Perfect solution :-

Show One
Contestants:- Emma Colin Zoe Jill Natasha Denise
Show Two
Contestants:- Mark Darren Aled Ray James Patsy
Show Three
Contestants:- Peter, Jan, Dermuid, Chris, Quentin, Chris


Everyone happy

Interesting idea but it would hard to determine the handicap amount, and the scores are probably too changeable week-on-week for it to work properly. For instance, say Matt had a handicap for the previous weeks, but then with the right dance, he suddenly does amazingly well. It would be unfair for him to have a handicap. Same with Peter really as he is quite good with ballroom, just not latin. Golf is easy to measure. It's completely factual whether one gets the ball in using three strikes or more etc. but dancing is so much more subjective.

They should just keep them all in to dance each dance (all 10) and at the end of the 10 weeks the judges place them in the order they want, viewers vote, combine the two and the top 3 battle out the next week with a wildcard from the judges.

Like that idea

I would much prefer that! I love the earlier weeks because you get to see so much more dancing. I guess the producers would never go for it though as there wouldn't be the tension they love every week. Shame though.

I believe that Louisa was on holiday with her folks (please correct me anyone who knows for sure)

Dunno about Georgina though

Year in, and year out I have this argument with people and it may have already been said on this thread but you don't have to vote for the best dancers, it is *not*, I repeat *not* a dance competition! It is an entertainment show, so vote for your fave dancer, or don't, vote for the one you feel has come on a journey, or don't, but all in all just vote for the one that entertains you - whether that be their personality, dance technique or backlash at the judges!

Nat
xxx

What I meant was that quite a few of the celebs have a lot of advantages which makes it unfair to vote for their dancing talents against others. If we vote purely for the dancing then the older celebs will never have a chance of winning i.e Tarbuck, purely because they aren't as agile as the fit, young, entertainers and sportsmen such as Emma and Mark.

If they were all professionals or at least all had the dame amount of experience and age, then lets vote according to dance performance, but this is an entertainment programme which just happen to feature dancing celebs, so I shall continue to vot for whoever entertain me the most.

Exactly.

If it was all about the dancing, why even ask someone like Peter to take part against someone like Emma. Just makes the competition seem unfair before it has even started.

Now that is an excellent idea! And to make it really fair they could switch partners each week as well to make sure people vote for the celebrity and not their favourite professional - although as a non-dancer I don't know if that is feasible.

Unless you are a SCD producer, I don't think you're in a position to make that statement in such a condescending manner. To me, and many others, a genuine competition in whatever discipline it might be IS entertainment. For me, watching people who have devoted weeks of their life learning & perfecting a new skill being despatched by virtue of a sympathy vote, is not.

So why bother picking people, say, like Darren Gough? From the outset you would never think he would have had dance or acting ability, whereas you may have thought that Fiona Philiips or Sarah Manners would have. Darren, though not the best dancer, did have ability however. You can't always tell from the outset.

Also, I am saying that picking people like Peter doesn't mean that it's therefore not about the dancing. I'm not saying I want a group of celebs with tremendous potential or of a certain age etc. What I'm saying is: fine, have the celebs who may be won't do as well, as it is entertaining. But when it comes to voting, it should then be about the performace and the skill shown. Yes, therefore, the bad dancers will go early, but so they should in a competition.

This may sound harsh but, so what?! Competitions are not about giving people turns at winning. THose older celebs go into it knowing they are never going to win, and probably don't think they should over the skilled dancers either.

I have very much enjoyed reading the views of everyone and can see both sides of the argument much more clearly now.

However, whereas in previous years there has only been two or three talented couples - almost guaranteed to get to the final stages - this year we have half a dozen or so potential winners and it seems a shame if they go out before the weaker dancers.

I imagine many people normally only begin to pick up the phone towards the end. Perhaps after seeing Ray go out, more people will vote and so raise more money for CIN.

Having all ten dance each week is great for entertainment, but wouldn't raise any money so is unlikely to be taken up

But by your criteria, Darren shouldn't have won - and would possibly have gone early on in the competition.

