Louis Smith. Harry Judd.

Both good movers but a bit bland.

Same for Jay. He was nailed down from the outset but there has to appear to be some drama in it somewhere. So he won't get a string of tens until his quite unforeseen (fnar fnar) emergence as a "performer, DAHLING".

I like him. He's good. I loathe Aliona but it's OK. I do not constitute the entirety of the British public.

But the narrative is as I describe.

It would be difficult for them to decide that before they'd seen anyone else dancing so I would agree with one of your later posts about how competitions are usually judged, after all couples have danced and they're placed in order of merit.
As this has never been the case with SCD, in the past it was slightly more balanced by only two different dance styles being performed each week, one Latin, one Ballroom, allowing not only the judges but the viewers to be able to compare like with like.
Now it's a total mismash of routines which is difficult to compare against each other.

Jay's dance was worthy of nines, it would also have been fine with eights to then allow the judges' some wiggle room. The performances which came after it had to have 10s irrespective of whether they were perfect or not so there could be some spaces on the leaderboard instead of a wedge of ties at the top.

The problem was he got a 9 for an amazing dance and Peter got 8s for dreadful jive and Katie for an unsteady AS. He just appears to be marked down for errors more than the others - where I appear on the programme should not impact the scores

Peter deserved a 5/6 for his jive and Katie was a bit overmarked. I don't think Jay was undermarked.

He gets marked down for lack of performance. And the judges keep marking him down because he's not improving.
Yes, it's a standard storyline on strictly, but he fits it perfectly. I'm starting to wonder now if he's indeed been told tone down the performance. It's getting increasingly hard to believe that somebody with such huge natural talent and 3 years at stage school would be that bad at projecting.

To give the impression of a closer competition between all celebs yes I know Jay hasn't done perfect routines but he is getting marked in a different way to other celebs. I think the fact he did in the jive in week 3 has effected how they mark him which for me should have the first 40 of the series it doesn't matter that it was in week 3

I don't think they do. The marks Jay got on Saturday were about right. He was good but not perfect. The problem arose when they overmarked Jamelia, who came straight after him - presumably because she had improved and everyone expected her to go (including Jamelia and Tristan). 9s was fine for Jay, but when Jamelia gets 8s for a dance that was good for her but mediocre by everyone else's standards where do you go?
I think almost everyone was overmarked on Saturday because of this. Jay's mark was right. His leaderboard position, however, was lower than it should have been, IMO.

Yes, this is my opinion as well, the marks weren't really the issue, his placement on the leader board was as I don't think it was an accurate reflection of the routine's merits in comparison to the other competitors.

I'd agree too. The actual marks aren't really a big deal, it's the position on the leaderboard that matters.

Jay's mark was about right, but once a couple of the others are over-marked a bit, it distorts the leaderboard.

Do think there's a few too many 10s thrown about now

I think it's difficult for judges to give 10s for the first dance of the night because if someone comes along and does better they have a problem. However, I do think this dance deserved at least a couple of 10s.

It's only a problem if, as has been suggested, there is some secret plan to try and "fix" the leaderboard placement to try and avoid specific contestants appearing in the Dance Off.
If there isn't a hidden agenda then it shouldn't matter at all if there are three or more couples tieing for first place (or the same in last place etc).

Which means that if Jay had been given the pimp slot he would have got 10s- voting should be fair regardless of when the contestant competes- favouritism again. If Jay wins and it looks unlikely with the way BBC is heavily promoting certain celebs (Anita, Kellie, Peter)- then he will have done it on talent alone, without favouritism, without a big PR machine behind him and while having to contend with vicious tabloid lies .

I've not noticed the BBC promoting any celebs over others. They all get regular slots on ITT. Some have jobs on other BBC shows, and their participation in Strictly is occasionally mentioned there, but I think on the whole they're pretty even handed. As for the 'pimp slot', by which I assume you mean the closing number, they've been fairly well shared out.
All the remaining contestants have had the closing number once. Helen and Kellie have closed the show twice.
Edit: You could argue that Peter and Anita only got to close 'half' a show, as Anita closed the Friday show the opening week and Peter closed the Saturday show on the opening week. Neither has closed a show with all the contestants in it.

WHAT?!!!

Anita has had the hardest time getting any support from the BBC, if they can undermine her in the footage they normally go for it.

Not making a big deal out of her getting a 10 on the weekend for a start!

I agree, for this week anyway. I refuse to believe he was marked fairly last week.
He's score was fine (I wouldn't have disagreed with a 10 in there though) It was that some after seemed to get over marked which made his position on the leaderboard look wrong and made his overall score look undermarked

Maybe they should mark everybody at the end of the show. They take notes during the performances so looking back retrospectively shouldn't be a problem. There's probably a host of reasons why they couldn't do it like that, but just a thought

It doesn't matter if the couples tieing for first place genuinely gave equal performances. That isn't what happened here. Jay gave a lesser performance than some of the others and was marked accordingly with a lower score than some of the others.

No, it doesn't mean that. What it might mean is that, say, Georgia would have been the first to dance and would have got four 9's, Jay would have come along later and not been as good so would have got 8's.