Melvin, Tameka and Lesley all went out on a Tango.

Is this because it's not the most entertaining dance to watch or because it is technically hard?

nope, just that they weren't very good at it and didn't get the public vote

I think it's a very entertaining dance when it's good, but TPTB have started making people dance it to horrendous songs in horrible costumes which isn't going to do anyone any favours in the voting,

From the first four dance-offs there have only been four dances (Tango x3 (and the other week there were no Tangos so landing in the dance-off then on a Tango would've been difficult), Salsa x2, Charleston x2, Rumba x1) if this helps. Doesn't seem to just be Tangos that are getting the lack of love this year, but I'd say it's more to do with the couples dancing them at the moment. From the 10 couples left, only Ore and Greg have done Tangos, meaning we've got 4 of the top 5 average scorers this year (Danny, Louise, Daisy and Claudia) all to do the Tango. The highest scoring Tango we've had so far on an elimination week is 28 from Tameka.

It's one of my favourite dances so I'm going to assume it's only down to the Tangos performed so far haven't been all that great, especially given the standard this year. Halloween tends to give us a good Tango or two though.

Tango is a hard dance to master, its very technical and very different from the swing dances. There are many things to master along with the steps of course.
The hold is more compact, the ladies left arm and hand position will be in a different position to the other ballroom dances. There is no rise and fall, knees are flexed and you must dance heels not toes. As with the other dances, but more so in Tango, you must use good floor pressure with your weight firmly over each step, add to that your posture and poise. It takes a while for beginners to learn and make a ballroom Tango look good.
As you advance, you also learn to use the inside and outside edges of your feet to good effect amongst other things.

Could just be purely coincidental this year . Samba is the dance of death and imo the hardest dance to master. The hardest ballroom dance is the foxtrot imo. The Tango really isn't that hard .

Over all 14 series so far, in terms of elimination rate tango is the worst to get of the core five ballroom dances (tango > foxtrot > quickstep > waltz > Viennese Waltz). On the other hand the last person to go out on it before this series was Hairy Dave back in Series 11, and three out of four people going out on the same dance is defintely an anomaly.

I agree to an extent but sometimes it works - Louis Smith's best dance was tangoing to a pop tune dressed as a zombie, Kellie 60s themed one was quite good even if it was a tad over-rated, Mark Benton managed to pull off a humorous one that still had some technique in it although he was helped by music which had a proper tango feel to it. Camelia did a great routinue with James Martin to a showtune from Cabaret which was comic. Maybe Tamika needed to go more down that route although she wasn't helped by also being saddled with a theme. It helped Louis but didn't help her maybe it's because Flavia was very good at doing theming that worked if she had someone with the talent to pull it. Gorka isn't quite so experienced. I also think she was just unlucky and suffered from midtable syndrome.

Neither of Melvin's dances were memorable and the theming for his tango didn't suit the dance.

I think what mostly undoes celebs is that it's very technical with very specific and different shaping to a lot of other ballroom dances and a different hold but unless you choose to ignore that aspect of it (which in fairness a few have and have been good to ok because of it - Greg springs to mind it was at least enjoyable) it's also dramatic. Lesley admits she got caught up in the drama and the technique suffered as a result although the drag across the table didn't help her. It looked ugly and probably didn't help her focus. Will's I think also suffered from being too dramatic and not technical enough IMO.

I think that was a Simpsons episode

Anyone can dance tango - as they can any dance - but speaking from experience, its hard to dance well and look good. All dances have their own difficulties.

I agree - I'm not against pop songs for tangos if they create the right mood. I enjoyed Louis' and Rachel and Vincent's to 'Here comes the rain again' is one of my favourites. I also don't mind a theme if they don't overtake the whole dance - my favourite is Kara and Artem's, but these days they'd probably have to dance around an actual giant plastic windmill in the middle of the dance floor. 'Moving on up' doesn't create any kind of tango mood (along with having to dance on a luggage trolley ) and I don't know what was going on with Anton's guy liner and Rupert the Bear trousers. At least Danny will probably get proper tango music so we might get one decent one this year.

While waltz, foxtrot, quickstep and VW all have similarities, tango is different. The tango hold is different. and while in the other dances the feet should brush the floor lightly, whether doing heel or toe leads, and should flow, tango needs far more pressure in the feet and be more staccato.

