He was great - although before ITT I had no idea who he was, and when he did the intro to the prog, I thought "oh no - where's Claudia?" - thought she was off sick and they'd had to draft some obscure bloke in to replace her!

I thought is was great as well, missed the midweek report but thought Michael Ball was great (better than all the other celeb pluggers they have on the show) I LOVED the choreography segment, and I also loved the split screen thing they did during matt & flavia's interview (though matt did look a bit tired and down)

My 2p - it looked as though Matt had given up to me. I got the feeling that he didn't want to be there, and didn't want to be doing it any more.

If true, who knows if it's because of anything backstage, or whether Saturday finally killed off whatever little confidence he had left.

Or of course I could be completely wrong - he may be loving it, full of enthusiasm and can't wait to get out there on Saturday. But he didn't look it. Mind you, neither did Alesha the other night either.

Sounds a reason not to vote for them

does it matter whos had the most publicity.
Ive read more about Gethin in the papers then the other 2 this week but i dont think it means anything.
They've all had there fair share of ITT appearances and to be honest i think the majority of people dont vote till the saturday show anyway

That is exactly the impression I got.

If the Christmas show was recorded on Monday then there is probably very little rehearsal footage to review, and what there is would be in the very early stages.

Yeah, unfortunately I got that impression also. And I got a whiff of that last week also, when he seemed almost resigned to going out.

Similar impression to me, I think things are not good in the Matt/Flavia camp sadly.

BTW, to those arguing about screentime, as a complete 'love 'em all, don't mind who wins' person this year, things have been pretty even so far

Loved Micheal Ball, and loved the choreography bits as well, and yes, bless Anton for defending the worst decision ever in the history of SCD

While I respect your impressions and opinions I will respecfully disagree.

Matt was just exhausted and a little sheepish (ashamed) that he messed up big time on Saturday, no more. He looked to me quietly confident. His 'body language' with Flavia (sitting apart) was obviously because Flavia's man, Vincent, was there watching them!

When Claudia said 'you have to pretend they are your best friends' and Flavia giggled. This is a clear sign that Claudia was saying you cannot show favouritism towards them (even though you obviously help them with the AT the most). Vincent had to be diplomatic and said both the boys had the latino look. But of course, he can't single out Matt only otherwise forumites will be up in arms and say Vincent shows favouritism!

Lastly, consider this: will someone trained 16 hours already (like Alesha did) if he's given up? Discounting Monday (because of Christmas Special), that means they must have trained at least 8 hours on Tuesday and then on Wednesday (so far, they probably head straight into studio for training after the interview!). For Matt it's a matter not of over train, but under rehearsed (which is why he felt inadequate and thought he'll forget his steps) that caused him to worry. So Flavia and him are devoting lots of training hours to counteract this perception that Matt will have if he's under-trained. Looking at the dress rehearsal, even when he's 'undertrained' last Saturday, his rehearsal Foxtrot actually looked very good! Long lines, good hands, solid body contact etc..

It's clear he has the talent but Saturday was a complete meltdown. Like Michael Ball said, once it happened, you'll know what it feels like (such is like baptism by fire) - IT WON'T HAPPEN AGAIN.

I have a strangely positive hope for Matt and Flavia this Saturday. I think they will do well. Even if he's on the top of the leaderboard from the judges I don't think he'll get through (going by the BBC forum comments!). Whether they will be in the finals or not I don't think it matters to me (or to them any more). At least he'll go out on a high and he has learnt a big lesson in life about coping with nerves and he'll be better for it.

Well done Matt! Well done Flavia! (sounding like Philip Jackon!)

Fair enough - and I actually hope you're right. Whilst I am no bigger fan of Matt than I am of Alesha or Gethin (I don't have a particular favourite), it would be no fun to watch anybody get this far and then just give up.

It would be much better if he is still up for it, and I hope he is. To me he just looked like someone who had had the stuffing knocked out of him, but this is one debate I would be quite happy to lose

My heart goes out to Alesha and come this Saturday I am 99% sure I'll vote for her. Not sure who I'll vote for the boys. I have to see how they perform on the night. If Matt fluff up again then I will in my conscience not vote for him so that he'll not prolong his misery (if there is any this Saturday) in the finals. And I certainly don't want a 'Chris Parker' syndrome for the finals, how boring and tedious will that be?

If they lost Monday to the Christmas special then yesterday was like Tuesday in training terms (does that make any sense at all?) and he's said he's always feeling low on a Tuesday, on weeks when he's gone on and been wonderful on the night. Plus after the VT and the questions Claudia was asking, let's be honest, if Matt had grinned and shrugged if off and not been bothered, everyone on here would be really angry with him. I don't like seeing him (or Alesha) looking sad, but I very sure he and Flavia will work it out by Saturday.

