Well, we've had plumbing, family troubles, illness X2, exhaustion.... I guess she just loves to moan but it is getting v-e-r-y boring. Ian needs a medal for putting up with her. She is talented and I used to want her to win but no longer after all the bleat, bleat, bleating.

What will the next Zoe "crisis" be?

Hmm..

Zoe tried to play; "The foot card", by showing the viewers a tissue before she started her first dance. She certainly knows how to work an audience, but this time this may well have cost her votes.

She hasn't had "flu", she wouldn't have been dancing on Saturday if she had. She's just had a bad cold.

There is a test for flu.

I'll drop a £20 note down in front of you and if you can bend down and pick it up you can keep it. But if you can, you haven't got flu.

I have to agree on this one, as fantastic as a dancer she is she really is milking the excuses at the moment.

I didn't mean that to sound the way it did because I think either she or Colin could well easily win this competition with her hands tied behind her back.

However; Ian is correct when he says "She has to want to come in and do it and at the moment i'm not seeing that from her" - Think I have to sadly agree with him entirely.

She did look pretty rough sometimes in the training clips but certainly seemed to be on the mend last night. It was a definite case of milking. Her cold is no worse than mine and if I can put 100% effort into a boring ergo rowing competition without complaint then she can can certainly do the same.

Exactly when Camilla had the flu she didnt make a big fuss of it...ok shes a pro dancer but its still the flu. Zoe knew what she was doing when she was holding her tissue but it didnt work really they were still in the bottom 2!
xxxx

Come on, let's be fair. Maybe she did need to genuinely blow her nose at that particular time, though I wouldn't be caught dead blowing my nose on TV. However, the trick is never to let our sympathy or lack of affect the way we vote. We need to disregard all the external events and vote purely on the dance. After all, that is what the show is all about, isn't it.

This is a bit harsh, I doubt she has the 'flu or she wouldn't have been able to dance at all, but she did look a bit pale and feeble looking.

I don't think she milked her cold too much really, I'm not a fan of her and Ian but I think she hasn't moaned excessively

Perhaps you didn't see her before she performed her first dance. As she waited to go on with her partner, she waved her tissue at the camera!
If that isn't trying to "milk" the sympathy vote, I don't know what is!
She's very clever, she knows what she's doing.

The single most annoying thing that Zoe is doing, is clinging on to Ian as though she's a drowning woman who's just found a li-lo.

At first I thought it was a bit endearing, but I'm starting to find it very, very irritating

Oh dear. Last week we had Gapgate. This week we have Tissuegate. Is there no end to the woman's crimes? Waving a tissue at the camera. I mean if you wanted proof of blatant pandering to the public you could not find a better image. (NOT)

I find Zoe's self-deprecating behaviour a bit irritating and I think that Bruno in particular has done Zoe and Ian no favours in marking them very highly, particularly this week in the Cha Cha which even old dunderheads like me could see did not deserve a 9. But except for this week, when she was ill, every time she has danced, this gawky, awkward, overly apologetic (and yes, admittedly, slightly annoying )woman) is transformed into something glamourous or romantic or sexual as the dance demands. She inhabits the dance and is wonderful to watch.

Never mind the tissues. Feel the dance.

What is the problem with Zoe? She can dance and had danced better than all her competitors. Why has this turned so many people against her?

Same, she's always clinging to him, even when they are supposed to be standing waiting for the judges comments in the results show and when they are waiting to hear the results in the spotlight. It looks very unprofessional. I mean pull yourself together girl.

Thought the shameless waving of the tissue at the screen was a big much and I think that lost her votes. When people are ill you really can't keep on saying it as people will get annoyed. I think the trick is keep it on the down low and people will be like oh look how well she performed and got through it even though we know shes sick.

great post crystal, u r right, on the dance floor Zoe becomes a swan but i bet someone will come along in this thread and give her more grief than they give to child molesters.

I didn't think Zoe was trying to exploit her illness (which wasn't flu obviously, but I couldn't dance with some of the non-flu illnesses I have had recently) either, and I sometimes find her irritating too (although not in a way that prejudices me against her dancing). Despite being ill, she was still able to attack the Latin much more than Patsy did (whose half-hearted movements annoyed me again).

Very well said Crystal Tips - she transforms herself on the dance floor. As does Darren in his own way.

What I paticularly like about Zoe is that she takes risks. Her tango is the most dangerous and edgy dance in the show so far IMHO.

I don't think it's to do with her personally, it's the way we're forcefed how wonderful she is by the Beeb and some of the judges.

