replace her permanently with Zoe I say. And if Zoe doesn't want to do it 7 days a week (and who does?) bring in Sara Cox.

I like Tess, Claudia and Zoe, it can be possible. Yes Tess can be irritating with her "oh look, you've got a standing oavation .. " firstly because I think we've noticed this anyway and, secondly probably most of the audience are standing up because the people in front of them are standing up and they can't see anything!

Zoe works [on Strictly] four days a week: Monday, Wednesday and Friday on ITT and for a very long day every Saturday. I would love to do her job for eight days a week if they'd have me

If you go by posts on this forum (which isn't a reflection of the majority of people in this country, but only of the minority of people who post on public forums) everyone who has ever appeared on a TV show is useless and needs replacing because, in the poster's opinion, someone else could do it better. Most saying this are people who would never stand up in front of an audience, let alone knowing that millions are watching you on TV, and only their opinion is the right one, and lately some posters are becoming more and more abusive in their criticisms.

Tess, Claudia and Zoe have taken over from someone who many didn't like and who'd had years of experience and still could make a hash of it . IMO all three are all doing a great job and they're doing what the producers have asked them to do, not what some members of the public have said they should do.

So you're saying she's lying. Nice.

My point was that she isn't unemployed when Strictly isn't airing - regardless of writing books, she often appears on other TV shows. She's also been in TV ads (just as some of the high profile entertainers are) and probably does some modelling as well.

Just because the person who made the comment about her being unemployed isn't with her 24/7, doesn't mean she isn't doing other things.

Out of interest- How does writing two books make her more qualified to present Strictly Come Dancing?

That is a good question.

It doesn't - just shows that, alongside being in adverts and other TV shows, she's not unemployed while Strictly isn't on air as has been suggested. Being a song and dance man doesn't qualify someone for a presenter's job either. The previous presenter was a music hall act who was allowed to present and then made it his main job. Tess did an apprenticeship alongside that song and dance man for 10 series. That qualifies her, and she's improved on it.

I guess you don't regard modelling as a job, then.
So that means Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell are also on the dole!!

Judy did a few dances alongside Anton but that did not make her a dancer. Being BFF's wing woman does not and did not make Tess a presenter.

I enjoy the shows with the two dizzy blondes presenting together. They do an "Ant and Dec" very well. The show benefits from the wonderful freedom of not having any useless living legends littering the set.

Oh the tiresome commenters who don't like Tess / can't get on with her.

Are you really unaware of a vast section of viewing public who would not tolerate any presenters who were not dumbed down? I cringe when I see the talented (and very intelligent) Paul Armstrong chained to the dreadful show "Pointless", reading out the same phrases on the autocue week after week. Like watching a caged tiger prowling a cage unable to escape.

Tess, Claudia and Zoe are happy to send themselves and the show up while presenting. They are probably forced by the producers to be a bit foolish, all the "jokes" are scripted but nobody waits for non-existent applause.

I like this show as it is - a lot of sweat and tears and good dancing contrasted with a bit of silliness from the presenters as sets are being changed or marks being taken from the judges, whose comments often outdo the autocue in silliness, but nobody has chosen to remark on this.

and may Series 13, 14, 15 be more of the same!! No more male presenter - ever - please! If you want more dignity in the presenting corner, bring back Angela Rippon.

Actually it did - she did a long apprenticeship, to compare that experience to Judy's few weeks of dancing is really rather silly.

Not silly at all and I think you miss my point. Just because she was conjoined to BFF would not have meant that she was going to turn into a good presenter purely by association. Quite clearly it didn't. She got the job title of presenter but her skill and ability at doing it is seriously questioned by many. And rightly so imvho

In YOUR opinion. And the comparison WAS silly.

Tess may be a bit bland, but the show really paces along with her and Claudia presenting. I find Zoe to be a bit too hyper most of the time, whilst she has some of Claudia's wit, she doesn't have the confidence to SLOW DOWN!
I agree that Tess helped her in the first show, which illustrates that she is not without professionalism - even talent. I think her role restricts her a bit so I wish that she could extract herself from the Bruce straitjacket that she finds herself trapped in.

It is such a pity that Claudia's daughter had that accident for many reasons, one of the minor ones is that we saw a potentially very good team broken up just as it was getting into it's stride.

I'm not sure if you're agreeing with me that Tess is fine or have rad something in my post that means I think otherwise, so just to be clear I want Tess to stay. The second part of your post we're not in agreement about because Claudia did a damn good job of presenting ITT every night when the whole show was live, not partly live as it is now. I don't agree with your description of Zoe at all. I don't mind her, but she is definitely in third place for me. My biggest problem is she speaks far too quickly (not a problem for me, but an opinion often mentioned to me) and she's often only half listening to what the other person is saying. I don't know if she still does it, but she used to stand in for Ken Bruce on R2 and I once heard a Pop Master contestant say he was glad it was Ken doing the quix that day because the last time he was on Zoe was very rude and off hand towards him - an oh sh!t! Zoe is fine standing in for Claudia and presenting ITT.

As it happens one of my nieces is a rocket scientist. - and she writes her own work. I'd be very surprised if Tess wrote her own novels. Easy to check if she uses a ghost writer. Most are acknowledged.

Has she got writing form from school, university, blogging etc.?

She reads scripts off an autocue. I suspect most or all writers would insist on reading their own scripts or ad libbing. I would definitely refuse to read somebody else's material off an autocue.

The people who post here are pretty passionate about the show. Extrapolating from what people on here have voted to mean that the same percentage of ordinary viewers would vote in that way is an exercise in futility. Besides, opinion polls are never 100% an exact science and are often wrong.

But did we REALLY have to have yet ANOTHER thread saying exactly the same as the numerous others on the same subject?

I think Tess is fine.I seem to recall also someone telling us that she memorises her 'lines' and does not 'read off a Teleprompter', which takes some doing.

But I like all three ladies. Long nay they reign.

Was it true? Does she say more than "Look, Look, LOOK" without looking at the camera (i.e. teleprompter) ?

Every actor memorises lines anyway.