For all those moaning about the judges decision to award Matt the final place over Gethin, if Gethin were that popular, why didn't he come top, leaving Alesha and Matt in the dance off? Perhaps Gethin was not as popular as people thought.

It was refershing to see the public vote for the best dancer - Alesha.

We don't know that he didn't come top with the public .

Der, cos he finished bottom of the judges' scoring and couldn't get through automatically unless Matt beat Alesha on the public vote. Public vote was almost irrelevant to the outcome this time.

he might have come top.
All we know is Alesha got more votes then Matt.

yes he may well have come top with 10x more votes than the others

He could well have come top with the public, but the only way he'd have got through without the dance off would have been if Alesha got the lowest public vote, and he the highest. It's perfectly conceivable that he came top, but Alesha second, meaning that Alesha had five points overall, Gethin four, and Matt three, leaving Gethin and Matt in the dance off.

Gethin was popular, and could well have topped the public vote every week, including on saturday. We'll probably never find out.

ARRGGGHHH, so so angry with the idiotic judges and the BBC and I never even voted for him! I hate those smug judges

Not another one. Please stop.

Gethin MIGHT have come top. But if Alesha came second, she would've been the highest scorer.

I still think Alesha was #1 though.

He isn't as good as Alesha.
But he was better than Matt dA (mostly).


And he never forgot his steps. Pretty much an essential IMO. Unlike you-know-who....

I would be prepared to wager that Gethin came top in the public vote for the following reason:
His Internet 'hits' doubled in the last two weeks as the bookies odds on his winning went from 12-1 to 10/11 in the same period.

'Hitwise" predictions give a good indication of popularity, and he was the most searched for celebrity in Strictly Come Dancing during that period.

I would be very surprised indeed if he didn't top the public vote.

No I don't know who - Matt or Alesha?.

It's OK to forget if you carry on (Alesha) and wing it (paso).

It's not OK if you wander back to the steps and give up.

Now I'm even crosser with the new system - we've got CRH saying it he was judging last Saturday on past performances and fulfilling potential, Gethin should be in the Final and what you say coddled seems to indicate Gethin topped the public poll.

Conspiracy or cock up? Either way it's rubbish.

I also disagree that Matt is better than Gethin. They both have their strengths & weaknesses; their good weeks & bad weeks.
I think they were equal.

A good-looking face doesn't blind me to deficiencies in dancing.

It was much of a muchness which of them went through - so it came down to who performed better on the night.

The evidence is there if you do the maths and stats. Gethin was top - pretty much every week I would guess - mainly helped becsause all the girls thought he was fit

That is EXACTLY why I'm so confident that she was #1 this week. Her supporters REALLY panicked - many of them hadn't voted for her at all and instead had voted for Matt. There are a large number of her supporters on this forum alone who hadn't voted for her last week, or maybe once or twice, who this week voted for her 50 times each because of the panic about her being so vulnerable.

Then you have Gethin's (relatively) poor performance this week. He wasn't bad enough to get the sympathy vote but he wasn't good enough to get floating voters to pick up the phone, whereas Alesha (and possibly even Matt) did.

You could be right, but another point is that it was obvious Aleisha wasn't going to go out this week, because the judges would put her through against either of the boys. If I were an Aleisha fan, I'd have been saving my votes for next week, rather than voting for her his week when the votes were almost irrelevant.

How is it obvious that Alesha wasn't going to go out this week? The judges have consistently called Gethin's technique better than Alesha's, and other than this week, the last two or three weeks they have scored him equal or higher than her. If they could boot Gethin, they could certainly boot Alesha.

Alesha topped the public vote because her supporters realised they were sitting on their laurels, however we got a kick up the proverbial and spent fortunes voting. Same as we are hoping to do this week.

Presumably because Gethin was getting such positive feed back for the past few weeks his fans thought he was safe and therefore sat on their laurels thinking he would go through. Who knows.

Not just difficult - impossible. No matter how many times his fans voted for him, there was no way for him to escape the dance-off once the judges leader-board had been decided. In fact as soon as Matt got his four 10s I *knew* he was going home, and I think they did too. It would be interesting to see what votes Gethin got, partly to see how many of his fans spent money voting for something that couldn't happen.

I know there is a blip this year because of Kelly leaving, and I'm not against the judges having the final say in the earlier stages of the competition, but not this week. As it was the judges scores on this week's dances that placed Gethin in the dance-off, it just not right that the judges then decide who goes based on the repeat of a dance that they liked least.

Of course there is the possibility of one of them mucking up in the dance-off, or nailing the dance-off after mucking up on the main show, but if they had to judge this week, they should have been allowed to judge based on who they thought deserved it most. They may have made the same decision, but otherwise it's a serious flaw in the system.

How do you know that. As an Alesha fan I wasnt prepared to take any chances. Those judges have proven they can't be trusted to do the right thing imo.

There is no way any of us are going to know who topped the public vote. All we know is that it WASN'T Matt.

Whether it was Alesha or Gethin ... we'll never know.

Yes there was, but Alesha had to be bottom of the public vote too.

[quote=ESPIONdansant;20186127]It's OK to forget if you carry on (Alesha) and wing it (paso).

It's not OK if you wander back to the steps and give up.[/QUOTE]


But according to Len "quitters never win" that's why Matt is in the final