It makes a MASSIVE difference watching ANY performance live. As far as SCD is concerned countless quests on ITT have stated it`s seems like a completely different show when your sat feet away from the dancers. Many people have stated that the errors seem far more obvious when watching live in the studio than when they have viewed the same performance on TV. The eye connected to a human brain is a fantastic piece of "kit" It has "awareness" which the most expensive camera in the world will never have.

Exactly. Other judges have certainly had biases. It doesn't usually do the couples any favours because the public get the hump and stop voting for them.

He can't, can he? Well, I loved it when he gave the 10 because it was fun and made me laugh.

So what if rules were broken? This is a lighthearted TV show. No-one's life is going to be ruined by the odd extra point being given.


Exactly. I could begin to understand all the fuss about this if it was a proper dancing competition with professional dancers only, but this is just showbiz.

The only thing I can compare it to is the senior tour tennis - the men's doubles are played for laughs and points are often awarded where they shouldn't be, but it's all part of the show. Now if that happened on the regular men's tour it'd be wrong, but when it's for entertainment, I really do fail to see the problem.

Marking doesn't work like that unless you are in a field where marking does work mechanically . If you see something excellent and there are moments of weakness many markers would go with the excellent. Excellent in turn would beat good with no lapses. First class doesn't mean first class all the time and good all the time isn't first class. You need judges who can tell the difference and checking systems (other judges) to check , bring different viewpoints and agree the overall mark - but there's no reason to think SCD doesn't have all that.

Even in mechanical marking there is an issue how much to take off for problems. Half a point may make no difference to which paddle you put up as you are only marking to the nearest whole number. Its also perfectly possible if you are Bruno to look at Brendan's lift, note that he has already lost 3-6 points because of it and decide that enough has been deducted already. Agree we don't know how he knows the marks but I don't think all the looks, conversations and writing we see as the judges watch are pointless. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the judges even compare scores on what they have seen at the rehearsal stage which would lindicate how many marks had been deducted for the lift and provoke a response from Bruno ss soon as he saw anyone write an 8. .

As long as you tell the judges this everything should be fine

The other ones you mean?

The thing is, I do have a suspicion that this whole thing is manufactured - Brendan's third lift, Bruno's 10, the relentless banging on about on ITT, all to whip up interest in the show.

If people are taking part in the discussions with perspective, again just for fun, then that's fine, but sometimes I worry people take it too seriously. I took the year Zoe was in it too seriously, and it spoilt my enjoyment of it to a certain extent. It's a shame when something is there to be enjoyed that it ends up causing people stress.

But maybe I'm worrying about it too much now.

Have you seen Karen's interview on GMTV? She said (and I agree with her!) that the judges are there to mark on the technical aspect of the dance, and not be swayed by their emotions! She is a judge in various dancing competitions, and she has to let her head rule her heart (my words, not hers!). If, as they now keep telling us, this is a dancing competion, Bruno is there to look at the technicalities of the dance, and mark down for mistakes, like the other judges did, and like he did for the other dancers. As I understand it, all the couples start off with a 10 score, and have marks deducted for various reasons. There were obvious reasons (the extra lift and the gapping) for K&B to lose 2 marks from the perfect 10, and all the other judges did that. As far as the judges are concerned, it is mechanical marking, the people who phone in to vote are responsible for the other aspect, i.e. the emotional vote.
I believe that the fact that the judges are so inconsistent with their voting, and unbelievably and unnecessarily personal with their criticism of the less "talented" dancers and show such obvious bias towards their favourite dancers, is the reason we end up with the sympathy vote. In previous series, as soon as they have started to be a bit kinder and less abusive to the worst dancers, they get voted out.
Blimey - I've waffled on there!

*TEN!* I love it when Bruno gives top marks - it makes me jump up off the sofa and gives me a warm feeling

It is showbiz but the competition is fierce which I think is part of what makes it so addictive - the celebritys take it very seriously and put in so much hardwork that it raises it out of just being a glitzy t.v programme and makes it into a serious dancing competition that we all love and are all passionate about ... i'm so happy it's back!!

Except that the reaction on this forum indicates that there is great interest in it, and if ITT had not "banged on" about it, they would have been (quite rightly) accused of ignoring it and sweeping it under the carpet, as by Monday it was indeed a hot topic.

Maybe I`m being naive but that saddens me.
Perhaps I take it too seriously too

I don't think that can be right.

I don't believe that in any competition like this the judges are there to mark only technical aspects, or that there's mechanical marking.

Figure skating has gone further in that direction that anything else, with it's "code of points", and the judging still isn't mechanical or only about technical aspects.

It's possible to mark "with your head" about non-technical aspects, and in any case I think a lot of people are confusing marking with your heart (out of an emotional response to the performance) and being biased towards certain dancers.

I also don't believe SCD has ever been judged in a mechanical, marking-down way, or that the other judges did it in this case, or that Bruno did it with everyone else.

I don't agree with the assumption that every fault people think they see has to cost 1 point either. If it did, some of the couples would be getting zeros! There's no evidence that the other judges gave Kelly and Brendan 8s because of the two things you mentioned, rather than as punishment for the lift or for some other reason.

