Listening to Arlene and Craig tonight they have practically made up their minds about the couple's dances tomorrow.
I believe they should not be allowed to watch or comment on any of the training till the couples perform on Sat.

Is someone going to sit in their houses at 6:30 every night and stop them watching ITT?

Realistically there's no way of preventing them from seeing the training.

A clause in their contracts might suffice.

Again though, would you send someone to their houses at 6:30 every night to peer through their windows and checking they're not cheating?

Yes agree, Judges should stay in their intimidate chairs every saturday, and judges what dancer dance on saturday not the whole weeks sitting and comment on ITT couch of what their fav trainning, btw where's Bruni ?

Not sure you'd need to if
a) they're professionals and take their contracts seriously and
b) the penalty for "cheating" was instant dismissal.

Why would they take the risk?

I don't necessarily agree with the OP - I'm just playing devil's advocate.

Yeah but how would they ever be caught out? Surely it'd require some sort of spying mission - a bit much for a celebrity dancing show!

How are any celebrities "caught out"? The BBC have their own spies ready made in the form of the gutter press. They wouldn't even have to pay them anything.

The press are hiding in the judge's houses?!

I don't think it influences them that much. They often change their views between the practice session and the night. If anything, sometimes it sets their expectations too high. For example everyone will be expecting Austin and Erin's quickstep to be brilliant now and if there are any teensy weensy faults they are more likely to be marked down.

I wouldn't put it past them!

Sadly, this is true. Case in point: Arlene said Rachel's Samba was a partnership and was very good during the Friday panel segment, and then the judges didn't go all positive on the actual performance night.

So no, there is no reasons the judges shouldn't watch the training before the show (it's logistically impossible to impose, anyway, unless they are put in a BB house for the entire Strictly run - hmmm, now that's an idea...)

The Mirror in the bathroom, The Mail through the letterbox...

Yeah, and the Sun whenever they are out and about during the day! The can run but they can't hide.

One week locked up together and there'd only be hair, skin and bones left. Can you imagine the stamping, slapping, hair pulling, name calling, bitching, and cat fights! and that's only to get the bathroom mirror!

Well if a judge is worthy of the name, it shouldn't matter what training they've seen. Actually I suspect pre-judging is not as important as the whole issue of expectations

Unfortunately at least one judge has admitted, seemingly on behalf of all of them, that they ARE influenced by expectations. Not really a surprise at all but not ideal to say the least.

The problem applies irritatingly to lots of situations. If something comfortably exceeds or falls well short of 'expectations', it does not necessarily imply success or failure. It could well be that the expectations were wrong. Both sides of the equation have to be looked at equally critically.

Interesting that on DWTS they don't see any of the training as they don't have the quivalent of ITT, and they are not encouraged to mingle with the dancers, or to be present when they are doing the camera rehearsals, so the first time they see the dances is on the actual programme. Not sure if that's an advantage or not as the marking seems to be very odd over there. Len invariably marks lower than the other two judges

I agree with you. I am also sure the judges are present during the dress rehearsal in the Sutdio so I think a lot of times they have already formed their opinions before the couples actually dance on the live show. Some of the comments make me wonder if they were watching the same routine!!!

I think that a lot of the time the judges comments come from what they have seen in the dress rehearsal hence Arlene's well rehearsed comments that she sometimes struggles to say properly.

When Claudia and Len were in the studio on the Friday ITT Len had to leave before the rehearsal dance, so I'm not sure the judges do see that. But what's the point of making them leave the room when they've seen the training footage.?

I think their judgement is clouded both by seeing the training and by their expectations of how someone 'should' be performing.

I don't agree. They are judging the dance on the night. They watch the training footage - heavily edited - on ITT because the BBC thinks it makes interesting TV by encouraging divisive comments. To say that they form an opinion on the whole of the training footage for each couple, based on a few seconds, would be ludicrous. However, they should omit it from the live show on Saturday because it is tedious and boring.

Exactly!


This post makes no sense whatsoever ~ were you drunk when you wrote this?

And if not, where can I purchase an 'intimidate chair', please ~ sounds rather comfy......

Just to play Devil's advocate, I think some of the feedback Craig gives on the midweek ITT panel is picked up by the couples and used beneficially in their subsequent training sessions.

i don't agree, I really don't think they are at the dress rehersals - certainly there was the comment on ITT the other day, but also, I went to a dress rehersal in series 2 and the judges were filled in with 4 "bbc studio people", and in series 3 when we got to see the dress rehersal of the results show there were no judges to be seen.

Do we have any bbc spies that can confirm?

I do however agree that they have already got their favourites and expectations.

dancingbearbear, English is not awiena's first language. The post does actually make sense if you read it carefully and I love the idea of an intimidate chair! Good description of the judges area on Saturday.