Hiya Sid my lovely!

Whilst I agree with you up to a certain point (you know I am a Cherie fan but I actually hold John and Kristina no ill- will at all)- I think at this point it is not just your average viewer voting him in. All of the press coverage has started campaigns to keep him in and the negative press is also working in his favour 'to get one over on the judges' because 'how dare they tell me who to vote for' (to coin a couple of quotes).

Maybe when the press lay off- if the Beeb didn't keep stirrin the pot- then the ordinary voters will be in the majority and the dancing will win through.

I liked their dance this week and in some ways I think it would have been nice for them to go out on a high- and I am dreading their jive or rhumba (sorry )

This is what the difference is ...

Taking a leaf from the world he's spent so long reporting on, John has not begged the public for support - he's played the cards he knows the public will respond to. He's made the bare minimum of effort with his dancing and instead baited the judges and 'stood up to them' in a way Kate Garraway or Fiona Phillips never did. He knows full well this will garner him support and the BBC loves it and hypes it up even further.

Then he introduces the note that it might be all over (the 'sense of melancholy' he referred to last week on ITT and again at the weekend) - to stimulate a flurry of votes to keep him in.

Meanwhile Kristina choreographs some amazing footwork for herself to distract attention away from John's poor dancing, and wears the most revealing outfits possible to keep the dads at home happy. (Shades of Benny Hill here ...)

And there ya go - a place in the final ...

This is neither paranoid nor cynical - it's there for everyone to see. Look at John' interviews - he never even refers to any of the other contestants. It's as if they aren't there or don't matter.

Which is why you'll see the words 'arrogant' and 'smug' peppered across threads like this one.

And they will grow in number and intensity until John goes - and I would wager that we have at least several more weeks yet - so if you disagree with John's critics, you better get used to them.

Knowing a bit about programming (though with no connection to this show, or anything UK), you've hit it on the head with your comment...especially the last 'graf.

And so has judge Bruno in this recent interview:

""I wouldn't be happy if John is in the final but it's the public who decide.
"I've always said that the show is about entertainment and that's what John's doing, he's an asset to the show.
"Anyone who starts getting pretentious about him still being in the show is just up their own a***.""

In the US, you'd say "it's all about the numbers." Not the scores, the number of people watching.

Mindyann - thank god another person is here who appreciates the point of the competition.

Clearly we all expect different things from the show. A few on here purely want the best dancer to win. Great, but to be honest I see little point in anybody over 40 years old entering in the first place, unless you want to ridicule them early doors but don't go whingeing if they gather support during their run on the show.

I prefer the show for entertainment value and comparing peoples efforts in line with their limitations. Serjeant will never match Stevens for athletic ability but he brings an enjoyment of what he does and lifts the mood of everyone around him. Likewise i loved Rusedski in the Ice dancing, especially when he attempted jumps and was falling over the place.

Good on these people for giving it a go despite not having natural ability. They get my vote over the naturals anyday.

What do their detractors actually expect them to do? Say "I know you spent your hard earned cash voting to keep us, but we're upsetting a few people now so we'd best be off. Bye."

All the 'get John out' lark is turning into nothing short of a bullying campaign.

I love watching Kristina and John - Kristina is a joy to watch and her choreography is astonishing. John is absolutely charming. For me they're far more engaging to watch than Austin or Rachel.

I pay my licence fee, I pay my phone vote. I wish people would stop trying to tell me who I'm allowed to enjoy watching!

Thanks Servalan.
Very interested in your opinion.
Trouble is we are all guilty (me included) of being very selective when having an opinion on the pros and cons of JS.
At the end of the day I doubt if anyone from one faction is ever swayed by the arguments of someone from the opposing faction.
Regrettably this is the case on this occasion.

Cheers.

I can't imagine a violin competition open to non players can you lol? Only the deaf would find that "entertaining", and only the British would see experience as unfair advantage".

I don't think all winners of SCD did earn the accolade - Darren - while he was sweet - simply wasn't as good as Colin or Zoe.
It was this kind of nonsense result that led to the the judges vetoing the dance off.

What annoys me about John is that he is playing on the judges dislike of him and his know how with regards to "politics" to gain extra support and push people's buttons so that they vote for him. The fact he argues with the judges saying "those are the rules" demonstrates to me that like most people in a political arena he cares little for why he is there, just that he is and I personally find that the annoying thing.

Yes the public votes for him and good luck to them its a free country. However, he doesn't even have the grace to act shame-faced or admit that he is the worst dancer there, he just whitters on about the rules and the public loving an underdog. Personally I detest the British love of the underdog - you should win cos you are the best, not cos people want to "show" someone else or feel sorry for your sob story.

John could ask people to stop voting for him, he could at least admit that perhaps there are others who deserve to be there over him. He does none of this just acts smug and righteous and the usual sheep follow his lead and vote for him. I would prefer to make my own mind up based on what I see in front of my eyes as opposed to what dross I hear coming out of his mouth.

Darren was however a "most improved" winner. John does not improve from week to week.

Sorry, don't wish to be rude, but this is an absurd comment! LOL

How did JS out-perform Cherie when John scored a total of 25 - bottom of the leaderboard - and Cherie scored 32?!!!!! It was John's best score so far but he was ranked the worst dancer of the show so he didn't out perform anyone.