Finally, if they do keep telling us it's a dancing competion, that is constantly contradicted by Tess encouraging us to vote for our favourites and saying, especially when the couple has low marks from the judges, that they need our votes.

Why?

You think the cameras never give us a better look at anything than the judges get?

That's one of my pet dislikes too!

I thought that the marks were given to an adjudicator before they were 'revealed' but I wouldn't be suprised to learn that the judges had a little chat between themselves. I don't think for the judges it's the total score that is the important thing - more where the couples end up on the leader board and I could well see that they would ammend the mark they give to ensure leader board place.

If the Beeb wanted to stop this contraversy (which at a guess I would say it doesn't!) they could do all manner of things, from giving the judges the option to mark with decimal places, they could drop the highest and lowest score and just grade them on the 2 middle marks or add the marks together and then take the average score.

Giving Len the paddles numbered 1 to 5 might help, cos he does seem to be disadvantaged in that area

Have to say, that I've always thought Bruno was a bit of a joke - and when he told Zoe and Ian something like that he wanted to give them a 10 just for standing there looking gorgeous and perfectly matched and they could have danced anything - it just confirmed it. Nothing he has done since has changed my mind!

IMVHO I agree and think that if we got rid of Bruno, it might stabilise the other judges.

He is like an infectious desease in the very worst way.

Sometimes his remarks make you want to barf. In fact all of his remarks make me want to barf

Hey, don't worry about it - it's only me being suspicious! I'm probably completely wrong!

I disagree. I love his comments...always very colourful and exuberant IMO. His marking on the other hand has gotten a bit crazy as have his constant spats with the other judges. I think he should stay but be kept on a much tighter leash.

Come on Bunny, Bruno is totaly out of control.

He does not contribute anything of worth to the show.

He gets so excited that his remarks become meaningless.

All he wants to do is be the centre of attention.

Get rid of him I say and good ridence.

No, no, I wasn't trying to infer there hasn't been any interest from the viewers, but I do think too much has been made of it - much like too much was made of Mark and Karen's wardrobe malfunction last year.

I'm impartial when it comes to the couples in this series, and I agree there was no need for the third lift, but I just don't care about it that much.

But then, the show in general hasn't grabbed me as in previous years so I think that's the reason for my general feeling that everything's being overplayed and belief that none of it really matters.

Sorry, that all sounds rather negative - I'm not trying to say people shouldn't care, of course!

Quite apart from the b&k controversy I found it more shocking that the judges saved Penny & Ian!

I'm no Gabby fan but her samba was streets ahead of Penny's - both for technique and entertainment. As was her quickstep which was also marked unfairly imo.

Perhaps it's the pros who the judges favour as opposed to the celebs - maybe Ian Waite is more popular with the judges than James?

Absolutely agree with you - I've said this on many other forums. If the BBC had any inkling that a big name would have gone out last week (no matter what happened last year, they surely must have thought with the judges choice that nothing like that would happen again) then I don't think the third lift would have been in that dance.

The BBC were worried about the ratings so to stir things up a bit they got the Strictly bad boy to misbehave. Bruno giving them a 10 and then Gabbygate were just the icing and candles on the cake as far as the Beeb were concerned.

They were? Not according to any evidence that has been made public, and not according to any viewing figures.


Opinion & supposition of course. But then again, where would we be without an internet conspiracy theory?

maybe, but then again this forum and a few threads in particular have been making much of it as well, so maybe that's an indication?


Rules are there for a reason, to ensure fairness. Lifts do grab attention, they are showy and can give a couple a voting advantage with the public. That's why I care ...... either all couples are limited to two lifts (and they abide by that), or it becomes unfair on those that stick by that rule (as their dance can have much less of an impact, much less of a lasting memory compared to others). that's why I care.

Do you know that for certain ?

What I meant was - the week before X factor had sharon Osbourne walking out and the big kerfuffle about that, so BBC were most likely concerned about people turning over to watch what's going on with X factor, finding they prefer it (especially as the results show is live on a Saturday night) as there is a bit of b*tching between the judges and general nastiness, and staying rather than coming back to SCD.

This years strictly has been very 'nice' so far - no controversy (don't forget B&C did a lift in their first dance last year so controversy was there from the start), everyone gets on extremely well, no backbiting and everyone supportive. The beeb needed to do something to keep the viewers hooked and without Gabbygate what better way than for the bad-boy-turned-good to turn bad again?

Of course, we will never know if this is true or not just as we will never know if JFK was bumped off by the CIA or genuinely murdered.

That gets the same result as what they do now.

The judges scores just put them in order, then the lowest couple gets 1 pt, the next gets 2, etc. (as all know).

Using the sum of the judges' scores (what they do now) and using the sum divided by 4 gives the same order, unless they 'round' or something, and then just wait for the controversies over that!

The ones who 'stick by the rule' win.

Say the 1st K&B ift was the extra one.

It wasn't spectacular, so did them little good, and it cost them a LOT: marked down by 3 of 4 judges, resentment from other dancers, possibly dislike from the public, and some judges will be ultra-strict with them now.

It probably cost them their chance of winning or even reaching the final or near it.