All through the judges comments on the Saturday Night shows and constant name dropping in ITT it seems SCD is a 2 horse race between

Emma Bunton and Louisa Lytton

I have no problem with either of these two winning but surely Mark Ramprakash has overall danced consistently best over the 4 weeks so far.

I don't think the judges see it as a two horse race. I do, honestly, think they want the best dancers to survive the opening rounds and get close to the final. What they appear to be doing in order to get that though, is keeping their favourites out of the mid section whatever the quality of their routine that night and, last night, that was wrong. Very wrong. Carol could have been robbed-she and Matthew did a beautiful dance. Thank goodness she wasn't.

IMO, the only ones fairly judged last night were Mark and Karen... Carol was judged abysmally low, and Emma and Louisa too high...

Maybe after Brendans outburst, the judges *might* look at what they have been doing? Though I am sure they can all justify to themselves the reason they judge how they do.

I think it would have been acceptable for mark and Karen to have got even higher scores.

I agree with everything else you have said!

Those who were overmarked will lose popularity, those who were undermarked will gain it. The judges are doing their favourites no favours by giving them higher scores than they deserve.

Yes, I think you're right, and it's a shame if good dances will end up being disliked for something they can't control

What the judges have to remember is that they only control 50% of the vote. We the public have the final say and that is a very important 50%

True - actually our votes carry more weight in the event of a tie.

I truly thought the judging was out all round agree that emma and louisa overmarked and that carol was marked low whilst Karen and Mark probably deserved their win thought to put them 5 points ahead of the field was wrong

Unfortunately it's the public that push out good couples and put Chris Parker in the final. I'd rather go with the judges any day even with their favouritism.

But if we the public feel that certain couples are being undermarked and others overmarked thats the only way we can have our say. I'm not saying we should vote for the worst dancer on the night

But the public are voting for the worst couple that's what is happening and has repeatedly happening during SCD over 4 series. Georgina didn't stay because she was undermarked it's because of sympathy, as soon as she was not the worst dancer she was gone. I very much doubt she went because people objected to Len giving her a 8.

I'm sure they all have their favourites but so far the true winners have always been successful & I'm sure it will continue.

Apart from last year when Darren Gough won, yes I know he had improved the most but it should have been between Colin & Zoe.

yep, i don't have a problem with emma or louisa but mark is fantastic, and i also think carol should be getting a bit more attention. as for the judges..grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

I have a feeling that its not so much a sympathy vote in these situations as it's a backlash against the judges vote.

Certainly in the first series - the nastier the judges comments about the celebs were - the more the public voted for the slated celeb to express their dismay at what had been said. Certainly in Series 1 - the likes of Claire Sweeney ( judges pet) and Lesley Garrett went as the public voted for Chris as they felt the judges were uneccessarily nasty and personal.

They need to realise that this is either a dance competition and mark and comment objectively on ALL the contestants, or its a straight personality contest and realise that being nasty only gets the public voting. Had they not got quite so personal in week 2 - and moderated the nastiness Geoorgina would have gone then - I reckon Len's autopsy comment would have got Georgie several thousand votes as did Arlene's and Craig's.

Someone should explain to them that 10 is absolute perfection, 9 is almost perfect, and in the early weeks of the competition - even an 8 should be beyond the reach of most of the celebs, and who the judges personally like or dislike is totally irrelevant.

I'd hazard a guess that most of the GBP tune in to watch this this programme because they want to see the celebs either do unexpectedly well or fall flat on their faces - TBH they watch to be ENTERTAINED by the dancing and couldn't care less about technical perfection or a difficult routine - they want to enjoy what's put in front of them...

Drooling, leching judges of both sexes, who clearly have their own agendas are ruining it for most viewers who DO tune in to see Brendan be a bad boy, listen to Brucie's lame jokes and watch the celebs strut their stuff. The judges hated James and Camilla last year - but whilst yes - his Latin was clunky and left a lot to be desired - his ballroom was a dream to watch - if not technically perfect - probably the reason he and Camilla came 4th!

I for one refuse to be told by a judge that I should respect their opinion when they have blatantly overmarked their favourite whilst penalising another for making the same mistakes - if spatula hands is a problem for Darren G or Ray - its a problem for Zoe and Emma too ditto poor footwork - if one contestant is being clobbered the others should be too!

They need to get rid of the shrivelled harpy and the overexcited no-mark, and get in at least ONE other judge who can assess ballroom properly (Paul Killick for Bruno - and Flick Colby/ Babs Lord ( well if we can have Hot Gossip on a dance team - why not Pan's People???) in place of Arlene - or even that Salsa woman.....

Just let us have some objective marks and comments - PLEASE!

Zoe Ball anyone?

Why do you say that it should have been between Colin and Zoe?
Is it because you thought them to be the best dancers overall rather than the most improved? I thought that Darren came from nowhere and had the most improvement overall whereas Colin is an Athlete and did have rhythm (very obvious from his first dance). Zoe had ballet training when she was younger and this gave both of them a head start. It was no different when Jill won. She had stage school and dance training and totally outclassed the others from day one.

Imo the show is about turning the non dancers into dancers. It's just a shame that they pit them with other celebs with some experience under their belts. It would probably be more fair if they were to take all the celebs from similar backgrounds ie, no experience or some experience and then this would be a much more open event.
I think possibly that the voting public took the same view as me to give Darren the title as he certainly was the lesser known of the three of them prior to the show. Zoe and Colin are extremely popular in the celebrity world so perhaps it does come down to seeing the underdogs shine.

I'll never understand how it will work out though. This series so far has the closest call yet with Mark, Ray, Carole, Emma and Louisa all being very close.

I wonder if the judges scores in future will reflect the performances and not just their love for hot totty or their baby girls???

Why do people always say Colin had an advantage because he was an athlete, as opposed to Darren!!! Darren was hardly a couch potato before he joined the show, he was a professional sportsmen who played for England and therefore was very, very fit. They were both sportsmen, so neither had an advantage! Colin was just better from the beginning, and Darren had to struggle to get there.

and Darren isn't?

Totally different styles of Athlete Callie.

Darren is big and beefy and plays cricket which is totally different to Colin's lean and lithe body. Both disciplines effect different types of training.

When you look at both of them at the beginning though it was evident that Colin had much more rhythm than Darren. Darren was clumpy and stiff whereas Colin was loose and flexible.

Colin had a much better start than Darren and imo (only) Darren had to work much harder to attain the skills.

Yeah I understand that, but in that case surely Darren, being a sportsman still had a major advantage over people like James Martin or even Bill. Does that mean they should have been in the final, because they have gone from doing no sport to several hours of dance training every week?

IMO Colin had no significant advantage to Darren. Having previous dance training is a completely different kettle of fish to being naturally rhythmic or having a more suited body to dancing. Therefore when judged fairly, looking at both as sportsmen with no previous dance training it is obvious who was the superior dancer.
Last edited by : : Callie : : : 29-10-2006 at 17:42

No. I think out of James, Bill and Darren, it was Darren who made the most improvement as his Latin was better than the others.

I tend to go on the basis that I look for the non dancers and make my judgements as the weeks progress when I can see their improvement.

I know that Darren is an Athlete but I don't think (in this case) that it gave him any more of an advantage over James or Bill. Darren was stiff as a plank, lumpy, clumpy and bumbling when he started but his transformation was truly a joy to behold.

I truly felt that Darren did this last year and deserved to win.

Yeah Darren's cricket training is about as hard as James work... Don't forget Chefs don't have it easy...

Imagine if they had Phil "The power" Taylor on the show