I just thought this might be a good question before we all get totally set in our views?

I thought Marks' jive was better second time around. Still loathed Matt's VW and thought the judges got it right. In retrospect, Louisa looked very dejected from the beginning.

Marks jive was worse second time round in my opinion and he should have been knocked out not Louisa

Matt's samba looked exactly as it did the first time - lame.

There is no way that he would have got 8's for that a few weeks ago - they were evening it up I felt after being harsh about his VW.

I preferred Matt's samba second time round but it still didn't deserve 8's & I was still unimpressed with the high scores for Emma's rumba.

I actually thought Louisa seemed the most mature I have ever seen her on last night's SCD. Both her & Vincent only seemed to become dejected after all of the scathing remarks from the judges but they still battled on.
Last edited by SnapCracklePop : 10-12-2006 at 21:35

I thought the jive was undermarked last night , it was a great performance and did not deserve 5 .

Louisa was unfortunately the weskest dancer last night , but I didn't think she would go and I still cannot see how her public vote went down in the space of 10 minutes in the way it obviously did .

Perhaps a look at the red button comments from unbiased Matt Cutler would help.

The same for me too . I didn't like it much the first time , but watching it again I felt no better about it .

I loved Marks jive

Well, I didn't watch the repeat tonight, but watched the show again today and Marks Jive was better second time around. It still wasn't his best effort and wasn't as good as I hoped it would be, but it was still worth of straight 8's in my opinion.
I dont want to be totally anti-Matt, but his scores compared to Marks were farcical. His samba was, whilst technically sound, was bland and charmless. Accusations that definitely couldn't be aimed at Mark.

Jive gets better and better. He did things out there that just can't be surpassed by anyone this year. However, he made mistakes and fine shouldn't have been looking at top marks. The 5 was a disgrace.

In the end though I think the positions were reasonably fair. Emma was overmarked (unnecessarily IMO). Because she did a great Tango her Rumba didn't need the overmarking it had as she would still have been in first place.

Louisa didn't have an inspiring night which was a real pity given her previous consistency. I just think a lot of her fans were out for the dance off, personally. Wouldn't you have been at 9 o'clock on a Saturday when you were 18?
Last edited by Kez100 : 10-12-2006 at 21:48

Mark's jive was flawed but entertaining (he really seemed to give it all). I think he's not over or under-marked. Excellent Waltz. Finally nailed his posture. Deserve four nines (not more IMHO).

Matt's Samba is a little 'safe', definitely not as exciting as Mark's last week, think it's slightly overmarked. A 30 would be nice. Not so good VW. But this dance is often rather boring (except Mark's, his looked romantic)

Emma's Rhumba is still stocky and lumpy. Passionless. No way a performance worthy of two nines. Maybe an overall score of 30 would be more honest. I like her Tango. I think her second performance (dance off) was better and definitely deserve 35 overall score, if not four nines.

Louisa, I actually like her slightly cheesy American Smooth. Not technically difficult and she did make some mistakes, but I think it's fairly marked. But I disagreed that her Rhumba is 'bad'. At least if she gets 30 like Emma, I would have no problem. Emma's rhumba is not significantly better than Louisa's.
Last edited by SCD-Observer : 10-12-2006 at 22:30

Ditto SCD-Observer.

Am I the only one who thought Emma's tango was over-praised and over-marked? I thought the choreography was awful, the robotic moves looked ridiculous and it lacked any sort of passion.

No cissy, I totally agree with you.

Dont mean for this to sound horrible but sometimes Emma reminded me of a mannequin from certain angles in the tango last night ...

Louisa's fans were all voting like crazy but it couldn't make any difference the thing is Louisa could never bet Emma's 4 points from the judges with her 1!

Mark and Karen --- Most deffo the worst on Saturday night and should of gone in my opinion.

Louisa and Vincent -- Liked the American smoothe didnt like the Rumba

Matt and Lilia -- VW was a little too bouncy but it was good, absolutely love the Samba

Emma and Darren -- by far the best on the night

Has watching this evening's review altered anyone's opinion?

No.
In my opinion, the bias and skillful manipulation of the situation by the production department looked exactly the same to me, second time round..

Mark & Karen's waltz was wonderful.

As Arlene said, the jive was way too complicated for a beginner. I thought he did very well with what Karen gave him to do.

