would anyone like to see this ? or say half do a latin -half do a ballroom but all the same dance

so for instance in week one if 14 couples , 7 waltz's and say 7 cha cha's

thoughts ?

I've always thought that - I think it's hard to judge a ballroom against a latin. If all couples did the same dance, you could judge them better. However, I think in the early days when there are a lot of them, it could get boring having to watch the same dance over and over.

This is how it used to be in the "good old days". However, with the show having evolved, things have changed.

I would prefer it to go back to this as it is ridiculous giving one couple a Paso in the first week (Tameka) vs a waltz (Ed). It also unbalances the dance-off because a dance full of 'wow' moments (AT for example) is never going to lose to a rumba, regardless of how well they are danced. The stakes are heightened and the dance ability becomes less of an important factor.

So yes, I would like to see it go back to this.

not A dance competition, it's based around dance, and yes I would for sure would not watch if it was using dance competition rules ( and I like dance )

I would like to see them do the same dances in the quarter-finals. but on the condition that the pros get to choose their own music. Hopefully then the pros could choreograph a dance they truly feel suits the ability of their celeb.

Maybe but boring...

Me too. The first week used to be half of them doing cha cha cha and the other half doing waltz.

If Rinder or Claudia were made to dance a Paso in their first week, this forum would be up in arms...not the case, however, if Louise, Danny or Ore were handed the same deal...

Back in the day they IIRC half the contestants danced latin the other ballroom - each half may have performed the same dance.

Also back then the judges properly critiqued each dance, picking up on the technical elements and in particular where the celeb's weaknesses lay in the hope they would work on those weaknesses.

Now it seems that even at this late stage technical flaws are overlooked if the "performance" is good in the judges eyes. E.g. Len and Craig pointing out Danny's feet on Saturday but Darcey admitting that she didn't look at his feet and giving a 10.

I understand that it's an entertainment show, but it is in danger of moving so far away from the original concept, with too much faffing about, props, hordes of dancers joining in, ludicrous music choices, that very soon it will have to be retitled Strictly Pointless Celebrities Chase to Music

I'm not sure it would necessarily make much of a difference (to how it is now; I didn't watch the early years). The judges are obviously quite capable of juding a tango, then a rhumba, then a waltz and so on, and I don't believe the vast majority of the voting public vote on the relative technical merits of the dancing anyway. Either they vote for the same celeb each week regardless of talent, or if they are floating voters, they vote for the dance they enjoyed best, not necessarily the most perfect. The judges might (should) pick up on small differences between seven (or more) consecutive tango's, say, and should score appropriatly, but to the vast majority of the watching public, they'll look damn near identical.

Strangely this was asked in the Radio Times the other week. The reply was in the first show they only had a few contestants and it worked. Now with so many more it would be boring for the audience to watch.

It's an entertainment programme not a dance programme, I presume you would want them all in identical costumes. It would kill the programme. Audience figures would plummet and it would be many years before you would see any ballroom or latin dance on mainstream TV again.

God, no! It'd be dull as hell.

it used to be that way in the very beginning and it was very easy to compare who was improving and who wasnt

yes, for what its worth I would like to see it again

Yes with Danny and Rinder doing their sambas on separate weeks I couldn't tell which was better, it would definitely only be obvious if they happened on the same hour of television.

In many different respects the format of Strictly is a compromise between a fair dance competition and a family show that 11 million people want to watch.

Like everyone I have quibbles with the fairness of certain aspects of the show but overall I think the producers strike a decent balance.

Um...that response is a bit unfair, isnt it? There is obviously an argument for seeing and comparing the same dances on the same week. However it just doesn't make good television and so wouldn't happen.

You say that but some of the watchers do seem a bit confused and seem to go on about conspiracy theories, judges rigging and bias when their favorite gets a slightly lower score because they produce a duff dance.

I'm not sure if Danny and the Judge did the samba side by side that some posters wouldn't complain about it being unfair because one had bothered to practice more, or not fall over, etc. And many would just fail to acknowledge that one was simply better than the other. We live in a post-fact Trumpian world.

Maybe a little sarcy but not unfair. People argue that they want to be able to make these explicit direct on-the-night comparisons, but I've very very rarely seen anyone do it, even when it happens. Daisy and Greg both did a Viennese Waltz on the same night this series for example. I didn't see one person directly compare them on any level. The only time I see people compare dances "on the night" is when they want to grizzle about how someone was undermarked/overmarked and they're always happy to do it across genres.

Why should you need to compare except your personal interest, in which case you can use your PVR.

If Dancer_1 does a fantastic clog dance in the first programme and rightly gets 10 then if Dancer_2 does an really good clog dance in a later programme, he or she should be marked on that and not compared to the earlier one.

Yeah, fair enough. . I agree dances rarely get compared. However, what the judges could do is focus on one dance technique each week. It might be possible to communicate to a viewer more clearly as to what makes a good quickstep say, by having a more coherent set of comments about the dance overall. There could even be an intro where someone did a demo of some steps. But.....


.....I don't think there would be a viewer appetite for this and so the argument is theoretical.

I think it should go back to the early days where half do ballroom and the other half do latin then the following week switch it so those that did ballroom the previous week get latin the following week and vise versa

I agree it would get quite boring watching the same dance several times. Also it could mean we never see a really good version of the early dances. Also in theme weeks the dances are usually not shown at their best because of stupid props and bad music (tho that has happened all series this time), it would be disappointing if 3 styles of dance only happened in the theme weeks.

It would also mean they can't be careful with their injured dancers, I think they were careful with their dance choices for Anastacia and Laura the week after they got injured, they couldn't have done that if they had to do the same dance as the others.

For the dance purists (of whom there are still some of us floating about), I much preferred the old system - or even the system of Series 8, where in the first few weeks the same dances were performed and as the series went on, it got mixed. Especially in this prop/fillertastic (seriously, I think Esther Rantzen had better footwork than Danny) time, where you would be able to see directly the level of content being performed.