It's long story. You don't want to know. It's an open forum and you have every right to join in.

Hmm...Looking at this series:

Daisy - 3 Latins in a row
Danny - 2 Latins in a row
Louise - 2 Latins in a row, 2 ballroom in a row twice
Will - 2 Latins in a row
Anastacia - 2 Latins in a row
Greg - 2 ballroom in a row, 3 Latin in a row
Ore - 3 Latins in a row
Tameka - 2 Latins in a row
Rinder - 2 Latins in a row, 2 ballroom in a row, 3 Latins in a row
Ed - 3 Latins in a row and 2 Latins in a row


So it's hardly unusual. If anything Claudia has been particularly favoured since she's swapped discipline each week. Even if Rinder had had ballroom this week his average in ballroom is far below the scores the others got. He would've had to improved by a long way to change his leaderboard position.

There was no need to swap in this crucial week. He could have done a ballroom and could have danced his last Latin dance in the S/F.

But that isn't true - Ed Balls for a start had week after week of latin dances.

I agree and within lies the dilemna.

I said usually, meaning majority of the time and it's the case on Strictly.

It might have been back in series 1 but it has been a long time since they had alternate ballroom and latins swapping each week.

These days it seems to be some pre determined order of dances decided right at the start that has no logic to it whatsoever.

Which would have made more sense as that would have left him two ballrooms to pick from and one latin rather than three ballrooms which would have been silly. He ought to have done a ballroom and someone else should have done a latin - I think Louise had two left although I suppose doing samba and salsa in consequentive weeks but then again shouldn't have left them to until last love or had someone else pick one of them for her to do earlier but then again God forbid the chosen one does party latin she's so obviously unsuited for early. Am I getting cyncial? It does look a bit like they were banking on him not making the s/f doesn't it?

Up until series eight - you never had more than a fortnight of one type of the dance but then I remember in series eight Jimi Minstry had three latins on the trot. I wish the limit was two rather than three it seems fairer.

It's still the case, except for few exceptions, like Greg, Ed and Robert.

BIB - True. Laura had to dance a Samba with her injured ankle, ballroom would have helped, why would they help her??

There's never been a series where everyone alternated ballroom-latin-ballroom-latin exactly the whole way through. Even in Series 1 Verona, Martin, Lesley and Claire all had two latins in a row at one point and David had two ballrooms.

Why didn't they give Laura two ballroom dances in a row??.

And Daisy and Ore and Danny and Louise etc...

As I said, if anyone has been favoured it's Claudia who has swapped disciplines.

You keep saying that and yet seriously name one dance where it would have been better for her. The tango is the best shot becasue it's danced on one level but she'd already danced that and although she did a good performance a lot of people on here said she looked in pain after it. Most ballroom goes up and down and in a lot you alternate between heels and balls of your feet that doesn't sound like something you want to be doing on an iffy ankle - people have argued the rhumba might have been difficult because you're holding positions for a long time. It's sad the competition couldn't wait for her to heal properley it wouldn't have been fair to the other contestants.

Totally agree. I have been saying this and a few people are really pissed off. Sometimes truth hurts.

You do wonder though if ultimately it would have made any difference.

Surely a dance with lots of lifts would have been much better than Samba, because the bouncing was hard on her ankle and it's a happy dance, but she couldn't keep smiling because she was still in pain and dancing through pain. I am sure barefoot Rumba or
an AS would have been much better.

Maybe when they drew the dances out of a hat it just so happened that two latin ones came out.

Of course, its far more likely that the producers hated Laura and wanted to manipulate the viewing public by putting her at a disadvantage to force her into the dance off so that they could tell the judges over their ear pieces to kick her out. No doubt they chose her props so they would get in the way too and selectively edited her training footage and made her do some silly video to be shown before she danced etc etc.

Why the sarcasm now??

A AS would have had impacted the ankle when she landed. Someone pointed out a rhumba would have required more rehersal time to look good which maybe with hospital appointements she didn't have that - besides the last barefoot rhumba on SCD landed the guy doing it in the DO.

Because you keep asking 'why' did they do or not do this or that which you obviously seem to think implies that the powers that be have acted in an underhand way to deliberately engineer a particular result.

I don't believe it works like that at all. All the evidence points to the order of the dances being decided right at the start. We know, for example, that the pro dancers have choreographed the routines for each of the dances long before the week in which they are danced in the competition. We know that because there have been several occasions where pro dancers have been injured and another pro has stood in and taught the routine that has been choregraphed by the celebrity's usual pro (this year it happened with Gorka standing in for Brendan and a few years ago it happened with Ian standing in for James Jordan). We also know this because it is talked about quite openly - eg on It Takes Two you hear people say things like "I always wanted to get to week x because I knew I had y dance that week and that is the one I have always wanted to do"

Judge Rinder happened to have a dance this week that wasn't his best. Lots of celebs have had dances at this stage of the competition that weren't their best - Pixie Lott for example. That is just the luck of the draw. Rinder was clearly the worst of the last five, from a dance perspective, so I don't think it would have mattered what dance he did, it would have been very likely that he would have been bottom of the leaderboard.

The same as the difference between alternate and alternative perhaps??

Don't they just have to do whichever dance has been allocated to them?

Robin, in his hastily removed, deliciously indiscreet and very informative off the cuff informal Q&A video said that the pros can dictate the running order. So, if as with Lisa Riley, he had a partner who worked better in side-by-side Latin then front load the running order with that to get through the early weeks.