I have been infuriated by Craig these last few weeks - he has always been the judge I respected most but his scoring has been erratic of late..

However he redeemed himself with his comments to Simon tonight - very kind words for Simon, they will have meant a lot to Simon.

For me, CRH is the most consistent judge. I find his emphasis on "perfection" foolish [he seems to ignore the fact that these celebrities have less than a week to learn a dance], and sometimes I feel his comments are too hurtful [telling Scott Mills he was the exception to the rule that anyone could learn to dance, was unkind and unnecessary]. However, all that aside, he's still the most credible judge on the panel because he does hold everyone to more or less the same standard.

It seems to be an emphasis on perfection when it suits him but other times he will not penalise for lack of perfection.

It seemed mean of him for Frankie to be the only one who did not get a 40 in the final dance.

It wasn't mean it's just his opinion that none of Frankie's dances were perfection and I'm in agreement with him...sorry Frankie lovers.
Simon's AT was ace and all of Caroline's were gorgeous!

I think that's a reasonable criticism of CRH. He seems to have a tendency to withhold his 10 paddle from someone he believes at the beginning is very talented (like Frankie and Pixie). It's almost the kiss of death for them because their chances of fully living up to his expectations for them are slim. Whereas he can be taken by surprise by someone he didn't expect would be that good, who suddenly has a huge breakthrough, and performs to a much higher standard than he thought they were capable of.

Because he uses a wider range of scores, I'd actually say Craig is pretty inconsistent, or at least his inconsistencies have more of an effect on the result. Although Bruno marks a shade too highly for my taste, he tends to do that across the board. The other three have obvious biases - Len loves a man's man, Darcey loves a good looking man, and Craig loves the tits and teeth stage school approach. Whereas Bruno seems to give everyone a chance, and when he has to be critical he does it in an entertaining way that makes the celeb laugh rather than destroys their confidence.

Craig is by far my favourite judge although I actually love them all. Thought his speech after Simon's AT was really lovely. He was genuinely moved.

It's inconsistent to actually use the full range of marks available to accurately reflect on the wide range of dance ability in front of you? In that case I'd love the rest of the judges to be that inconsistent!

I do actually think Bruno has been my favourite judge this series. A bit generous sometimes in marking but he's managed some good technical criticism in there too

Not sure why if he didn't think it was worth a 10. Simon's AT and Caroline's Charleston were a step above and his scores reflected that. It may have been different had Frankie chosen the Tango instead.

But the rest of the judges tend to be more generous on at least the last dance because their scores are only for 'guidance'.

I agree. My theory is that Frankie & chose the Paso as it was the only latin dance they did well. They then hoped the judges would pick ballroom (prob tango) to balance things out. It properly backfired on them.

That sounds very plausible. The judges' picks were quite surprising this year, so they may have been caught out with the selection.

Yes and just because the scores are for guidance does not mean that every dance should be awarded a 40. I remember watching Kara's Rumba in the final and I was truely shocked that Craig didn't give her a 10 for it (she took her foot off of the floor being his reasoning). That was a beautiful dance and wholely deserving of a 40 BUT it didn't get one.
None of Frankie's dances came close in technique and performance to the other 40's awarded on the night imo. Her paso was just a load of blooming skirt waving, not enough shaping for me. Similar story with Susanna's last year...maybe it's Kevin's Choreo. So no, in short I don't think her paso was 40 worthy. I thought her samba was grossly overmarked, her show dance was cute and charming but didn't blow me as a viewer away!