Absolutely hilarious show tonight - were they all drunk? Have they been raiding Bruno's 'special' medicine?

Nice to see Karen Hardy completely disagreeing with the judges on a few important matters and then Tristan not having a clue whether Jamelia will have bent or straight legs on Saturday. He is an absolute scream, I'm joining the 'please keep Tristan next series' club!

She did. You have to be beautiful to pull off a hairstyle like that and luckily, she is. It really showed off her great bone structure.

One of the best IT2 shows, and it was informative as well as entertaining

Also admitting it was him who told her to keep her hands up.

I was just saying something similar to my sister . Jamelia is not a favourite of mine , but even so I can see she is very beautiful and that up-do suits her so well . I hope they do that to her on saturday .She is doing a quick step so it would be apt . Those huge hairstyles they give her keep getting in the way of her dances in my opinion . Yes I know it is part of her heritage/style, but could be toned down just to avoid it causing issues .

wowzer we agree on something , ding dong ring that bell !!!

Okay, I'm confused. I'm sure only a matter of weeks ago we were told, probably on It Takes Two that in the Samba you should push the weight forward so the trailing leg straightens behind you as you walk. So I presumed when Craig said she had bent legs that was what he'd meant.

But now Karen says it's danced with bent legs with an implication that Craig is an idiot. So is she just missing the point completely, or was he?

I know that the samba should be danced on bent knees ALWAYS; that's the very first things you learn in this dance so Karen is actually right.

I would have liked Karen to comment more on Jay - she noticeably said very little and did not critique his dance at all. Considering the controversy over the comments/scores for him last weekend here and on other forums, including the BBC Strictly site, I hoped for more from her, as she can be constructive without being insulting, like Craig

Well, she said he needs to give more. Perhaps she simply didn't have anything to say.

Re Samba and bent knees

very hard to explain in writing so used to just showing it as well but there is a straightening of the legs in places for different steps the dance has bent knees yes but there is a straightening of the leg to to form the action as I did not see Jamelia's samba do not know if she did a good leg action or not

I felt she did but they only have a certain amount of time and she had to move on to the next one.

Indeed. She raved about everyone else and said not one good thing about him - only that he would not win the final if he danced like that. Well, maybe not and maybe so. But the lack of appreciation for what he IS doing is highly suspect if you ask me.

Sadly Karen is getting on the CRH bandwagon...I like Jays face.

'

A genuine question... Was Karen Hardy talking about Jay's facial expression? I know Craig was but I didn't think she was necessarily

I love Jamelia and Tristan.

I think Joanne should take over from Karen. Karen just makes excited noises and does nor really say much lately.

I have to say I actually enjoyed watching them with Zoe last night. Zoe and Tristan bounce off one another well and Jamelia seems to enjoy it judging by the giggles

She didn't clarify what she said (which was very little in comparison with other contestants) at all. She is usually constructive with her criticism/advice so it was disappointing considering the controversy about how Jay was treated by Craig in particular

Isn't this like the 20th time you've posted a comment like this on the forum now?

Judging by professional competitions I have seen he just needs to contort his face into a frozen fake smile that will make his face hurt and he's good.

Karen has as much idea about who will win the final as the man in the moon!! Less probably.
Bring back Jo .. she is a hundred times better at critiquing and very clear and concise in her demonstrations.

PS: Ian Waite (via Twitter) thought Jay's Foxtrot was 'gorgeous'.

Now let me have a think about this one.......

A World Champion Latin dancer says one thing......

A two bit West End choreographer who has minimal ballroom dancng knowledge says another........

Who is right???? Thats a hard one......

I think I might just have to agree with the World Champion on this one Im afraid!

Quite a few of the pros have pointed out Craig's lack of knowledge and sometimes idiotic comments - the trouble is he delivers said idiotic comments with such chutzpah and a sneer and everyone falls for the "he knows what he's talking about" hype

That makes Ian an idiot, too, then. You bend and then straighten your leg, he showed that on ITT and that's what Craig missed. But any stick to beat him with is good, right?

Is my memry playing tricks on me? When Ian was a pro dancer on the main show I can't remember him being as sibilantly camp as he is on ITT. He's so over the top that I tend to not listen to him these days

Many thanks for pointers.

I've given up on the Samba -- the changes in beat and musical phrasing are just much too much -- but from what I remember; is it correct to say that it's danced with bent knees for starters but when you do the steps the back leg or trailing leg has to be flexed and straight (of course, in time with the music) to give a natural hip sway and that split-second back leg trail on the runs? IMO, that was Jamelia's issue. Her weight was backwards and both her knees were bent through out every move so it looked (to me) skippy and ungainly rather than glidy and fluid.