And sorry, but it is a wee bit condescending to say have the not so good celebs there for 'entertainment' and to use as cannon fodder. How are they going to improve - like Darren did - if they are only there for a week or so max - and why would they have any incentive to put the hours and work in knowing that however hard they work or train they are never going to be considered 'good enough' to progress?

As I said in my post, Darren wasn't the best dancer and I don't think he should have won, however I was trying to show in response to an earlier post, that you just don't know how someone will perform from the outset, and that therefore the Peters of this world shouldnt' be excluded just from preconceptions.

I'm really am sorry if my suggestion was condescending. I don't just mean they are there to point and laugh. There are dancers who while not brilliant, are also not awful. I enjoy wathcing them - that is the entertainment I meant - but not enough to vote for them. Besides which these celebs are putting themselves in the spotlight. I also don't think knowing they won't win discourages the celebs from putting in the effort. Jan for instance knew she wasn't a winner but put in so many hours. Many do it for the personal sense of achievement. They put in effort to improve themselves even if they know they won't win. FInally, I think it is unfortunate that the system means someone has to leave after only one or two dances, but that is simply the nature of competition.

Cool
But then we get to the tricksy subject of how you decide who is the best?
Is it the person at the top of the leader board? - from what I've seen on here, then not always!
Is the couple who should go out the ones at the bottom of the leader board? - again from what I've seen on here, not always!

While you are giving a large number of people a choice, then there is always going to be a difference of opinion. You can do your best to be as objective about it as you like - but dancing is very subjective, and even experts and people who judge sometimes can't decide amongst themselves, that with the best will in the world personal feelings are going to influence the decision.

Coupled with that, the BBC don't actually want a mass agreement - they work the personalities and other angles deliberately to make sure the votes are spread out over the couples. What would be the point in urging people to vote for your 'favourite' if everybodies favourite was the same!?

Yes, deciding which was a better dance is very subjective, and I take your points on board. For instance, if Emma was top on the leaderboard, but I thought that Mark's dance (coming second for example) was more technically accomplished and a better performance all round, then I would vote for Mark. It may be that I agree with one judge more, but at least I am still basing my decision on dance ability and performance. The thing that annoys me in when people clearly ignore dance ability altogether and put the emphasis on personality. So I don't think people should vote for Peter unless he genuinely displays dance talent on a level equating to the others.

I don't think she always says it the same way for everyone, but it doesn't matter all that much. We're encouraged to vote for people because we want to keep them in, regardless of whether we think they're the best dancer.


We can vote however we want. You may think "the bad dancers should be filtered out both by the judges and the public", but that doesn't seem to be the programme's view and it doesn't have to be the viewers' either.

That's fine and as I said vote for what entertains you, so u vote for the best dancers but don't complain about people who want to vote for sympathy, for progress or just because they like the person !

Nat
xxx

Nobody should be critical of peoples motives for voting. People are free to vote for whomever they choose and for whatever reason.

I note that nobody is jumping up and down at the people voting for Mark just because they fancy him!

If Mark were an awful dancer we would though.

True!

However, amongst the GBP, there is always going to be a base of Man Utd/Eastenders/Spice Girls/Rugby/Cricket/Bad Girls/Changing Rooms fans who will vote regardless (I personally know a couple of blokes who have no interest in dancing, but are big Man U fans and so are voting for Peter).

Ray didn't really have a fan base, so was always going to be in jeapordy if he was down the leaderboard.

No he's seems to be the least well known. Yet he was on Corrie I don't watch it myself but I would of thought that would have made him a household name for many - maybe not as much as EE regarding SCD - but still should have given him abit of a fanbase. Or was he only on the show very briefly??

Yes, I know we are encouraged to vote to save the couple we want. What I 'm arguing is that although someone says that, and although they don't mind whether you vote for entertainemtn or on dance ability, that does not mean that in turn we must follow the view portrayed by the programme.

You say we can vote how we like which is undoubtedly true. But if that is so, then surely the view you feel is portrayed by the programme is totally irrelevant anyway. I am not saying everyone WILL and MUST vote for the best dancers; I'm saying people SHOULD vote on dance ability and SHOULD NOT just vote on personality/entertainment. That is the distinction I'm trying to make, and as far as how the programme portrays it, that it totally irrelevant in my opinion.