I got more and more irritated as the female contestants came on and got over marked. ALL OF THEM.

But isn't any routine with mistake(s) only moderately good?
There have been a few 10's given to routines like that, so why does he have to be excellent all round when no one else does?

Incidentally, like many others I though his score was fair, but not some of the others.
Manipulation of the leader board? Again? On the day the calendar girl went public with what many of us have suspected for some time 😇

It's hard for a man to get a good mark in a Salsa so 36 was reasonable - but some of the other marks last night seemed odd to me!

It looks like they were trying to hold back Harry, and possibly Matt - as they are trying to hold back Jay - to make it more of a competition. It's quite hard on them - you can see it in Jay's face (no expression?!?!) but think Harry found it difficult too.

My husband isn't particularly interested in Strictly, but in his opinion they under marked Harry consistently.

I do!

Getting a Salsa in a bigger venue is drawing a short straw. It's a very compact dance and difficult to expand it to fill the space. It was the one dance that I thought the backing dancers didn't distract from.

I'm happy with 9's. He danced very well. The only thing he could have improved would be to keep the hip action going all the time. In a bigger arena, it's a common problem that you can lose some hip action when taking larger steps.

It's not Jay's score I have a problem with - it's most of the other scores.

Yes, he did and yes that is why.

I think many SCD fans have become used to 'the wow factor' being a very OTT, theatrical, let's throw the book at it, verging on cartoon routine with lots of flash, bang wallop.

Subtlety is lost. Not everyone knows what a good salsa is. It's not a ballroom dance. It's about rhythm, expression and sensuality that does not shout at you.

He got it. OK, I do know about salsa (have been a salsa fiend for years & years) so I know what to look for. I would have preferred more authentic salsa moves, but hey ...

Anita's paso on the other hand, was utterly dire and her lines, facial expression and hands were appalling. But because there was a lot of stomping, some cute dancers and masses of red material floating about, some will think it was fabulous.

They are entitled to if they found it entertaining - but from a dance and technique point of view it was utter rubbish - and she was one of the contenders I actually liked.

Me too. They were ridiculous and made no sense whatsoever. It just confirms that sinking feeling that Strictly is totally rigged and judges no longer score on merit.

The deliberate and cynical manipulation of the public perception is so galling. Do they really think the audience is that stupid?

The results, sadly, will prove that they do. Bet you anything.

they probably took a point off each for those awful trousers.

I agree with Fatskia that a salsa in such a big arena is not a great dance to get. If it had been in the studio without the backing dancers, I think it would have been much more wow.
I have no issues with the 36, but like Sofakat and many others, it's the over marking of others that makes me slightly irritated.

I actually don't think they do undermark him, if anything they overmarked him last night. Can't deny he is a good dancer and moves beautifully but he doesn't fully commit to it. For example, I'm a singing teacher and in exams even if you sing all the notes right and your technique is perfect if you don't "perform" the song and make the listener truly believe every word you are singing you will get mediocre marks. I actually quite like Jay, although not as much as some on here, but do get what the judges mean about him. He is "just" dancing and last night he may have been technically perfect ( I have no idea not a dancer ) but it didn't hold my attention, found it rather boring.

And I also agree with the overmarking of some others, those who got tens shouldn't have!

If that was the case then Kelly would have been in negative point it's based her wardrobe, hair and makeup. She wasn't wasn't dealt a good hand in any of them this week.

totally agree with this

I am a fan of Jay and Aliona and think their score tonight was accurate BUT so many of the couples were over marked last night

For Peter to be scored an 8 by both Bruno and Len for his "jive" which was flat footed, he had timing issues and a complete lack of jive action or jive - compare that to the 9 they both scored Jay for a pretty perfect salsa.......

the fault lies with the judges over marking couples

Poor Kellie, I just don't get why they can't dress her nicely. Every single week.

Wasn't Peter bottom of the leaderboard?

i have been saying this about jay since day 1, but i felt there was a real change in this performance last night.

aliona put it well when she said he had developed a capacity to 'play with the dance' and i felt this showed through - not shone through, and not all the time - but if he can build on that it was so much more engaging (in a chilled out sort of way) than his usual technically excellent but rather sterile delivery. i did wonder if having other dancers with them helped - whatever it is he needs to build on it.

