And bleats quietly, ALL of that could and still can be avoided if the DO was abolished

See, this is what I don't understand. Why did Austen have to perform his weaker Latin against Lisa's stronger ballroom? Austen's other dance that week was very good - why wasn't he allowed to use that one in the dance off?

So does that mean you've never seen Bacofoil, with DS comments?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAZ0nOmfWwY

DO is very useful for allowing the judges to keep in good dancers (and, unfortunately, judges' pets) who might otherwise be eliminated by accident (we've all seen times where sometimes a good dancer falls into the B2 because people don't realize their favourite is in danger). The other way to do things, of course, is to insist on the other 3 judges using their full range of paddles.

And we may think of Jay's Jive, Kartem's rumba, Alesha's cha cha etc. being Strictly gold, but nothing compares to bacofoil

Must correct self - said 40, but Waltz actually scored 39
Both of Austen's dances scored less - he had a 34 & 36.
Basically, he was toast whatever he did.

Heck yeah 😕

But it doesn't stop good dancers, look at Helen last year.

Back then you had to do your highest scoring dance of the night in the dance-off - they didn't let you pick and choose like they do now.

There's actually less chance of that happening without the dance off
All that happens with the dance off is that the 'unsafe' area is pushed higher.
Rather than trying to keep your favourite from being dead last - it goes up to 'out the bottom 2' which means that celebs who are second and even third from bottom get a vote boost.

I seem to remember it had been talked about in a 'ha, ha imagine if' sort of way for the week before - but as soon as the leaderboard was finalised it went a bit crackers . I think DS crashed (it did that a lot that series) and the batphone started to ring off the hook in Strictly Towers. Fun times

I've always liked to imagine that the judges had it all planned out in a Phoebe's plan laugh kind of way. And they were foiled.

"And they would have gotten away with it too if it hadn't been for that meddling DS" 😂😂

Schrodinger's Jimmy

Thank you, v informative - those series were before my time although I have watched the annotated Bacofoil Snowdance on YouTube more than twice.


Don't, just don't!

It should be required viewing as an initiation rite for the thread.

Somewhere in the cellar, out of reach of the DS search function is a thread with the ITT transcript. I just remember it being fabulous

that vid should come with a health warning

Fear not: http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=935902

😘😘😘😘
How did you do that

*blows kisses*

I can pinpoint down to the second of that transcript my first moment of actually ever liking Anton (then of course Series 7 and 8 happened and it took a while to come back again..).

Abracadabra!

Or Avada Kedavra, even, depending on one's particular inclinations.

That is the best thing I've ever seen.

Here's the thread that inspired it - it's a long read but well worth it.

ETA: Oops - posted wrong link - here's the Lisa's Showdance thread opened by Mamaboogie ( a name you can't forget)

http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showt...957099&page=42

It's 'that's the show' for me

You absolute little gem.

I ... had not seen that.

Now I cannot unsee it and I will never think of Brenda the same way again. What the hell kind of evil gremlins leapt into his brain and birthed that?

Maybe it's better not to know.

I still believe to this day that it was rigged in favour of Tom (instead of the reverse). Long story short, Len (!) gave Rachel the lowest mark out of the judges for her AS (effectively causing the tie).

Fastforward to series 7 and another Len decision saw me out of Strictly only to return in series 9 again.

Yeah, votegate did leave it's mark on people (though for most people here it was for Austinwuzrobbed).