Why?

Because people will not vote for their favourites not to be at the bottom two and then we will DEFINITELY have those in the middle of the leaderboard who might be good but had a slightly off-day at the bottom two, aka Emma and Louisa and the judges will have no choice but to pick one of their favourites out of the competition.

If the judges kept saving their favourites then the public perception of 'unfairness' might make them stop watching SCDV half-way through the competition to something else instead (such as *cough cough* the X-factor...

What say you?

The good - It will help the better dancers to stay in the competition which is a positive
The bad - It will allow the judges to keep their favourites, who won't necessarily be the best dancers.

I don't think it will stop viewers watching, it could be potentially more exciting. It may even make viewers vote even more, as if your favourite isn't the best dancer they need to be kept away from the bottom two entirely - rather than just bottom position. I do think it will create some controversy though.

Most definitely !!

The only person to really lose out is CIN as the panic underdog voting won't go on. On top of the chaos phone voting is in anyway, I think the series will generate little income in all weeks but the semi, perhaps, and the final.

I don't have a problem with the judges choosing just so long as they are fair. The minute they have an obvious pet and we see them saved I think the public will be annoyed. If they don't do that then I like this system.

I don't have a problem with the judges choosing just so long as they are fair. The minute they have an obvious pet and we see them saved I think the public will be annoyed. If they don't do that then I like this system.[/quote]

I agree.

I realised I made a mistake in my original post. I meant people WILL be voting for their favourites (whether they are good or not) out of the bottom two and we might be left with the situation like Emma and Louisa...

Sorry to be playing catch up already, but what is the new format???

Public vote and judges vote as normal, but the bottom two will now have a dance-off where the judges decide who to save and who to send home, a la Xfactor

Remember Spoony.

Total and utter travesty that he and Ola got the push. I remember the conspiracy theories that were flying around here, I gave a rather good one myself. Sommat about women of the UK not wanting their men getting all unreasonable at the sight of Ola undulating on the tv each week.

Sorry I digress this new system allows the judges to make the final cut of the scalpel, and let's be honest they know a bit more about dancing than most of us. Heck SCD could have been ruined at it's birth if Chris Parker had been allowed to win. If the judges had the final say he would have gone at least before the final and we would not have had the unpleasent sight of judges marking tactically and almost pleading with the GBP to come to their senses every week, in some vain attempt to get him out ASAP, that never worked.

At least give the new system a chance and I am sure if it ends up with a horrid bunch then hey we'll just have something else to moan about.

As evidenced by other programmes, people will still phone vote, despite all of the changes. If you trained a camera on two housebricks and asked the viewers to vote for a housebrick, they would.

Still think it is a c**p idea - don't understand why they have to change it bloody Beeb

I still think it would not solve the problem. If they have this system of judges having the final say, slow starters ala Matt Dawson might not have emerged in this series.

I hope the compromise would be that they have the final say only up til the quarter finals, then leave those four or five couples to the public to vote after that.

Any thoughts?

Someone like Matt Dawson could still progress - he was never in the bottom two until the semi-final, so the judges would never have gotten their say. The same with someone like Peter Schmeichel who was never in the bottom two until the week he left.

One look at DOI or Joseph will tell you these things are still possible the judges only have their say over the bottom two.

Yes, I was aware Matt and Mark were never at the bottom two. My point is this year the slow starter might not be as lucky as Matt Dawson in that sense, y'know?

Still, I would have liked to see more of Spoony and Ola last year. I wasn't particularly sure of Ray and Camilla though. The only good impression I had of them were their VW.

My feeling is that the not so popular celebs are going to be in big trouble every week. It's as much about your personal popularity as your dancing. I.E Steph's popularity would see her get more votes than Kelly who may be a better dancer, and ultimately keep Steph out of the bottom two

You forgot that BBC is trying to capture us male viewers. We basically vote for the fittest one, so long as it's not a pain to watch her dance routine. So I think as long as she doesn't fall flat on the floor and work on being sexy (look at the outfit she's trying in the preview!), the male viewers will try to keep her in for as long as possible.

How many female (or for that matter male) voters will be voting for Steph TBH (though I really like her but I can't see her appealing to any particular age group or even gender)? I think Alesha, though I really like her bubbly personality with Matt in their training footage, will not get very far because she may not have the fan base out there and may end up in the bottom two and 'forced' out of the competition...

i guess the problem will arise if / when lots of people vote for the underdogs (plural) - ie if there are two chris Parkers that do NOT end up in the bottom two, and two better dancers - eh spooney Plus Matt Dawson end up in the bottom two - who do the judges pick???

Bingo! Exactly what I was trying to say.

Judging by the Sable Colby forum Steph has plenty of popularity already. Whoever is teachers pet might suffer a backlash especially if they don't have a substantial fanbase

its a shame people have historically voted for the underdog - ok Chris Parker was mildly entertaining, but Georgie was aweful and hated it, and Fiona just felt humiliated. I don't think the GBP were very kind really.

But maybe by people voting for the underdog those very people have caused this change???

Cue in Gabby...

Poor James!

I didn't watch series one, two or three so I don't know much of Fiona. I think she felt humiliated because Brendan was mean to her. Under, say, Darren's hands Fiona might fared better on the dance floor perhaps... Georgina was awful but she did seem to improve when she did her foxtrot, and it was the week she was voted out...

I think BBC is trying to copy ITV's X-factor, people are still going to vote for the underdogs. I remember there was this boy-man Ray in the X-factor that couldn't sing to save his life and the very traumatising McDonald Brothers was dreadful as well. What happened? The audience voted them in week after week and Ray was even in the final! Yuk.

I think she'll be in big trouble in week 2. It's generally thought that those doing the quickstep should survive, Gabby's doing the rumba, and she'll have to fight it out against Letitia, Penny and Kelly

Is it confirmed that Gabby is doing rhumba? From the training clip, it looks more like quickstep to me...

Their training looked like the quickstep to me. I didn't notice what Penny and Ian were doing but it looked like Kelly, Letitia and Alesha doing the rumba, the others the quickstep. I have to say the top three women last year all started with the quickstep. Although I hope Alesha breaks that trend!!