For me with my untrained dance eyes and and short sighted right eye(!) I would have ranked the dancers as follows:

Danny & Oti
Claudia & AJ
Louise & Kevn
Ore & Joanne
Robert & Oksana
Ed & Katya

I'm a little torn between 3rd & 4th this could easily swap. I don't think I saw enough of Ore & Joanne but the clip I did see they looked a little bit unsure of themeselves. Equally I saw something very odd with Louise's legs and again an uncertainty of what she was doing but hey who am I???

Having reflected on it for a while............ Bearing in mind the camerawork and amount of footage seen of all the couples I am astonished that anyone can definitively say who was best in that challenge let alone try to rank them.
People could have been making errors all over the place and we may not have seen them.
The only people who could see more than us were the judges but even their perspective was not perfect.
Do I doubt the validity of the result? Yes and no .
I did not get a full and accurate enough picture for long enough as to who was doing what so in that sense yes.
However even had such a picture been granted I am not qualified to judge it anyway from a technical point of view so no. And the enjoyment factor in televised competitive group routines is compromised precisely for the reason I have highlighted.

A very sensible and fair post. I am hoping that next week on ITT one of the judges will explain what they saw and what influenced their marking.

(I do know a fair bit about technique but would not feel confident ranking the couples from what I saw and so am rather bemused by others being able to come up with an exact ranking.)

Can part of the problem some people have with Louise being marked above Danny in the cha cha is simply their dislike for Kevin?

Louise's cha may not have been perfect, but it was still better than Danny's. Everything he dances is just sheer bash-n-dash, he completely lacks any finesse. That may be fine for something like the Charleston, but it's not right for the 10 main dances. But hey ho, it's a WOW factor for many viewers, so what the heck.

They gave him top marks this week and last week, in fact Bruno has given him a top mark 4 weeks in a row now. The last time Danny got less than a 9 was way back in week 6 during his Foxtrot where there were a number of obvious mistakes.


I don't think you can argue Danny isn't getting top marks for all his dances.

I agree that it is difficult to place the dancers as so little is seem of them with the camera work and the judges have a more overall perspective. However, at one point the camera was behind Louise and Kevin for some time when they were in the corner furthest from the judges and to use my hubby's words Louise was "looking as though she did not know where her feet should be and was trying to find them", but it did appear to improve when they moved forward.

The camera seemed to move away from the others too quickly to really get a good view, so the positioning of the cameras does not help.

You haven't got it wrong. I can't even watch her dance. I forget what she has done as soon as she is off the screen.

Agree. What were they seeing that we didn't? Did they have enough time to properly deliberate?

To be fair, they do have a better view, I suppose.

Claudia doubly undermarked?

BIB - That's their excuse.

They were dancing at the back, closer to the camera and I saw her and she was bad.
Kevin is really cunning, they were dancing sideways and Kevin would have blocked the judges view. I think it should be a requirement that the celebs dance closer to the judges,

So you don't watch her and then forget what you haven't watched? This seems to be a trend - people falling over themselves to claim they don't remember anything Louise did because it's so boring, but somehow remembering it in enough detail to know it was definitely horribly overmarked.

Actually I dont watch her most of the time. I am either chatting or making coffee even when I do I don't find her very memorable. Sorry I have an opinion. One other thing that bores me is people judging me. Enough said.

I thought Louise & Kevin were a bit polite and restrained, but that's a comment on performance not on technique, which I agree is what the judges will have been looking for.

I would have preferred the judges to take to the floor and occupy different positions around the dance floor and then individually mark the contestants.

I always think the -athons are designed by the producers to get rid of the weaker dancers and protect better dancers who might otherwise be B2 vulnerable.

IIRC Kevin once said that Craig had said he will never give him a 10 (Finals don't count in Craig's world).

Therefore only way to put Louise at top of the leaderbiard and relatively "safe" would be for her to beat Danny in the danceathon.

Not saying is any conspiracy - but Craig does not have to give Kevin a 10 this way - and Louise still gets top of the leaderboard.

Everyone's a winner - except Rinder and Balls