Originally Posted by Sarah777:
“It used to be a dance competition for beginners and the public to enjoy their journey, but now it's a platform for trained dancers to get some exposure and get some good breaks. BBC might as well show the British and World dance championships.”
Except it never was. Its had trained dancers in the mix since series 2 with Jill . Tom was a pre-run of Danny. Tom trained with the national youth musical theatre, and at Guildford, Danny did 3 years at arts ed. Both went to a top drama college, and must have been good at 18 to even get in - as they are very competitive. Of course they can learn and perform a dance routine - they spent 3 years learning how.
What Strictly hasn't had is a good journey story for some time -where someone did really improve to win . its also been short of really top, memorable, performances for some time.
Thats partly because its had some winners who just grabbed a female fanbase , some winners who were hyped up by the judges for gains they hadn't made, and some who were the most interesting of those left after a surprise departure. . Meanwhile, some people's journeys ended because they got too tired, or started up on other commitments, or got dud music and a difficult dance in a week where others got something they could shine in., or went, so the comedy act could stay.
Its also deteriorated as they have put in more good dancers to counter the possibility that the public vote will remove too many good performers , and because they have now seemingly stopped having such a big group of weak beginners. Thats meant the average is better, but they are not finding any surprises, or massive improvement stories. And some decent prospects who might develop, have to go earlier while the are still behind the pack. They also failed to pick up really big names this year - they are now down to Bronze medallists in an Olympic year., soap actors and forgotten ex singers. There's no Jackson, Pendelton or Lewis - partly because they don't pay enough ,and partly because most 2016 Olympians are going on to 2020. .And a side effect of having more good, but not outstandin, g dancers, or stories, is that there's little point picking one of a larger group of good prospects, because there's a smaller chance they will reach the final, or the judges will care about them.
It looks as if they now don't actually care about the content, They pick enough trained people to have a reliable final, spend some money on staging and supporting dancers to make it look a bit spectacular, select who they want to keep , for whatever reason, and pick one story to hype if they can be bothered.