Helen and Anita were at two ends of the spectrum. Helen was a beautiful dancer with training, and Anita was a powerful performer with no previous training. I thought Anita was destined for the final purely on the basis of popular vote, and Helen because of her position at the top of the leaderboard. I honestly thought they and Georgia and Jay would be the final four. It would have made a much better final I think, though I liked katie.

I've done this on another thread - ages ago so this year's finalists aren't on it.

I classified finalists and runners up back to Series one.

I'll see if I can find it.

Edited to say - Have brought it up and updated it - it's post 28 on Advantages and Disadvantages.
Last edited by Fred. : 28-12-2015 at 17:22

I agree with all that. I was just thinking out loud about possible producer manipulation (to the extent that they are able to manipulate). I would've loved Helen in the final as well, but I think the general public didn't take to her, so perhaps she was deemed expendable. And if it was to be the year of Anton, then having both Anita and Katie in the final might've been one non-dancer too many.

No one has mentioned Kellie in why Helen was in the dance off, Kellie plunged from 2nd to be in the leader board and after that was overmarked stupidly. Helen was never in the dance off before that week. The same night that Helen went out, Kellie with her Oomp pah Pah " vienesse waltz" which was all show and very little "vienesse waltz" both her and Kevin sang every word,( a cardinal sin for other dances) there were illegal lifts and if that dance had been marked fairly ditto Anita's AT that wasn't, Helen would not have been second from the bottom.

It seemed to me that the judges were shocked and suprised Helen and Georgia were in the dance off, I don't think they got the result they wanted at all and thought that Helen though they had marked her 2nd from the bottom had a strong enough vote to be safe.

No doubt about it, everything was stacked, quite deliberately against Helen that week and it back fired quite spectacularly, with the semi final and final being extremely flat. They contrived to get a result they wanted and somehow everything back fired.

Very good points.
I honestly think they expected that Helen would end up on the dance off. What they didn't think would happen was that the other person would be Georgia.
In my mind, they expected Katie or Anita to end up in the B2 (though the harsh treatment of Anita makes me think that they deliberately did it To help her avoid it).

To paraphrase Noel Coward, you would have had to have a heart of stone to watch Helen's Paso without laughing.

I call bullshit.

Overall sportsmen have done very slightly better than non-sportsmen overall but it's not really significant. Overall their performance has deteriorated over time though - the first sportsman ever not to make the second half of the competition was Mark Foster in Series 6 (I'm not counting snooker as a sport, sorry snooker fans) but since then the magic really seems to have worn off overall. The problem is really that we've now had four sportsmen in a row (Tony, Thom, Anthony, Iwan) who have been rubbish, really dragging the average down. The most succesful group by far on average remain singers/musicians.

Hopefully, the post-Olympic retiring athletes pool will be quite large so there might be a few more to go at next year

We haven't had any decent cricketers since Michael Vaughn in series 10.

I wonder if the sportsmen/women category might fill up a bit easier this year - Olympics are always an endpoint for some athletes so it might be interesting to see if they can maybe grab some of them for Strictly.

Thank you for answering .

Thom was a bit of a disappointment, as he looked like he might make a decent dancer early on and Anthony maybe would have had a few good dances in him, had he been fit. Shame about those two.

I suppose the singers and musicians (amongst the men) are as close as we generally get to ringerdom. Musicality, performance experience and some bopping about.

Helen reveals her true colours at last. Glad the public weren't fooled by her

Ahh, to be fair Helen was pushed in a radio interview to comment - and she was really tactful and didn't say anything nasty.

It's the 'delightful' tabloids which twisted her words - and wrote as if she'd 'spoken' to them - eye roll

What true colours?

What an odd comment,

She said there was some manipulation by the producers to bring some drama to the show, that she was sad to go when she did, but it was fine she quite enjoyed having a rest.

I don't think

A) this is news to anyone

B) there is anything anyone at all could object to.

Please explain your comment it makes you sound Bitter with a B.

The number you have called is not recognised. Please hang up and redial.

Indeed.

I'm still disappointed that Helen went when she did, I thought she was a beautiful dancer and an intelligent and funny individual. I remain convinced that some of the dislike on these boards was born out of inverted snobbery.

Did she get much dislike here really? I always thought she was popular. Not necessarily everyone's first choice (or she wouldn't have been in the DO), but my perception was that fans of other celebs liked her and would have liked her in the final. I found her sweet and funny and lovably odd at times. Lovely ballroom dancer. As far as the radio interview is concerned, she tried to answer honestly but with generosity. Seems to me those are her 'true colours' . I think a handful of folk just prefer the vinegar of tabloid spin - whoever it concerns.

As a Georgia fan I was obviously pleased she went through but I would have been happy to have had both in the final!!
Not being a Georgia fan yourself you will obviously not have seen the YouTube videos documenting her Strictly journey, but to get to the point, there is a lot covered on there that I don't remember actually seeing on the night of the camaraderie between her & Helen when they both ended up in the DO on QF night!! You could absolutely tell they were friends & neither wanted to knock the other out, completely blowing the stupid tabloid 'feud' stories out of the water!! Also Georgia gave some heartfelt words about their friendship after the show which were also never shown on the night to the best of my knowledge, all we saw was her delight at getting through!!
Just a couple of facts I thought I would share with you to prove what rubbish the press writes!!
I think they picked on Helen a bit as she was quite reserved & held her emotions in check as opposed to Georgia who couldn't hide her emotions!! Nothing at all wrong with either, we are all made different!!

Oh I agree that there was genuine friendship between Helen and Georgia. I wasn't a Georgia fan per se because I didn't find her very interesting but that's not to say that I don't think she's a nice person.

from some of the comments, I would say so.


I am not sure about in here, but she got a lot of "teachers pet" and "overmarked" comments throughout specially on Facebook.

Loads of people liked her, but not that many as you say not as a first choice. I think the fanbases this year were very committed to their favourite couple throughout, unlike other years.