The cha cha routine last night was distinctly lacklustre, both in content and presentation. Now this was quite possibly due to the fact that Zoe was ill for much of the week and Ian did the best he could with the choreography under the circumstances. It can't have been easy and I did sympathise with them. But to score it the same as Colin and Erin's rumba as Bruno did, was simply silly. What I see emerging time and again is that the public do still have a sense of fair play and they reacted, not against Zoe and Ian, but against the judging.

I am not being forcedfed anything by anyone.

Watching ITT, Len said he worried about the Cha-Cha for Z&I because Ian tends to put in a lot of moves and they risk overdancing. This week he cut the choreography and he still gets slammed.

This is getting ridiculous - Zoe gets slammed for waving a paper hankie, funny, I don't remember any similar posts about James' bad back and accupunture visit, all faithfully recorded on VT for ITT, and referred to on several occasions both on ITT and SCD - so, where's all the condemnation for James so obviously milking the situation and going for the sympathy vote - whoops, there was none were there? - and rightly so, James had a bad back, Zoe had a bad cold, both facts, both have been commented upon within both programmes, both may/may not have got them sympathy votes - but strangely only one person is being condemmed for it.

I still find it endearing. It was James who annoyed me last night crushing Camilla against him every 5 seconds. He really was throwing her about. I thought the poor girl was going to end up completely flattened.

As to why Zoe goes down so badly with some people, well I'm not sure. I wonder if there's still a bit of bias against a woman who does well in competition with a man. I've found that this still exists mainly among women themselves. The competing woman is still seen as "getting above herself" when she goes up against a man. Especially where the man is fanciable.
That's my view of it anyway.

i rlly like zoe and i have sympathy for her being ill!
i do acting and i know wht its like to try and perform when ill
BUT - she did go on about it and milk it a bit hoping for the sympathy vote but in actual fact i think it had a reverse affect!!!

amyleah x

James' bad back hasn't been mentioned for weeks but I agree with the OP, Zoe seams to have something to moan about every week.

Perhaps she is just unlucky.

It seems like Zoe's actions are analysed on a ridiculous level and she's criticised for what ever she does. You certainly don't see these sort of posts directed at any of the others who've not felt great or have had their training time cut down. Are they not considered moaning too, or is moaning reserved exclusively for Zoe? As for the tissue waving at the camera, it looked like it was a bit of fun. Maybe I just "get" Zoe more, but it strikes me as the sort of thing she'd do.

The family problems wasn't a whine, it was offering a bit of support to her family. She didn't offer that up as an excuse. Isn't the exhaustion and illness one and the same? Seemed to occur at the same time. The plumbing accident was unfortunate, but if your boiler burst and flooded your entire house, I think that can be stressful for anyone and certainly took a lot of time out of her training. She didn't complain about that and ask for votes. She spoke about it when it was brought up about her week and how bad a time she'd had.

Poor girl can't do this and she can't do that. Perhaps she'd be best off taping up her mouth and standing ten feet away from Ian, lest she draws complaints of touching him too much.
Last edited by Kiera : 04-12-2005 at 13:55

No, James' moan of this week was he'd spent lots of time in the kitchen, the week before that he's been at The Food Show (or whatever that exhibition was). I've nothing against James, in fact I love his obvious love of the show and what he's doing, I'm just trying to point out quite a few of the celebs have various things going on in their life's which get mentioned on the show, but only Zoe seems to get taken to task about it. As I said, a few weeks ago James had a bad back, one weeks ago he was at the exhibition, this week he commented about being in the kitchen's a lot, it doesn't take a lot of spin to start a 'James coming up with excuses again' thread, and it would be just about as fair as this one is to Zoe (i.e. Not very)

Her head is too far up her own ass and she can't get it out?!

Get off Zoe's back..................are we judging dancing here or whether we like a person or not. If it's a personality contest, then it should be called Strictly Personality!!!

Zoe had a bad week this week dance wise and it wasn't helped by the fact that she was wrongly over-scored by the judges - but that isn't her fault - unless she was sticking a gun in their backs making them score her high!!!

She still danced better than Patsy or James, so she shouldn't have been in the bottom 2. As much as the Camilla/James chemistry are they/aren't they saga is nice - he is not as good at dancing as the others - so by rights should be the next to leave the competition.

Arlene got one think right this week......women are voting James because they fancy him...which is a sad fact!!!!!

Lets just stick to voting on the dancing and not on what the BBC chooses to show us from training sessions and backstage action!! That's just for entertainment value - not for judging!