In some ways that pressure & staccato movement can feel more like Latin, and it is probably no coincidence that in years gone by Tango was included in the Latin dances, while jive (weirdly) was classed as a ballroom dance.

Actually, you can still find not so well informed social dance announcers saying: "Now we'll have some Latin, and promptly play tango!"

Yes its a strange one. Tango used to be classed as a latin dance, and in years gone by, they had Ballroom Jive !

But you know what they say about dancing .... "You don't have to be mad ...." LOL

Maybe the Tango shouldn't be introduced until later in the series, after everyone has had adequate training. It looks, otherwise, as if it is a way to get rid of certain celebrities.

It's the music and the prop heavy settings. Can anyone explain to me what 'What Lola wants...?' has to do with being a psychic? Or why Anton had to wear those awful AWFUL trousers? Or how hotel staff goes with 'Move it on up?' or how a tango goes with Beveley Hills Cop? I think Melvin and Tameka had songs it was impossible to create tango atmosphere to and the three of them had costumes that made no coherent story. I'm not saying it was the only thing they had going against them but it was a factor. Ore was lucky he had to do his prop-heavy, don't-even-ask-me-what-the-story-was tango on an early week where he had plenty of other people worse than him, I wouldn't rate his chances if he had to do that same dance when there were only six celebs left, however well he danced it.

I know it's not the only dance that's had inappropriate music this year, but it has particularly awful music and costumes in my opinion. I think if the mix of song, dance and costume don't make sense to people, it makes life incredibly more difficult for a learner dancer.

Probably goes a long way to explaining why Mark Ramprakash who was a great latin dancer and a mediocre ballroom one was pretty good at the tango apart from missing his heel leads which I didn't notice and why Katie and Susannah who were much better at ballroom both managed decent to good jives.

I think the low high rate of the tango can be attributed in some cases to it be given as an early dance to people probably to contrast with the waltz also an early dance and the party latin dances that also tend to be given to people early.

We can never be sure WHO exactly does the choreography, but after watching Zoe & Ian's Tango on youtube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCDbLJVI3Eg
it makes me think that the problem with Lesley & Anton's Tango was lack of drama. It could have been so much better as I think that Lesley was capable of so much more. Maybe Anton was afraid that it might have come across as going down the comedy route, but IMHO it was a mistake to just do the tango steps and little more. The climbing onto the table at the beginning was a bit inelegant.

Police woman and a fortuneteller is just stupid concept for a tango... tango is like rhumba but more of a lovers quarel... not a police woman nor a fortuneteller.

I guess the potential is for good dancers to look amazing and for bad dancers to look very very silly indeed.... The being dragged around by your partner potential is very high for female weak dancers and the looking like a camp numpty equally high for weaker males... Still beats the cha cha cha, in my opinion. Even the pros look daft dancing that.

The Charleston has got both Daisy and Naga in the dance off, and Daisy is highly regarded as a potential winner, according to some.

For me the Rumba is the killer dance. Whenever the judges praise one I think it's awful and I've never been entirely certain just what the judges want, it seems to change with every contestant.

If, and I am not saying any celebrity would ever do this, a contestant wanted to get out of a performance by feigning injury I'd do it for the rumba.

I think the rumba is a 'hide behind a cushion' dance most of the time, but I also think the audience is very forgiving if a celeb can't do a rumba. They think they wouldn't want to do it either. I think the audience is much less forgiving if you can't do a charleston or a tango, because they look more fun to do when done well. Just my impression.

I agree. When it comes to the tango and Argentine Tango the production lot seem to go into overdrive in a way they don't for the waltz, foxtrot and quickstep. Its as if they think they understand the character which they interpret in a stereotypical and rather crass way to my mind. So we end up with a style over substance performance which depends heavily on selling the theme more than making a good fist of the technique, musicality and so forth.

And therein lies the tale.

From the various rumbas I've watched on youtube, it seems to me that you need to have, or appear to have, a very close affinity with your partner. Carole Vorderman's rumba was appalling because she was just going through the motions - she might as well have been dancing alone. Whereas Kara & Artem's rumba was smokin'!!
And although I liked the choreography of Zoe & Ian's rumba, her smiling at him in that matey way just ruined the feeling of sensuality that the rumba needs. Also there was no 'figure of 8' hip swivelling. Amusing to watch these old clips though as the judges were very vocal - towards each other!