I felt the judges were too harsh on Alesha tonight in terms of that they twice said they expected nothing less than perfect performances from her and marked her down on this - yet they said to other celebrities they "didn't care" about slight mistakes they'd made.

I think they forget they all started at the same level and they're all just "celebrities" so they should really all be judged equally and on each performance.

The words may have been harsh, but the marks weren't. She got 38 for the Tango and 36 for the Samba. Personally I think the Samba was overmarked.

Arlene and Len expected perfection from her and still gave her tens. She's still overmarked tonight despite what the judges said. The Samba, though a technically difficult and full of Samba content, is NOT a perfect dance. Her tango was good, but I thought Zoe Ball's were better and they got the same score...

I think the judges expect a lot from Alesha because she was very good from the start so therefore they expect her to improve.

And people call her 'teacher's pet'. get over it, the girl has to be twice as good as anyone else, to get the same points.

And before anyone says that Gethins Salsa was better, it wasn't so much a Salsa was it? so should have been marked down for that.

Zoe's Tango is my favourite dance over all 5 series - Alesha's was good, but it was in no way as good as Zoe's. I still get goosebumps thinking about that Tango...

I thought the same, Gethin was allowed to make mistakes

Although I would have thought that the improvement from good to excellent (or even 'perfection' as the judges seem to want) is more difficult for anyone learning to dance than the move from bad to mediocre or mediocre to reasonable, so Alesha and Matthew will have a hard job to make any sort of *j* (can't bring myself to write it...)


disclaimer:
As a non-dancer, I may be talking rubbish

And the Tango , Craig was on the mark again.
Anyone else would have been told " great top half , shame about the feet "

And I like Alesha a lot , clearly the best in the show . I just wish the judges would not persist in marking so ridiculously high .

I loved Alesha's Tango. As For latin, I think that Gethin performed better than Alesha, but that difference was rightly made up by the difficulty of her dance. It was a technically much more advanced dance. That Samba was packed with content and whilst the performance may have slipped a bit, the harder the dance - the harder it is to do it without mistakes. Therefore I think whilst marks could be taken off, they could also be added for different reasons. (If that makes sense)

Probably wouldn't have given her a ten, but I agree with the nines and Alesha and Gethin tied at the end. Alesha great content, Gethin great performing.

Anyone heard any news on who has gone tonight ? I hope its before 1am, I have to be at work at 6.30 in the morning !!

Results are out. Check the spoiler thread

Gethin in same position now...don't forget. The music on his Salsa was great but most of the dance involved him wiggling his chest at the audience.

Technically Alesha wipes the floor with him. His waltz was good though but 39?

They obviously want blood from the girl

I'm not really sure why people are getting so upset about this ... presumably they are talking about Len's comments during the ballroom ...

... but since what he said ... that he saw three steps in Gethin's dance where he got the heal toe thing wrong ... and "too many" in Alesha's dance where she got the heel toe thing wrong ... I don't see a problem.

Gethin (in Len's eyes) made a grand total of three tiny errors ... Alesha (from Len's wording) appears to have made more mistakes than that. I'm sure if Alesha had made only three mistakes, and had given the dance the same energy as Gethin she'd have got a 10 from Len as well.

I have to say I was disappointed in Len's comments re the Tango and Arlene's comments re the Samba - it's not fair to hold one of the contestants to a higher standard than the others.

I'm also wondering where the threads are in relation to Gethin being overmarked - they appear to be absent and yet I cannot see how his Waltz was worth the mark it received. Seems FMs have similar views?

Now, I'm a Gethin supporter, and while I can kind of understand that people thought his Waltz was overmarked (which I don't agree with myself - obviously!) I thought that the most... shocking mark was for Alesha's tango - I cannot even conceive how it recieved the same mark as Zoe's! And I do like Alesha - she's my second favourite.

If we look at the leaderboard, I think eveyone was in the right order, so I don't think that there was any great injustice done.

I really don't think that Alesha is being judged more harshly - it's just that as she has so much right , what's left to work on are all the finer details ....correcting and getting these technical apects spot on well that's where her "journey" aspect in the competition will lie.

Being one of the contestants with the most natural ability, it's right that the judges pick her up on all the little details. It's constructive criticism that will push her from being very good to excellent. They were exactly the same with Jill, Denise, Zoe, Emma etc etc (In fact I'm pretty sure most of them had much worse criticism along the way!)

well it look like now Kelly has gone its Aleshas turn to betheone the excpet to be better each week

I was pretty furious with Len (and Arlene) demanding "perfection" from Alesha, yet being willing to overlook Gethin's mistakes.

In fact I felt pretty sorry for Alesha during the show. The judges did her no favours at all: She now has the pressure of the judges wanting her to be perfect, yet Len also overmarked her samba so she also has to deal with the favouritism issue.

I agree that it's unfair, in a way, but it's also what they've been doing throughout, especially Len. Many times when one of the poorer dancers is getting 4 or 5 or 6, Len will pop up with a 7 or even more. But with the better dancers he marks more strictly.

(Craig's the closest to consistent, followed by Arlene, then Bruno.)

And it's not only to Alesha. It happens with Kelly too and sometimes, to a lesser extent, with some of the others.

The judges overlook everyones mistakes to a certain extent - Alesha has made mistakes and recieved high scores as have others...and I'm pretty certain a few folk have been underscored on occassion too.

I'm sure if Gethin's performance level drops next week they'll be down on him like a ton of bricks.

The judges have high standards for Alesha because she, unlike Kenny for example, is capable of getting towards "perfection". As the final approaches the judging always gets a bit harsher....especially for the front runners...it happens every year.... they want to see more precision and finessing of technique etc . As long as the criticism is constructive and not personal I think it's probably a good thing.

The judges leave themselves with no where to go. An average Alesha dance is still head and shoulders above the rest, and when the rest are getting 8's 9's and 10's they have no option but to score high.

In a way, it's almost the biggest compliment the judges can give her. I feel as though they are no longer really judging Alesha, but trying to point out her errors to craft and shape her into the complete dancer. All the contestants should me marked on the same level when it comes to points, I agree, but it's only by demanding perfection that she'll improve.

And in one respect, the fact they they do expect more from her (and criticise her when she falls below those high expectations) does even things up somewhat regarding the cry that Alesha has an advantage because she has already danced on stage and is a pop performer.