Have not seen anything so far to indicate Ore is a ringer. Musical, but his hold in singing in the rain looked very dodge (I'm sure Jo will work on that before his next ballroom). His hands don't have the shaping you'd get from training (he's trying but actually going overboard). Very athletic, but his feet are nothing like as sharp as J's. Also noticed that his dance was full on but did not contain more difficult dance moves (e.g. spinning, and in the one turn he did, he did not pull the leg in as a dancer would do to maximise momentum). Jo has so far taken maximum advantage of his athleticism in his dances to draw attention away from lack of finesse (contrast with Danny who had far more technique in week 1). Nothing wrong with that - that's choreographing well for your celeb. Although i thought she went slightly overboard with this focus in the jive at the expense of them actually dancing as a partnership as opposed to two people dancing on the floor at the same time. But so far, I don't see anything to indicate more dance training than you might get from nights out dancing in a club. Things may emerge in later dances which could cause me to change my opinion, but so far, I'm going with talented amateur.

For me, Danny's QS won the night, which is saying something as to date, I have not engaged with Danny at all. Well, I didn't this time really either, but I did really enjoy the dance.

ETA Even if Jwann can control herself for the rest of the series, I shudder at the thought of her likely show dance. Props and more props.

ETA2 Also slightly unappreciating that Danny has so far had 4 appropriate choices of music. Other couples have been immediately disadvantaged by poor music and/or imposed theme.

Been having a look Out There. Really bewildered by all the Lesley love. I inow she's old but all the stuff about how wonderful she is and how inspirational, I really, really do not get it. I don't tbink she is that good a dancer and I find the comments about 'she's 71, you know' smack a bit of 'well done on not being dead yet'. She shouldn't be marked on her age, she should be marked on her dancing.

I think what's really grating me is they're making it very obvious (especially on It Takes Two) with pratcically everyone else that THEY DO NOT HAVE DANCE TRAINING yet say nothing, somewhat understandably, with Danny.

There's subtle and there's... that. Why not just say that he should be better than all the pros and be done with it? What do people keep having to bring up who has had dance training and whose not on the show? Is it a British thing that when someone is brilliant at something we don't praise them but turn around and say 'be worse'... 'make mistakes'? It'd explain our government I suppose.

Well, just counted and Rinder and Oksana spent, as near as I can make out, a total of 28s in hold (11s first time and 17s the second time, and he was much worse the second time). I'm actually starting to revise my original opinion - I don't think he can dance. Or at least, if he can, Oksana isn't capable of teaching him sufficiently. He needs a stronger personality, like Aliona.

They were only saying that the difference between winning and losing on Strictly isn't necessarily just about how good you are (as we have seen many times in the past). It's about people getting behind you - and if Danny just cruises through, there's no emotional investment to be made. In a way, J's QS nightmare solidified his fan base after the jive - it showed he was still extremely vulnerable and had a long way to go. He was not a 'finished product'. With Danny, there's a lot to be enjoyed in his dances but no real improvement from week 1 - just different dances in different weeks.

I think I had a debate with a couple of posters on the It Takes Two thread about the 'j*****y' and how important it is in order to win.

I think we worked out Jill was pretty strong throughout - she topped every week bar the first one and the semi final - though she only had to keep momentum going for eight weeks rather than the 953 this time around. Natasha in series one topped every week bar one and three, again only out of eight. Considering his 'j*****y' was of self-confidence being shown in his dancing, Mark won weeks one, four, five, eight, eleven and the final whilst not dancing in week two and, in the latter half of that series, they were pimping Emma and Darren for all they were worth to the detriment of the remaining couples and Alesha was top in weeks three, five, seven, eight, nine, the semi final and the final (I wonder if she'd have gone over Leititia if it came down to the combined vote in the quarter final?).