[quote=cissy scouse]Am I the only one who thought Emma's tango was over-praised and over-marked? I thought the choreography was awful, the robotic moves looked ridiculous and it lacked any sort of passion.[/QUOTE

Well over course over-praised (it was Emma) but for the first time not necessarily over-marked,

I agree that it didn't show passion but I don't think it was necessarily supposed to - I saw it as 'she's a maneater' i.e. robotic in devouring men and he was supposed to show attraction/subservience etc.

I thought it tailed off and was quite surprised the judges didn't remark in any way on that. But someone who Emma leaves cole, I actually thought it quite good and even possibly improving on 2nd view where the 'going nowhere' didn't seem to matter

I thought so too.

They wheeled out French & Saunders for Emma.
Voxpops for Matt.
Dad & Gran for Louisa.
Nothing for Mark!

Tess even spoke to all the contestants except Mark in the 'rest room' chat.

What on Earth are they playing at?!!

If for no other reason I'd like Mark to win just to spite them all!!

I thought Matt's VW was slightly dull but good. Possibly a little undermarked because technically it was ok (much better than Louisa's last week) and he performed it pretty faultlessly. I really enjoyed his Samba which I felt was easily best Latin of the night, though that was more by default.

I thought Louisa was pretty bland and look defeated in both dances.

Mark's first dance was the dance of the night. The jive, whilst fun, was probably the worst. 5 was harsh, but it did deserve the lowest marks of the night. It was too difficult for him.

Emma's tango was OK. I thought she looked too robotic. No way was it only one mark off M&K's first. Her rhumba was equally as poor as Louisa's.

I actually thought all the dancers were pretty equal. Mark and Emma both had a stronger and a weaker dance. Louisa had two bland dances and Matt had too good, but not overly impressive dances. I think Emma should have gone though as she wasn't any better than the others, and only stayed because she was overmarked.

I only saw it for the first time tonight and I'm still seething. I much preferred Louisa's rhumba to Emma's and can't get over the disparity in the marking. Karen drove me insane. Can she not stand there and take the judges comments without having to shout them down. I loved her last year with Bill, she is really starting to annoy me and put me off their partnership. From a place where I despised Matt Dawson coming into the competition he's now my favourite with Louisa gone. Felt very sorry for Louisa and thought she took the criticism better than she has done in the past.

Does anyone know exactly how the danceoff was scored? Was it purely on the public vote, or were the judges scores taken into account too?

The judges are in a dilema

Emma is not as good as the hype,and her and Darren will be struggling to win the contest.

Matt is a revelation, and is improving week on week.

Mark and Karen can be brilliant or mediocre

It could still be an Emma and Matt final which is worrying in itself for the BBC :sleep:

What parallel will Bruno draw to try and separate them given his Sophies Choice gaff which also featured in the highlights.

Craig is an Emmarite through and through

Len and Arlene are crucial ,

French and Saunders where wheeled in this week to the Spice Camp,why who is this .......Cherie ? for the next episode.

A two man dance off for the Final would be a fair conclusion to this years competition.

As a casual observer of the competition thus far Emma aint done enough graft to warrant 1st place. But at the end of the Day will probably pinch it and end the programme altogether.

Karen doesn't annoy me and I like her, but I really wish she would stop defending Mark so fiercely. I also wish she would stop telling everyone what a shy little flower he is who needs courage to get up there and shake his hips. Look, he's not THAT shy. He's been out there dancing on that floor for the last few weeks and has quite often done steps on his own. Please stop saying "but he's worked SO hard this week" and generally treating him like a seven year old boy appearing in the school pantomime.

He's also not frightened of speaking, either. He has done guest cricket commentary and summariser spots on Sky TV and has often been on radio these last weeks giving his opinion on the débacle unfolding in Australia (aka The Ashes).

If Karen's choreography was to blame for the poor scores, she should just accept it and shut up. Let Mark speak for himself.

Hiya itsnotcricket! Are you Boycott in disguise? Don't give up hope yet....yes, I know I'm barmy....

I used to enjoy Karen's giggling and bubbly personality, but in the last few weeks, I'm finding her a bit self-centred. Her choreo should have one thing in mind: To show off her celeb, and his abilities, someone needs to remind her that, but when Arlene tried to say something about the Jive, Karen started talking about the Ballroom, so why didn't she just make the Jive choreo simpler? She avoided answering the question.

I also agree that Mark is not as shy as she makes out, he has alot to say for himself, and is never lost for words on fivelive when I've heard him, so she should let him speak more when Tess interviews them, and not be so OTT all the time.