The Jay fans would be up in arms - all calling "conspiracy" had he not closed the show once after 9 weeks...just as they (and others) did when Peter consistently closed or was near the back end for the first few weeks.

I haven't heard so much as a peep about Jamelia having not closed - "because she don't matta 'innit".

"Goalposts" all the way on this forum...

I don't get this post. Shouldn't you be calling out Jamelia fans for not being up in arms about their favourite's treatment? Or are you saying Jay fans should take it upon themselves to protest about the unfair treatment of all celebs?

No - I'm saying if Jay had not closed by this point of the competition, the whole world and his son and second cousin twice-removed would have heard about it. It would have had threads dedicated to this fact left, right and centre.

Jamelia has not closed - so I cannot understand the justification of an earlier post here that states that Jay "should have closed tonight". In simple terms, why "should" Jay have closed tonight ahead of Jamelia - when he has already done so at least once??

I'm sick of people making it "all about Jay" whether in support of or in defence of. There ARE other celebrities involved in case this fact has not been noticed after nine whole weeks (not aiming this at you directly - more generally).

If you're really serious then -

People considering the order of the show usually also consider the ideas of the producers when doing so.

Jamelia seems to have little public support so the producers are not going to want her to close their flagship show. Most viewers (or at least those on this forum) will be aware of this. Therefore, Jamelia becomes irrelevant in terms of performance slots because everyone knows the producers don't care where she dances (as long as it isn't anywhere that matters). So the performance slots start to be considered without Jamelia. Fair? Not really but that's showbiz.

I have absolutely heard it all now - and will graciously leave this conversation right there...goodnight!

No argument? Okay then...

Hmm. I hope the producers don't think that way. Jeremy closed the show last week despite (evidently) lacking sufficient public support.

Not sure that closing did him a great deal of good, mind.

Now there are eight left, do the positions matter as much? I would guess that first, second or last is less important than the impact of the dances either side of a particular performance. A big audience reaction to a stand-out dance can steal the glamour from a perfectly decent routine that precedes or that follows it. Some kind of neurological thingumy

Oh come on. Did anyone really think Jamelia would be closing the show this week? Really? Of course the producers think that way.

Oops, sorry. No, they don't. And nothing on television is ever manipulated and editing doesn't exist. What you see is exactly what you get.

Not this week in particular, not especially, but she might have closed it in earlier weeks... And Jeremy did close the show last week. He's another who wasn't going to win who signally (and sadly) lacked the public support to survive... Soooo I'm not sure they do just bin people as 'irrelevant' in that way. I hope they don't.

But as I said in the bit you didn't bold-up, I'm wondering if the order matters so much at this stage.

Not straight away, no. You can see that. Jamelia was eighth out of nine in week one and first (not a bad deal) in week two. Then she was 11th out of 14 in week three. However, following this (after two dance offs and three pretty mediocre/poor performances) they got the message and she didn't get a decent slot again. Maybe she'd earned one after the Charleston but three fairly good slots in the first three weeks meant she wasn't due one in week five.

Jeremy's pimp slot last week was also "irrelevant". Georgia had just brought the house down and snatched the majority of floating voters. Jeremy going last was pretty much a poisoned chalice and the producers knew this.

If you don't think the producers cynically exploit the popularity of the couples/celebs and their ability to pull in viewers (whether it be through personal appeal, notoriety or dance talent) then I think you're naive. Jamelia doesn't really have any of these things so she now gets shafted.

I didn't say any of that.

Look, you're judging Jamelia or Jeremy's closing the show to be 'irrelevant', whether it happens (Jeremy) or not (Jamelia). We're not talking about the producers' bias here.

Are you saying that because a contestant is popular he or she should be given all of the chances to consolidate his or her popularity.

No. I'm saying that the producers think like that.

I think they do too (but they didn't in Jeremy's case which closely resembles Jam's).

Maybe my point is that we should resist the buggers' strategies by thinking independently of them (as much as possible) instead of lamenting when their favouritism doesn't coincide with our own

Maybe we should but when independent research (I have no idea whether this is true or not but let's go with it - let's face it if it isn't true we're all going to look like d*ckheads ) shows that later slots are better because they're more memorable and more people are watching, we're going to get hot under the collar when our favourites seem to be getting shafted.

And if it was completely random and the ptb didn't think there was something in it, then the last (or penultimalte) slot would be shared out equally but they aren't. Carol, for example, stayed on the show for seven weeks and didn't get a last or penultimate slot once. Coincidence? I think not.

It is the inconsistency of the judges that annoys me, how could they possibly justify giving Andre two 8's for that abomination he performed, laughingly described as a "jive".

It was a fair score other scores above him weren't.

Jeremy didn't lack public support, though. He was at or close to the bottom of the leaderboard week after week and was clearly polling a lot of viewer votes to avoid the DO until last week. The cheers for him from the audience point to his popularity too. I would think, in the producers' minds anyway, Jeremy was a reason for people to stay watching until the end (especially with Georgia just before him). Presumably they never thought Jamelia was enough of a draw to give her the same compliment.

I guarantee you Jay will close the show the week of the Quicksteppathon. Like Harry he'll be the one given approximately 45 seconds to get changed and dance again.

So don't expect him to be back end of the show next week either.

They like doing that to Aliona then . I hadn't realised they'd done that to her and Harry, I knew they had to her and Matt!

But on topic... 36 for Jay wasn't technically undermarked but his leaderboard position felt wrong. However, I suspect that was entirely because leaderboard position is pretty irrelevant to Jay getting through to another week. And for other couples it may be a lot more important to have a higher position...

Jay did a brilliant dance and I think everyone would have been happy with the 4 x 9s had the judges not then gone on to overscore others. I think that is what the main complaints are about. You only have to look at all the BBC pages and the BBC facebook pages to see that is what most of the posts are about. Helen (who I like) made loads of mistakes which the judges didn't even mention except Bruno who then apologised for it.

Yeah agreed.

Honestly I was jumping about cheering his marks (his second highest score) so I clearly didn't think he was hugely undermarked, although I thought he'd get a Darcey 10, but I got more and more miffed as the night went on and dances with little content or mistakes were given 10s

It's definitely not feeling that Jay was undermarked, it's the comparison to the 3 routines above him.

They always pick (what they consider to be) a wow dance .. so it's not based on being fair or equality or anything.
Having said that, Jamelia should and could have closed the week 4 show with her Charleston. It was certainly wow enough.
Jay has only closed the show once and that was a long time back now. The last 3 weeks he's been 4th, 2nd and 1st so I don't think he's being favored with running slots.

Because the Judges knows that Jay WILL be in the final, they don't want a one sided competition before hand, it doesn't make good TV & affects the ratings, so they mark Jay accordingly.

Wait till the final the he'll get all 10s in every dance.

I'm not a fan of lifts, even when executed well and they spoilt the flow of the dance for me and don't get me started on the backing dancers

JMO

I don't think he has ever been under-marked. Poor Jay is a victim of his success in the Jive - we keep on expecting truly great things from him and he just fails to deliver. I'm hoping he will come into his own in the final. After all that's all that matters.