Jay was much better than Kellie last night so not sure why he never got a 10 and she did. That jive seems to have set him up for a fall somehow.

It wasn't a 10 dance. In my view, it wasn't even a 9 dance so he was scored pretty generously as far as I am concerned. Maybe, the reality is that he just isn't as good as you think he is and the judges scores reflect that.

I thought his marks were great, and absolutely fair. It was the 10s being dished out like smarties that confused me.

I think his score was right, but his place on the leaderboard wasn't.

Usually the scoring doesn't really matter to me - one persons overmarked is another persons under marked, and usually the positioning on the leaderboard is right & sorts itself out but I thought, for whatever reason, that wasn't the case for a few people last night.

At least we can agree that the bottom two were right, I guess.

Personally, I would have had him even lower on my leaderboard. Despite the hype, largely originating with the jive, he just isn't as good as some of the others at this stage of the competition and he isn't progressing as much as some of the others either.

I'm not a regular viewer and have no favourite but I agree with you. I have only seen about 3 shows in full and watched last night all the way through.
I really liked Jays dance and even my OOH said he was really good. His score seemed absolutely fair to me and I was more shocked at the 10's given out to the girls who didn't appear to do anything 10 worthy.

For me, a 10 should be saved for something absolutely outstanding and I definitely don't think anything I saw last night could be described as such

Call me cynical but some of the scores over the years have been more than questionable, and I think the judges watching the rehearsals really doesn't help. They get ideas of what they're going to mark each dance, they know what to expect from the latter dances because they just watched them a couple of hours beforehand, so will hold back scoring any of the earlier dances a decent score to give greater impact to the latter ones. However, they don't factor in the mistakes. They're willing to ignore mistakes made because they've already got an idea of which dances are the 'best' (or should have been).

I'm even willing to go one step further and bet that the leaderboard is completely tactical. Jay's getting the bulk of the votes, so they place him low on the leaderboard to ensure they get the outcome they want, knowing there's no chance of losing him. It's win/win.

It happens far too often. The show is so transparent and it's heading in the same direction as The X Factor in terms of the contrived and manipulative nonsense it churns out.

For what it's worth, I'm not a Jay fan, my post is just a general observation of the comments and scoring by the judges.

He got 36. I don't see that under marked at all, it was exactly what he deserved, a really good score.

and his scores and everyone else's scores and the running order and the press stories and his judges comments and everyone elses judges comments and what slot in the week he appears on It Takes Two and how long they take to reveal him as being safe on the Results Show and how Tess talks to him and how Zoe talks to him and how nobody on the show ever mentions the dance training that the other celebs have had including the dance training I've made up that they had because I don't like them and how Darcey said he did the best dance of the series but that gave me a PTSD to how it only got a 9 how dare she and...

You forgot the food. I heard they serve everybody else caviar but he only gets a cheese toastie

As others have said, I thought four 9s was perfectly fair and acceptable in terms of Jay's Salsa. It was what followed which made it an "undermarked" dance.

It feels like the show is now at odds with Waite's Warm Up on It Takes Two - Ian points out deficiencies in performances on Wednesday/Thursday which have not been sorted out by Saturday yet the judges ignore them.

Ian stresses that it's important for the female to be vased shape in ballroom dances - Kellie was upright yet they get 10s. Ian stresses the importance of intense flamenco shaping in the Paso Doble - Anita struggled with this yet gets 10s. Georgia didn't spot a spin, resulting in her ending up off balance and out of sync with the backing dancers yet she gets 10s.

Someone said earlier in the thread they don't understand the technical aspects and goes with the emotional aspect of the dance and that's completely right - that's the point of the public vote. In general it's a "Who's your favourite?" rather than "Who's the best dancer?" But the judges should be above that, voting on the technicalities of the dance. It feels like they only do that when it suits them at the moment which gives Ola's comment (if she did say it) about the scores being fixed more weight.