The j*****y contestants only started in series 6 with Tom and Austin (though the anti-jduges vote had a big part to play there), which rolled in series 8 with Chris. Kara only topped four weeks out of 12 (two, six, semi and final) while Harry only claimed victory in weeks seven, nine, eleven (semi) and twelve (final). Louis had the joint highest combined score in weeks one and two, won in week four then didn't pick up top spot again until week nine and that was it. Abbey conquered weeks one, four, five, ten and twelve (semi final) and Caroline picked up the number one spot in four, ten, eleven, twelve and thirteen - the literal j*****y! Jay won weeks two, three and eleven.

It's strange loooking back - for series one, two and five people veered towards the strongest dancer (all female). Series four was similar but not quite the same. Three was Darren with the most epic j*****y of all time. But generally the j*****y contestant only really came out after series 5 and the most consistently strong dancers haven't really been supported since.

Out of interest Danny has 'only' won weeks two and three so far - Daisy claiming top spot in week one and, obviously, Ore yesterday. The week three 'win' was also a tie with Claudia.

And this has nothing to do with unappreciation and has a lot of asterik's all over it.

Don't push me. I'm still fragile. I will start shouting about weeks one and two.

Yeah, I think he had the most epic j*****y in Strictly of all time.

EDIT: To be fair he scored 19 in week one - 3, 4, 6, 6. I guess you mean weeks two (30) and three (33)?

Ah, yes - the whole j-word from week one 19 points and then only scoring under 30 twice - that j-word.
(Also still fragile )

Yep (week one apart) - 30, 33, 34, 28, 30, 34, 30, 30, 32, 35, 29, 36, 36.

Bloody hell - even Jay had a better Strictly journey than that.

Journey, my arse.

A crap, blokey cha cha cha of awfulness in week one then the absolute solid blokey competence of the unnatural non-ringer from then on in.

Agreed, I'm one of the few on here who has no beef with Kevin or Joanne. It was a superbly executed jive which deserved to be top of the leaderboard, however, it should have been alongside Danny Mac not on its own.

It also shouldn't be compared to Jay's as his was in a theme week which made it an outstandingly perfect storm when everything came together out of the blue for the ultimate wow moment.

Ore's jive won't reach iconic status no matter how much the show pimps it, his American Smooth last week, however, fully deserved the pimping and could become an iconic routine.

I preferred Danny this week because I finally got some light in his eyes and his reaction afterwards showed some clear joy in the dance. I did love his reaction to Ore's jive though when he was going nuts in the Clauditorium.

Oh good! Sorry I disappeared after my comment but I'm back, and quite ready to get nicely pickled in time for the results show! I think we may need it. Here, have a 🍾.
Now I have to catch up with where you all are on this thread!

Have some merlot to spread round. Think it needs the heavy duty stuff tonight. 🍷

And how many people don't think that the judges are doing everything they can to keep Danny off the top of the leaderboard so that it doesn't look like he's walking it?

I'm unappreciating the lack of booing for Len when he quite clearly wants it - even halting his judging when nobody is actually booing him to ask them to stop!

You are so right, best get started now, bottoms up (not you Greg)
🍺🍻🍷🍸🍾

I think that she gets a lot of " love " because she not only looks amazing for her age but she performs the routines she's given really well. Yes just based on her dancing she's not the worst dancer out there and if she continues on that path, she might even be better than the judge.

I do because he is an actor and has some if not a lot of dance experience and maybe just maybe they won't a non dancer to shine. But having said that I think Danny is a joy to watch.

And to be fair to Ore, he just wanted to live up to Jay's Jive, not crap all over it like Len decided to do. Then again, Len does have the mentality of a five-year-old at times, and doesn't get the difference between being glad to do something as good as someone else's dance, and insulting the guy who did the other dance.

(Also, forgive my poor quoting. Sometimes when I hit the quote button, everything I quoted instantly disappears for some reason, so I have to do it manually.)

Thank you, that gave me a much-needed laugh.

I don't - if they're doing everything they can to keep him off the top they're not trying very hard. They easily could have had Cloudia top on her own last week or Louise on her own the week before with a shift of only one mark.

<Fist bump grumpage inserted here>

My eyes!!!!

Full on Anton chest rug and medallion - not what I want to see on a Sunday evening!!

I felt like that pro dance would never end...

The Powers that Be are trolling us