As far as matt concerned I think the poor kid is Kn*****ed. And thats not because he's young or whatever its just a fact. He is pooped. i think he's lucky his natural state is quite buoyant and he's doing a good job of trying to keep himself up there. and he needs to. i have a feeling for him he has been though more emotionally than ever before in his life. And that is enough to exhaust anyone without the physical stuff as well. Before anyone jumps down my throat and says but thats nothing by the time I was x weeks old i had experianced *** and i wasnt in his state. For Matt it is real and the worst thing that has happened to him and the best and the scariest. Its his experience not ours, we are only voyers (But he still turns up on ITT with a smile. And I still finnished watching the show thinking you are a really nice guy.

I just watched Matt and Flavia's interview again. I think they've been adversely affected by the publicity machine. It all seemed very awkward because it was deliberately showing "we're not close, I'm not interested in her" by sitting far apart. I think Matt has a wee bit of an unrequited crush, that's been leapt upon and played into something bigger. All of them know this; they know that the publicity is keeping attention on them. And frankly, if this kind of thing were said about you, with not a single atom of it true, you'd still be stiff and awkward, wouldn't you?

His look when V&F were demonstrating AT was wonderful though! A combination of "damn, she's good" and "crap, am I meant to look like that?!?"

Thursday 13th December

Coming up today on It Takes Two:

Gethin and Camilla will be joining Claudia on the sofa to chat about the highs of Saturday night and a catch up on their training for the Paso and Argentine Tango.

We have a 'Come Dancers' panel with the legendary Peggy Spencer MBE who had formation teams in Come Dancing for over 40 years, Blanche Ingle who trained Bill Turnbull to dance in series three and also had formation teams in Come Dancing and Mr Anton Du Beke who himself competed in Come Dancing in the 90s.

We will be showing some unique footage from Come Dancing and chatting to them all about how the competitions differ, what they think of Strictly this year and who they will be supporting in the finale.

All our couples also talk on camera about the impending semi-finals.

Does that mean no training review then? Maybe it will be interlinked with them talking about the semi-finals? I'm a bit about that...

xx

Peggy Spencer? Now theres a blast from the past. Look forward to seeing her.

I think it'd be utterly barmy not to have a training review until the Friday panel - especially this week of all weeks! Hope they show some footage.

didn't manage to get on here yesterdsay, so I know I am way late with this - but Michael Ball was so brilliant just had to say it!! he just says what he thinks - love him so much!

As for Matt Di - both me and my DH thought he just looked utterly exhausted and incredibly nervous. There was a bit of a weird vibe with him, Flavia and Vincent though.

Dear god Peggy Spencer??? of all the people she was out of date when she was on Come Dancing

Are they not showing proper footage today? Because of the Xmas special, today should practically be the mid-week report!

Thought Michael Ball was an absolute legend yesterday And about Matt & Flavia's body language - I didn't think there was anything odd; because Flavia is so tiny in between the two boys it looked like there was more of a distance between them.... and as someone said somewhere else, Flavia doesn't seem the 'cuddly' type to me so won't mind sitting a little apart from people even when she does feel affectionate towards them.

I thought his training footage was badly edited to try and show him as the immature and cranky boy that he apparently is Coupled with Claudia's rather Tess-ish and tactless questions and the insistent going over of Saturday it's no wonder the boy wasn't bouncing around cheerfully. As for him looking 'spaced out' during the AT demo, I thought it was just him concentrating on the footwork because his eyes were obviously following their movements and he had a slight smile on his face.

People are reading too much into it imo!

I just thought his voice and body language and general demeanour was negative - when he was watching the AT feet, he wasn't really watching

hard to explain but watch it again

I always find him a bit like that anyway though so for me, it wasn't much different to normal!

Weird there's no training footage. I can't think of any reason for that. It's not as if they aren't filming them.

To be honest, if I wasn't a Gethin fan I don't know if I'd watch tonight's show, based on the summary. Enough of the group interviews, please. Either there are items missed of that list, or Gethin is getting a 15 minutes interview (this board will be peace and joy afterwards ) or 'Come Dancing' is going to be most of the show. I'd rather they'd given Vincent more time yesterday to talk about the tango and played the choreography film today. Oh, well, we'll see...

Harking back - thought Michael Ball was fab yesterday - if you haven't seen Hairspray I would highly recommend it!

body language was a bit unusual between Matt and Flavia, it was interesting to see the split footage too. IMO Matt looks absolutley shattered, perhaps he peaked too soon?

His eyes twinkle so much