They should have picked his waltz or quickstep over the charleston.

Thought it was a weird choice for Caroline, she wasn't bad at the dance, infact I thought it was one of the top marks in week1, it was only her lowest scoring dance as it was the start of the competition not because it was so awful. I would have chosen a ballroom for her since she had a couple of dances that went less well.

I too was disappointed at the lack of ballroom dances.

Seems only common sense that the finalists should do one from each discipline plus their showdance.

I also agree that the benches stuff in Frankie's showdance was feeble.

I wish it was back to the old format, where the couple chooses their favourite ballroom and latin dance. I thought the judges choices were unfair on all the couples, but particularly Simon and Frankie because their strengths lie in ballroom

Well I FLOUNCED off in a mini-huff at the dearth of ballroom. Really put a downer on the final for me. Ballroom is my favourite and Caroline, for example had the perfect opportunity to correct her mistakes in her American Smooth (squints at the 10/12 bars in actual hold) but nope, Cha Cha after Cha Cha. Bleh.

I did enjoy the show dances a bit more than year so that's a plus. Think I preferred Kara's version of Don't Stop Me Now with her glittery bucket and Backflip fail though.

The problem was that "Judges Choices" round. Who sat down and thought anybody wanted to see any of those four dances ever again? Baffling. Even the idea that we were supposed to marvel at the improvement is bizarre because...who the hell remembers how somebody danced a banal wk 1 cha cha?

Me too but I think we are in a clear minority given the all comments about how fabulous Caroline's show dance was (just over-hyped pretentious movement to music as far as I was concerned) and how boring Frankie's was (solid technique and stylish performance as far as I was concerned). Contemperumba in bare feet to angsty pop is the way ahead it seems.

I agree, the old format was far superior and at least allowed viewers to gain some sort of overview with regards to who was overall the best dancer when considering both disciplines.

Caroline was clearly weaker in ballroom and allowing her to complete a final totally ballroom free was most unsatisfactory. Indeed as mentioned, the only ballroom we saw all night was Frankie's showdance. That surely can't be right.

The problem with all the judges' choice is that none of them were really great dances. I liked Simon's, but it wasn't the best Charleston this series. Mark's cha cha felt like a Week 1 dance. Frankie's was full of skirt-wafting. Caroline's was good, but the bit where she went up to the judges was week 1 filler.

They easily could have chosen other, good dances to be improved upon - Simon's tango (or salsa if tango too similar to AT), Frankie's VW, Caroline's AS (can't really remember most of Mark's). Or they could have let them pick their favourite latin and Ballroom. Easy.

I know

And all that contemporary stuff isn't 'new' it's not 'original', I was bloody choreographing it and dancing it thirty effing years ago when I did my degree.

But it's soooo, special apparantly.

Never mind. People like what they like, and just as ballroom was swamped before, it is being again.

I knew when she had done it that people would be 'awed' and Caroline would win on the back of it.

It's the future......

It should be the old format of, of favorite Ballroom, Latin, group dance (VW for preference and ease of comparison) and showdance for big finish, with no marking.

I did enjoy the final, all three would be worthy winners in any year. But it was very Latin heavy. The choreography wasn't perfect but Frankie's showdance was a joy, and made me realise just how much I love real partner dancing, and just how shockingly little we saw of it tonight.

I have to agree that I was disappointed with the Judges' Choices. Why pick a week 1 cha-cha? Of necessity, the pro will have choreographed nothing too taxing, since their celeb has enough to deal with in that first nerve-wracking week. So even if they dance it perfectly second time around, it can't ever be a knock-out routine.

And, yes, disappointing that the only ballroom dance turned out to be Frankie and Kevin's AS show dance. Maybe the producers think a foxtrot or waltz is boring for the casual viewer, but a quickstep or tango should be entertaining enough, surely?

Never mind - there's one plus point. All the disappointed Frankie fans can blame Caroline's win on her dodging a ballroom dance, her weaker discipline.

I so agree. I am not a devotee of ballroom as a doer so that is what I really enjoy seeing as a viewer. It has a magic and a charm that wowed me. And I miss it. As you so rightly say everything has become a bit samey.

