I disagree - I think Penny did the better dance. Gabby was always good technically, but I never felt that she found the soul of each style, whereas Penny captured it very well.

Obviously, neither of them should have been there, but as they were, I think it was the right decision.

Everyone made a fuss about it - Len has specifically mentioned Spoony's exit as one reason why he liked the new system, because he thought it would avoid that sort of thing.

Of course, that was before last week...

The trouble is, as we can all see, the celebs are not starting off on an equal footing. Maybe on the next series a real attempt should be made to make sure that none of them has ever had any dance experience at all - or anything remotely related to it!!!!

A good scenario would have been for one of the rubbish dancers who had been voted thru to have withdrawn.

or alternatively make sure that they all have had some dance experience

Please don't get me started on the singers! Right, I'm not going there.

What they should do to make it fairer is to weight the order that they come in against their respective judges scores, and then weight those results against the popularity vote. Then for example, you would get Matt with 11 * 36, and Kate with 1 * 16 or whatever she got, and so on for all the rest, then these results would be multiplied by whatever votes they got. Someone would have to be extremely popular to get very bad marks from the judges but still stay out of the bottom two consistently.

That's the word I was looking for - SOUL-LESS. Gabby might have been technically more correct but it was so very clinical and lacking in any feeling or soul!

LCDMAN...............The man with no sig!

Excellent idea and would still generate money from phone votes for charity

I think that the illegal lift was a put up job to provoke controversy. The BBC weren't to know they'd get a real one with the Gabby/Penny fiasco. If you play the show back you will see that Brendan looked unhappy in the Green Room early on. I think he was told to put in a lift to spice things up. I believed it when he said that he'd behave this time.

If the public are expected to vote on the standard of dancing, why are the phone lines open for voting from the beginning of the programme? It simply exposes the programme for what it really is - a popularity contest coupled with a revenue generator.

Well the phone lines stay open all week - which is stupid as some people will be racking up their phone bills now.

To all those people who complain about Kate/Kenny getting through, vote for:

Alesha
Dominic
Gethin
John
Kelly
Leticia
Matt
Penny

.... otherwise you can't really complain!

Yes I am in the industry and I am aware of the fact that the musicians are not complimenting the Smooth dancers by giving them good interpretations of swing music.

As a bad dancer myself I can say that the moment a band starts to swing my dancing becomes easier, less worse, more enjoyable.

The band I hear on SCD is not performing as I would expect session musicians perform, that is playing within the context of the dance being performed.

Bass too heavy whatever, too much accent on the low drums. I could have done with hearing the time being played on the cymbals so that it could be heard. I recall, one number - I wish I could remember which tune - a tremedouse loud back beat which stopped the swing element of the music in its tracks. I admire any dancer who did well in spite.

Employ some senior session players they can play anything as it was meant to played. And for heavan's sake there must be a good singing group out there somewhere. If you have to have on!

JRK, as a musician I would be interested in your point of view with regards to the sound coming through our TV and the music heard live in the studio.

I have watched most major rock/pop concerts on TV and, having been in the sound industry for many years, I have found the playback as recorded as dreadful.

What do you think?

i dont get that result

and dint arlene say pennys dance was boring originally

Not only was this a ridiculous result but now they are editing Brucies comments. Apparently he said something about 'next week remember this is a dance contest' but it was edited out. Another reason why the Sunday show is taking the viewers for a ride. It is blatant censorship of his point of view.

Well at least the BBC can't be accused of rigging it. It must be so tempting for the producers to fix this and save Gabby. I have always been against trusting the public with a vote on anything apart from elections and this confirms for me that I have been right all along.

The reason Gabby was in the bottom two was simply because no one thought to vote for her. They all just assumed she would sail through.

I think Penny suffers from footballers wife syndrome. The public loath them and she is probably seen as an Essex girl who marry s a rich rock star and thats her only claim to fame. People are jealous and she has not gained public votes in this contest over the weeks.

Maybe the judges should have saved Gabby as Penny just does not have the publics support however good she is. She will go out early as well.

I agree with the reverse solution where the judges and maybe the audience choose the bottom two and the public saves one of those.

One thing they could do is publish the percentage votes of the public on their web site so we can see how well they did.

I liked the way they edited out poor Bruce when he got angry and reminded the public it was a dance contest not a popularity one. Must have been aimed at all those middle aged house wifes that watch GMTV.

Bearing in mind the BBC bent the rules when voting for the name of the new Blue Peter Cat - they wanted Socks instead of Cookie - it wouldn't be at all shocking that they bent the rules to have the dance off they did - after all X Factor was buzzing with the Would She or Wouldn't She show up scenario with Mrs O.

As for Kenny supposedly offering his place to Gabby - what does Ola have to say about all this?

Maybe this just shows that even though the phone vote is for "Charity" (done in Smashy voice!) it's all a bit of fix.

Have to say that this is all grossly unfair on Penny and Ian who may have gone through on the judges legitimate thought that they were the best

The judges said it was tough, close etc and had to make the best of a bad job- not a fix and not an ideal situation.

In a few weeks no one will care unless we have a Kate / Kenny final and even then it is only a TV show.

Sorry if thats not a popular viewpoint!

I agree. It's outrageous they cut his comments out. By doing so are the BBC saying this is not a dance competition?

Well said, FF!

Generally speaking, in the booth the band will sound excellent.

When broadcast you can actually have transmission problem if your broadcast too loud a signal. This being so, someone turns the signal down, not selectively just down. Watching the master volume meter..

The music, this always ruins, the one that relies on dynamics, light and shade, rather than volume, suffers.

For my money the band in this case does not help it's cause.

O.K let's look at this again

Gabby and James found themselves in the bottom two because people didn't vote for them whatever reason.

What's done is done, it's no good raking it up now, but to win SCD you have to have two things, 1, be a reasonable dancer to start with or develop into one via the journey
2, and perhaps the most important come across as a likeable and warm person.

If you don't have both of these you are not going to win SCD.

And please leave off Kate and Anton-it's not their fault that they are so popular

I think the judges were being a bit hypocrytical. They keep saying it's a disgrace that "the public voted Gabby out" well no the judges voted Gabby out.

There all saying its all about the dancing but in terms of technicality Gabby did better than Penny (who we all love and are jealous of according to Fiona phillips ) I'm not saying that she isn't a good dancer she's better than others but it should have been her who was voted out.

I watched some of GMTV to catch the news headlines and saw Fiaona talking to whoever it was and said it was because of the publics view on women that there not aloud to be compettive etc..that made me kind of angry when Brian and Willie were voted out no one said "oo your being sexist" or whatever thay were the worse dancers end of story. It's harder compettion for men because they have to lead the pros which most of them with the exception of Matt don't.

Come Dancing was a popular show for decades. It was taken off air because younger people weren't interested in it - the dancing or the competition aspect. The programme makers dismissed the middle aged female presenter (excellent) and replaced her with a younger woman (she was about 38.1/2 years old - hardly "young"). But the Beeb couldn't re-activate interest in the show among the young, who they realised are are shallow and want to watch "slebs doing stuff".

An analogy to the above would be that years ago when you sold your house, you didn't have to tart it up and place furniture and bits to make it look "naice". People just came it looked at the rooms, size etc and liked it or not. Younger people are a bit silly and shallow and seem not to be able to make judgements easily without a lot of window dressing, so your house has to be gussied up for them.

The best dancers on the show are Kelly, Alesha and Matt.
Leticia is improving, but her ballroom is better than her Latin American: time and practice will tell.