Well, it could be argued that more often than not the judges actual total score bear no relation at all to the dance they mark

And the final leader board placings are questioned on a regular basis as well!

Normally I don't vote for my favourite until the later stages of the competition. Luckily my favourites have not yet fallen victim to the John phenomena but I can see this year I will have to start voting now to keep them in.

John's fans are passionate about him - some because they love an underdog and others because they have money on him to win at huge odds. Whatever the reason they are voting in force and that's keeping John in. Fans of other contestants will have to start doing the same.

The rules state half the votes are from the public.

Judges are looking for technical ability.

Public for entertainment.

Lets think of something to compare, if technical ability meant the best singers got the most record sales and people who could not sing never sold a record then nobody would have heard of Bob Dylan, to mention just one example.

If there's a problem with John winning then alter the rules for the next series.

The good thing in my opinion is that charity is getting a bunch of cash from this, if this helps the needy then all the votes for John are ok, the contestants are hardly poor cash strapped ordinary people - so what if they don't win on technical merit?.

Precisely.

If people find John the most entertaining then by all means vote for him but all these other reasons people seem to have are totally outside the spirit of the competition and it's those type that annoy me.

John is a political commentator. He understands voting psychology and what his voters look like and how to spin. He has consistently adjusted his responses to produce the votes. He has gone from from warm trier. to plucky underdog. to victim, to people's champion , to attacking the judges to ride on their unpopularity to the suggestion that he only needs one more week to stay and most lately to graceful acceptance of all the pressure he is under to go. The last is the say nothing as you are on a winner and don't want to risk it strategy.

Even his dancing (or the lack of it ) has moved between trying (to get support) , to not trying (to get the 1s and 3 s) to looking loveably cute (to make people like him) This week it was a real effort which countered anyone tempted to believe him when he implied he should go this week. The judges tried the faint praise/best performance ploy in response but as it was a week when he was still being attacked in the media he had both the "I am improving" and "help me from this unfair media attack" arguments working in his favour.

Its working so far - papers are reporting his possible earnings post show have moved into the million bracket.

Strictly come dancing has nothing any longer to do with charity as I understand it - the link has been severed?

John's entertainment value eludes me and I suspect many people watching and probably most voting. Private Godfrey does the act infinitely better. John survives because he has enough of the votes and that could be anywhere from 10 - 99%. I doubt if 10% of the people watching are voting.

The point about entertainment is that the dancing is meant to do the entertaining. The logic of voting for John doing something else is that Jodie could get more votes wandering naked around the stage, Tom should tell jokes. Rachel in a bikini could pull in millions of male votes and Austin topless sweating on a treadmill would win. The judges snogging each other would pull in more viewers and they would be taken more notice of.

Where did I mention anything about jokes and bikinis?

Accusing me of saying something I never said? Don't attribute that to me.

It is about dancing, good, bad or ugly, and about how the viewers who vote appreciate the contestant whatever reason they might have. This is within the rules - period.

Like I said, if this is a problem then alter the rules - don't whinge about JS

I wish people wouldn't be taken in by the carefully edited VTs of John sitting reading a newspaper whilst they show everybody else continually dancing. Every week on ITT Claudia says how many hours each couple train for and John is usually up there with the most hours. Also how has he lost over 2 stone just sitting and reading?

He may not be any good or even likely to get much better, but it is wrong to accuse him of not working at it while everybody else does.

I'm not sure how true that is. I don't think he is up there, I think he's closer to the bottom. Not saying he reads a newspaper all day but I don't think he's trained the hardest.

BBC must be crying themselves to sleep getting all this PR and extra John votes.

Last week on ITT Claudia said he was third on the hours trained table with 166.

If we believe the VT clips, Lisa and Rachel spend all their time in tears and Tom running into a wall - which we know can't be right so why must it be right that John reads a paper most of the time but unless someone is prepared to give up the same amount of their time to watch all his footage it will always be shrouded in editing mystery.

I believe they are doing six hours training a day. Krystina even went with John to Lyme Regis last week so they could practice before he fulfilled a work commitment one night. (Well that's his story)

The facts are that he's third on the number of trained hours, as reported specifically on ITT last week. However, these are only 'facts' and making unsubstantiated claims about how he spends most of his time lazing about or manipulating a Myspace page that no one can link to but definitely exists to give him 100 votes per click are much closer to the truth.

It wouldn't surprise me if John posts on this forum under an alias to stir things up and give him more PR, after all we've no evidence to suggest that this is the case so it's probably definitely true.

Why should he? He's still in the competition due to the public voting him in and so he has every right to be there. Just because a few pathetic people seem to think the departure of some of the better dancers is entirely John's fault doesn't mean he has a duty to 'step down'. He has to keep going until he is voted off, just like everyone else.

It is crazy that people are blaming John. It is not his fault..he was invited to be on the show! Everyone knew the rules.
If he goes, people still will be voted off every week and there will be only one winner. Maybe people might be leaving a week early because of John, but guess what critics, still there will be a loser every week!
If the judges don't like it, make it just a judges' vote..I really don't care. They can't have it both ways.