Yeah, and Craig ALWAYS does Ore down. Is he racist then?

I bloody despair.

Maybe he is, or maybe he's less directed by producers. Regardless of the reason, he is the exception, Claudia has been judged by different standards to Ore most weeks.

She seriously hasn't.

She's a lovely, lovely girl, she did a tremendous QS tonight, but she isn't a great dancer, many faults that could be ironed out in time, but have been obvious over the comp.

She has beaten Ore and he has beaten her.

Tonight over both dances, Ore was better.

That was the Daily Mail making stuff up. Here's what Jon Holmes said himself.


Link here.

The show also dropped Mitch Benn and Laura Shavin.

Plus everybody seems to forget Naga Munchetty this year.

How many points do you get for winking at the camera ?

That might explain the lower mark then. it was supposed to be a salsa not a samba.

I think it's difficult to compare Ore and Claudia as they have completely different strengths. Ore is a great performer and really gets into character but sometimes he seems overmarked on technique whereas Claudia's technique seems great (from a non dancers point of view) but she seems to lack character and emotion.
I thought both of their quick steps were very good but the Argentine tango and rumba were both overmarked in my opinion.

Problem is once the high marks start earlier on in the series - for example week three or four - then the judges can't drop the marks later on because it doesn't make sense to think the celebs get worse as the weeks pass by. I suppose they could change the scoring - perhaps 15 is the top mark but I'm sure fans would be peeved with such a change. But if the top score was 15 then the celebs could get 8, 9, 10 earlier on in the series and keep the higher score 11 - 12 till near the end of the series.

I agree with you Rhumba. She is good but IMO she isn't as great as many seem to think. If one took out her athleticism / ability to do aerial acrobatics so well, she woudln't have gone beyond mid season. However in her QS tonight she really danced and danced from within.

Generally I haven't noticed much under marking, but her QS was better than Ore's in my opinion. I loved it.

BiB Only in your eyes. Manipulative judges don't count. I am sure they will be giving their excuses soon.

Are you a professional judge? Or maybe just a biased armchair know It all!!

I don't know about miaviv, but I am professionally qualified to teach QS and I thought Claudia's QS was exceptionally good and better than Ore's. I think her rumba was respectable as well and she should have been higher on the leaderboard above Louise. Ore, despite dancing well, should have at least been lower than Danny.

Simple answer - yes. Right from the outset the first dance was overmarked. Danny deserved his but the others were all overmarked. Except for Claudia perhaps

This series seems really bad for pvermarking

I thought the positions on the leaderboard were just about right. Craig giving Ore and Joanne an 8 for their first dance was the only example of outright stupidity.

Firstly, Louise is my absolute favourite and I've been routing for her, over everyone, from the start. However, I feel aggrieved about Claudia and AJ's low marks for their rumba.

Their performance brought tears to my eyes and I really felt they showed chemistry and emotion aided by Claudia's hair being straight and all over the place and AJ's hair - looking dishevelled and wild in a really, who cares about my hair, I have no interest in anything other than this passionate, desirable woman infront of me, kind of way. Bravo to both of them.
I felt almost embarrassed at how badly critiqued they were, like I did for their AT btw.
I hope the professionals and judges will Be able to demonstrate and justify their low marks to me on ITT next week.

It's saddens me to say that I thought Louise didn't shine this week and was indeed a bit overmarked. 😟

His AT didn't get much of a reaction from the crowd but they did love his QS.

i agree with this, however Claudia's QS was my dance of the night (along with the AS from danny).

actually would like them both in the final, along with danny and louise, and I blame will young for being a bit of a snowflake and depriving us of this!

The gushing comments by the Judges on Ore's dances was almost comical.
All the comments being made here about Joanne doing all the dancing in the AT and the QS being too frantic and unstable are very true.

I think SCD lost a bit of integrity this show, with "manipulation" being the word of the week.

Claudia's QS was the standout dance of the night for me and should have been marked higher than Ore's. Len alluded to the difficulties related to the difference in height between her and AJ and I think AJ has done a fantastic job. A dance teacher/judge explained to me once that it is not necessarily height that makes a couple "fit" but leg length - if the legs of both partners are similar length then it can work well. Obviously that was not going to apply, no matter who Claudia danced with, so she has done so very well with great teaching from AJ. I am gradually coming around to thinking I would like her to win.

Darcey criticising Ore's Topline in his QS then giving him a 10, because she can forget about that technical error as he is constantly winking, gurning, crying into the camera showing us the connection and emotion that is sadly lacking in Claudia's routines is another example of an incompetent judge who should follow Len out of the door.

Judges can be evaluated.

You can test judges marks by asking fellow professionals to mark . its pretty clear that many professionals don't agree with these judges marks, rankings, or comments. Their marks would fail with outside external examination.

You can ask a wide body of public opinion, if they saw what the judges told thm they saw. In this case, a lot of the public saw something different. Its not only DS fans - its common to social media, and other comments on boards like the Guardian - and, unless people can type on two sites at once, its not the same people.

Judges comments have to be internally consistent with their marks. You can't say fantastic, exceptional, mention no problems, and give a 9 - its like writing really complete, well argued and convincing, and giving a B. These judges repeatedly fail to make their marks match their comments.

Judges's mark,s and reasoning, have to be consistent between candidates. You can' t say x matters for candidate one, and then ignore it, or say you are ignoring it, and give candidate 2 full marks. it stinks of favouritism , incompetence, or corruption.

Modern technology means you can see, and replay, what happens, yourself. This means you can see If a guy, who was described as moving really welL, spent just 20% of his time moving

You don't use a marking scale that bunches different performances on the same mark, and then relies on someone pulling one mark out of line with the others, to create differentiation in the scoreboard. That just means one mark has to be defended - as being significantly better or worse, and one judge is seen to be creating a bigger issue than exists.

If you do have to make the marks produce an order, with one judge adjusting the totals, it needs collaborative marking. And that in turn suggest you may have just thought of an order and total, and rigged the marks to produce it. And that, in turn, suggests the question of when the total was agreed. You each need to mark blind, and not look like you have a set order decided, before you started marking anything.

You don't mark what you are not qualified to mark - dancers don't get to be judges on acting. The dance captain doesn't give acting notes for good reason. Only Craig produces thing, s and he's not known for acting masterpieces. Acting is for the public to judge - in so far as they can see anything, on TV. And if the public don't see enough to judge , nor can they believe a judge who tells them how emotional it was.

Some comments are inherently stupid, and suggest criteria that shouldn't be criteria, and need more thought. You can' t , for example,tell people they can't score highly - because they are too young to act the emotions , its essentially an argument that anyone young shouldn't apply . By that logic , you couldn't examine 16 year olds on any issue involving anything they hadn't experienced, and you could mark anyone down for lacking height, excessive strength or unusual flexibility. If you mark Claudia, you consider her age, allow for her height, but also count what she's doing, thats more difficult than anything else going on.

Yes, leg length is the most important. Then next you would look at shoulder height. If you were tall but had shorter partner who had long legs, normal body size but a shorter neck or smaller head, then you might still find them easy to dance with!

I thought Danny's Salsa was a bit pants to be honest. And I thought his contemporary AT was far from perfect.

I'm not really qualified to comment on Danny's salsa. I tend to stick to comparing the Ballroom and Latin routines. I did like his AS VW. As far as ATs are concerned I don't think any of the Strictly ones have been much good.

So yeah, if you knock the salsa and AT out as lost causes, it does become more difficult to compare performances in a meaningful way.