I think we should set up a petition to bring back the old training videos we used to get before they dance on a Saturday night, rather than these awful set up naff video's that we get now.

The professional dancers are not actors and it is so embarrassingly bad to watch. As the format of the show now seems to be, to have lots of good dancers, then I think we need to see more of them struggling in training to really understand the journey they are going through.

All we see at the moment is 10 seconds or training where they struggle, 30 seconds of awkward conversation about what the professional thinks they need to make the dance better and then a trip to the funfair/west end show/salsa evening/their kitchen/their kids or old teachers arrive and hold up score paddles - delete where applicable. Seen it all before!

I want to see the relationship between pro and celeb, the dance training and hear them talk about it so I can build the connection with that dancer. We can't all watch It takes Two. With the likes of Danny, Louise, Ore, all you see is awkward conversation followed by a brilliant dance on the night. Doesn't endear me to them at all.

Bring back the non cheesy training video - whose with me?

I'd sign that petition. I've never seen anyone anywhere say they like those VTs, everyone involved looks like they want the ground to open up and swallow them and surely it must be cheaper and less time-wasting to just film the training room. I really don't get who they are doing them for

(It makes me glad that all my favourite contestants were series 8 and earlier, so never had to get involved in them )

I don't know anyone who finds them even remotely entertaining either.

I want to see how celebs and pros are getting on in a candid environment.

nope

they are truly awful

I want to see actual training footage please

It's not going to happen.

The format of ITT is just as the BBC wants it.

The objective is to get as many people they can, to watch a programme scheduled for this time of the evening.

It therefore has to be "entertaining."

They clearly believe straight-forward training clips aren't entertaining enough.

Where do I sign?

Hate, hate, hate the cheesy VT's.

I suspect - based on no proof whatsoever - that they aren't willing to pay for camera and sound people to spend ages in the training rooms hoping something interesting will happen. So they went over to much more staged films, with a tiny bit of training filmed for each couple. Now they have much more control over what the camera crew need to get (for Ian's warm-up, etc) and it's all much more manageable and affordable than keeping them in training rooms for long pieces of time.

(I think certain 'accidental' pieces of film, like Louise stepping on Kevin's foot, look really acted. I suspect it really happened and then it was re-enacted when the cameras were there. I might be completely 100% wrong on that.)

Sometimes there great need to shut kid up , put kettle on ,rush to have a pee about it ,as much chance of getting actual training vd as flying to the moon

You set it up and I would sign in a heart beat and so would everyone I know. They are silly, pathetic very unfunny and have, usually no connection to the dance to celebs would be performing ie dancing the Paso, that's about bullfighting. Bulls so let's go to an abattoir and learn how the slice up a cow

I don't think time is that much of a consideration. By the time a camera crew, might be only two people get there set up for the shots, take them then leave, whether they are there for ten minutes or more than half an hour, the difference in costs will be negligible.
What we see on our screens could be all, or a fraction of what has been taken.

At lot of the training footage we see on ITT might just come from unmanned cameras that are fixed in the training rooms.

You seem to see more serious training footage on ITT, so why can't they collate that and show it on Saturday night. I used to always forward through Brucie's awful jokes to the training and now I forward through the training too. I know it is a family show but why do they feel the need to make some part of the evening cheesy. I can cope with Claudia's silly jokes but the bad acting in the training is too much!

I agree with you, they want it to be "entertaining"......but who does it entertain? not me, that's for sure and I expect there are many that feel the same. The VT's are plain ridiculous and the content usually has nothing to do with the dance they are doing. Training VT should be just that...training.

If they aren't willing to pay for the camera man, they also won't want to pay for the particular celebrities dance teacher from 1973 or take the whole camera crew to see the celebs grandma who can't make it to the studio, or pay for the make up lady to make them up as cowboys or whatever crap idea they have for the VT's. It would all add up to the same amount as just having a camera man on day 1 or 2.

Not to mention all the precious real training time it wastes . Probably a day or most of a day wasted with irrelevant nonsense .

We're just trying to apply a bit of logic to this.
Spending just a few minutes there and ending up with naff-all worthwhile, doesn't seem cost effective.

Then what about all those compilations of different clips with things like; "Wrong..wrong..wrong..wrong..wrong," etc. as I think there was the other night, that would take a fair bit of time to film enough to make the compilation?

Preferred the training VTs from the first 8 series to the current ones, which are usually just acting out a sketch without any actual training. Watching the couples in training was as interesting as the dancing itself in the earlier series.

Hate them, but then again they give me a chance to get food inbetween acts

Forgive me but I think you're getting a little confused here - I believe the OP is referring to the cheesy training videos before each dance on the main show...

For me , they are utterly embarrassing - with the worst from this series being Claudia's four teachers and Anastacia singing to an audience of one (Brendan)!

How I long for the days of Fiona Phillips breaking down in floods of tears and running off camera because of Big Bad Brendan...or Mark Ramprakash and Karen having a training room row!

Set up the petition and I'll be the first to sign!

I thought they meant ITT. They're bad enough, but the pre-dance ones are worse. That's why I record the programme and fast forward through them.

As has been said, they're anything other than "here they are in training." But they're there for the same reason they're on ITT, to make the show more entertaining.

The training videos and weird set-up jokes suggest the Strictly producer thinks in the broadest way possible that it's a 'family show'. I think she's forgotten that means it can entertain the whole family, not have half of them shaking their head half the time.
I'd still like to know who writes the comedy and what their credentials are in comedy. I think they were knocking around CBeebies somewhere. They make Hacker T. Dogg look a refined genius.

Please do not offend children's intelligence in general. Cbeebies programmes are really clever and do make me laugh a lot more than the "comedy" VTs. Hacker is on CBBC, btw

As far as I remember the worst of all was when Abbey and Aljaz went paintballing, something very similar to dance, clearly.

Perhaps that is, in fact the reason we see so little of it on the main show - trying to spread limited content across multiple programmes ...

Last year, there was one set of really good VTs - think it was in week 10 - when we actually got to see how the pros taught their celebs. Apart from that it was Fast Forward all the way

I would lovet he old training videos back. Aside from being more interesting, they also showed the developing relationship between celeb and pro.

I dunno about "developing relationship," they could be fighting like cat and dog for some of the time. What you see on telly is what the producer wants you to see. They can generate any perception they choose, just by what the put in and what they leave out of videos..