I agree with this wholeheartedly, I am a huge Doti fan but they were overmarked. However, they did the best dance of the evening so had to get that score. I think every couple was overmarked, and actually the leaderboard was in a fair order, just the scores were all too high.

I'm not so sure the judges scores are that important at this stage, providing the couples end up in the right order. What they could do - from 1/4 final onwards - is to let them all dance and then the judges place them from 1st to last, as they do in real competitions.

Having said that, I think Danny was definitely overmarked for that so-called tango. Yes, I know the music was inappropriate, but good pro dancers can choreograph any dance to any piece of music - it isn't as if they don't know what they are going to be dancing to. And the celebs probably wouldn't know if it is appropriate or not. In 'real' dance competitions the dancers don't know what the music will be for any of the dances until it actually starts, and believe me, there's many a time when it is not appropriate.

I'd hoped the 'but Ore...' defence tactic of any slight criticism of Danny would've ended weeks ago, but it seems some people are still pressed that he scored so high early on and no amount of 10s from Danny since will ever erase that grudge. Oh well...

Again, like most weeks I thought the order was mostly right tonight. I don't really care about the scores tbh, the order is what's important and I think I would've dropped Louise a little but for the most part, the order seemed pretty fair.

It was a pretty uninspiring night performance wise, tbh. There were good dances but no great ones and the highlight was the opening number and the WSS pro dance.

Oh I've got my biases, to be sure, but, although I didn't like Danny's Samba very much, I said it was good and deserved tens.

And I see the faults in Ore's dancing and have mentioned them.

Truth is, that dance of Danny's really wasn't worth tens, and most without bias, and some with, agree.

And 'oh they overmarked Ore, so they had to...' doesn't apply either.

Claudia was horribly overmarked for her Jive, but Ore's Fox was good quality, far, far better as a fox than that Jive was a jive.

It just doesn't work. Perhaps the flash and the crowd got the excitable members of the panel, but the Tango wasn't worth what it got. At all.

Very surprised to see so many people disagreeing with my OP.

Looked pretty cut and dried to me,wasn't really a Tango,all a bit frenetic (as Danny's dances tend to be) and the footwork errors.

Appreciate everyone has their favourites and at times being impartial is difficult,but I don't really see the point in distorting the truth just because someone is who you're cheering for.

FWIW I think the marks Danny got tonight will have harmed his chances of winning.He should have been below Claudia and Louise tonight,and placing him top again for the 3rd week in a row will have annoyed quite a few viewers.

Claudia's Salsa had very little Salsa.
Louise's Quickstep was not in hold from start to finish which, at least it used to be, was a requisite requirement.

In Movies week they always allow a little leeway in order to incorporate elements of the respective film.

Just felt virtually none of Danny's dance resembled a Tango....far too frenetic,whereas Claudia & Louise's routines whilst having additional moments,at least had elements of the required respective dance in them.

A little leeway - not a totally different dance! Though admittedly that's an issue with the judges rather than the professionals.

To be honest if you're going to go down the frenetic line then that's an issue with the music rather than Danny and Oti themselves; it was horrific for a Tango (they're not the first to get terrible Tango music). If you want to pick up on the heal leads that's fine but I don't think they could do much about the speed of the dance - and otherwise it was choreographed as an actual Tango, which is more than can be said for Claudia and Louise's dances.

I agree about Claudia.

Maybe you should spend more time listening to what's actually happening than creating baseless conspiracy theories (you've got no proof whatsoever that he isn't getting votes, same as I couldn't prove he is!). You are supposed to do heel leads in a Tango, the issue was that Danny wasn't doing them. That routine was packed full of Tango content, he just didn't dance it as well as he might have done. To me, that seemed to be down to the music just as much as he had an off night (and it was clear when he was talking to Claudia that he knew he hadn't danced it that well) - the music just wasn't a Tango in any speed, shape or form.

That said, as far as I'm concerned he was the best of a bad bunch as no-one really danced that well tonight - Louise was good but there wasn't enough Quickstep in her routine to really judge. Claudia's Salsa was messy, Rinder's Samba was stilted and Ore kept making mistakes.

It's all a little thing called opinion, which seems to be being forgotten about a lot on here tonight.

And, I hasten to add, he was undermarked in the early weeks. So there was no "again".

First BiB: Absolutely not.
Second BiB: Correct but it has always been this way: the closer we get to the final the more jealous of the front-runner his rivals become.

I'm not sure I can keep up with all the claims of "bias" for different celebs. Seems everyone but Rinder is "judges' favorite" at this point. It's getting a bit silly.

Honestly, everyone was overmarked, so it sort of evens out. Everyone made mistakes, so nobody deserved a 10, but since multiple dances that were either riddled with mistakes or just weren't proper representations of the dance style they were supposed to be doing got 10's, Danny's kind of needed them or it would have been undermarked.

Frankly, as much as Rinder is the weakest dancer, his samba looked more like a samba than half the other dances looked like what they were supposed to be doing, plus he actually did a roll and his hip action was excellent, so I think he should have been given more credit. Not 10's by any stretch of the imagination, but Craig could have at least relented and given him an 8. Maybe a 9 from Darcey, not that they mean much.

The claim of bias towards Danny specifically, let alone continuous bias, is ridiculous.

I don't think any of them danced a '10' dance tonight. To be honest I rarely agree with the judges marks, and I thought they were particularly daft tonight in the most part but not just for Danny. They started the show with overmarking Ore, in my opinion and left themselves little room for manouver.

I didn't think it was a '10' dance but I'm not blaming him for the score, by the expression on his face I think he was surprised himself.

Pretty much my feelings. Danny puts in so much training he should be good but, he made obvious errors in the tango, how could that be a 10 ? No justification for that.

I do agree with this, as good as he can seem, he really doesn't add the subtleties a dance is made up with.

This was an example, as was his Rhumba, which was too attacking and the Argentine tango to me, at the end I felt a little uncomfortable with how aggressive it had become.

True, especially when two judges had picked up on the heel leads issue (which the others should have picked up too)

Ditto

Tango one of my favourite ballroom dances and there have been some amazing ones done so SCD but this one was really meh. No passion or desire, ?10

Why are you surprised? You have your opinion and other people disagree with it - that's rather the point of a forum...

You think he should have been below Claudia & Louise. I don't as neither of their dances were that good (a samba with lifts rather than a salsa and sort-of-quickstep AS). Both are opinions and you can't assume yours is right and that it will have annoyed viewers that he's top. I'd tend to go the other way and assume at the moment he's probably topping the public vote (him or Louise anyway)

The marks were too high all round last night but that happens towards the end of the series and provided the leaderboard looks ok it's irrelevant really

But you're really getting disagreement from me for the "again" in your title. I really can't agree that Danny has been overmarked before. If anything he was under marked in the Paso, Jive, and Quickstep.

Agree with pretty much the entirety of your comment (though I have a sneaky feeling Claudia has zipped up the public vote so could be an interesting final should those three all be there).

I really like Danny and would be happy to seem him win but his dance last night was not a tango. Tango is my favourite dance and I was looking forward to watching him but it was just boring. The music was awful too.

For me, Claudia did the best dance of the night

Danny was marked fairly. Louise as usual was overmarked. No way was that mess she danced worthy of a 10!

None of the dances were completely like the ones they were supposed to be.

QS that wasn't a QS, tango that wasn't a tango, foxtrot that wasn't a foxtrot and so on. But musicals, darling!

I was pretty surprised by Darcy, who basically said that footwork doesn't matter at all and she wasn't even looking, which from a judge, but especially someone from her background, was very surprising.