I was hoping the judges pick for Simon was his Foxtrot.

Yes, very much so.

I think the whole final was somewhat contrived. For some couples (Mark and particularly Frankie), the judges' choice was designed to be a challenge, while others were given a much more friendly routine. And no ballroom at all. A ballroom routine for Caroline would have tested her more (she's much better at latin than ballroom).

I even thought the scoring was slightly biased.

I missed the ballroom too.
Frankie's Tango? They could have chosen Caroline's AS to do again due to slip.

BiB -- Sadly, I think you are right.
It's all of a piece with ever increasing theme nights and props...........

In a few seasons time we will have blindfold dancing around obstacles, jokers to play where you can get double points, dances to no music at all etc. etc.

I think it was just part of production manipulation - Caroline very obviously better at latin and party dances (and trained jazz contemporary dancer) does not get one of her poorer ballroom dances - whilst the two who were dancing really good ballroom Frankie and Simon given latin and one that she hated and a party dance for Simon.

Ballroom sadly was always going to take back seat

I like Latin but I like ballroom dances as well and definitely missed them in the final. Frankie's AS was essentially just an AS from a theme week but I was grateful for it by that point in the final because there was just no other ballroom to be seen! Considering that both Frankie and Simon have a stated preference for ballroom and that their favourite dances were either Latin or unclassified (I'm pretty sure people have used AT as both Latin and ballroom in the past), I'm amazed neither of them was given one of their early ballroom dances to perfect. Simon could have had his tango or quickstep (VW would work as well but that one landed him in the bottom two so it seems a bit mean giving him that) and Frankie could have done her waltz or foxtrot. On top of that Mark's improvement could have been shown just as well by making him dance his week 2 dance (AS I think?) and Caroline equally could have been challenged to improve her tango or, most obviously, correct her AS. There were obvious ballroom picks for all of them so I'm amazed that not one of them was taken. Mark's final in particular would have been really one note if he'd stayed to the end, with both cha cha cha and samba as well as his vaguely party Latin based showdance.

I found the judge picks baffling in general. I don't think any of them were dances that the audience was desperate to see again, or dances that were potentially showstoppers if early mistakes could be corrected. Frankie's samba was sort of understandable on the basis of her having obvious mistakes to correct but if you're going to do that, why not give Caroline her AS or Simon his Paso? If you're going to get two people to do their very first dance to show what journey they've been on (...) then shouldn't the other two also get their first or second dance to polish rather than a routine that went a bit wrong the first time around? And why on earth would you pick a week 1 cha cha cha that was fine as a week 1 cha cha cha but as peeves said, those routines were choreographed as introductions for the celebs before the pros knew exactly what their strengths were. Caroline's was mostly ok as a routine but Mark's in particular looked very bitty and was clearly designed in the first place to give him a bit of technique and a couple of places to show off tricks he was already confident with just to get him through a routine for week 1.

I actually thought it was a really strong final but it started slow considering the standard that the top three dances had between them in terms of both technique and performance level. For me it comes down to the fact that I want the final to be a celebration of the remaining contestants' best dancing of the series. That relies on all the dances being a celebration. I'm fairly sure Frankie wanted to repeat her samba about as much as I wanted to see her repeat it - it was was fine, she danced it well but there are so many dances I'd have preferred to see her do again and I'm fairly sure she'd have been happier and more excited about doing them. This is the end of 3 months of dancing for them just let them do dances they enjoy!

I don't like Judges' Choices in the final, if they insist on having them then I think they should be in the semi's. Then the highest scoring ballroom and latin should be in the final.

I wouldn't say boring but it was missing something. The bench dancing was positioned badly in the routine imho and affected the momentum of the dance. They should have started on the benches and then gone into the quickstep.

BIB I've said the exact same thing on another thread.

The finals used to have 3 couples only, but 2 yrs running one couple dropped out, leaving only 2 couples to make a very boring final. So now they have 4 couples, so that if the same thing happens again, at least they still have 3 couples to make an interesting final.