In 2003 Fenia Vardanis (since departed from the BBC) created Strictly as a happy show with herself and production team in the driving seat.

After 6 years of continuous employment with salary rise whenever they felt like it, the 4 judges now believe they own the show and can tell 10 million viewers what to do. The SCD management team meanwhile enjoyed a siesta oblivious to audience feedback, allowing the show to coast along on auto-pilot, not unlike financial regulators woken up by credit crunch.

But, but, all artists are like that with successful shows, aren't they? Artists (or their agents) always try to get the most from their contracts, that's what agents do.


No, they haven't.

They've taken a series from a rocky start (Chris Parker in the final? Remember that? ) to being a massively-successful entertainment show, marketed to dozens of countries, earning the BBC 60 million quid a year in royalties, and winning massive ratings in prime-time telly for over three months a year.

If that's a failure, what would you count as a success?

In short, what evidence is there that this series needs to be in any way "saved"?

Because he is a wise old owl who knows a front when he sees it.

Forced out ? just not true . If he was and what he says is true , the public forced him out by putting him in danger of winning and he wouldn't take the joke that far .

Delightful Jodie , very true .

What a splendid final - the worst dancer is comprehensively out performed iand then wins because enough people just vote for whoever the judges say is worst........

That's just how I see it. The show would be ruined for me if people voted for someone just because the judges thought they didn't dance well.

The responsibility for Jodie going rests entirely on the anti-judge vote that kept JS in.

They ensured that everyone else weak had gone so Jodie went, early, last week. If JS had gone at a time appropriate to his dancing someone like Heather or Andrew would have been still around to be in that week's dance off.

Their continuing to vote for JS when even he implied he should go meant that he had to walk out rather than go himself this week. That in turn meant that someone else filled his departure slot this week. Jodie goes one or two weks early with her story uncompleted and JS walks out causing more damage by the manner of his going.

Its also likely that the anti-Judge vote ensured Jodie went by sloshing over to the next worst dancer on the judge's scoreboard - Christine. That may have saved Christine and put Jodie into a dance off with one of the 4 good dancers which she couldn't win. If Christine had been in the bottom two Jodie would have stayed - rightly for someone with the stronger performance and the stronger story.

The anti-judge vote has effectively savaged this series by removing the people with stronger stories and progression early in favour of the JS saga. If it carries on it could produce an almost worse case final where the winner will only be remarkable because all their real opposition didn't even make the final. In the worst case the weakest of the last 6 could win.

Just hang on a minute, I cannot let you get away with that one.

Your style is patronising and smacks of arrogance. It is unecessarily confrontational, and, let's be honest, your arguments are obtuse and fairly light weight.

I'm new to these forums, and wish to discuss SCD matters in general terms with members interested in issues. I do not wish to engage in A-level standard (and that's generous) textual analysis / deconstruction.

In your humble opinion. There is no evidence to any of what you said, except the higher score in the main show, I personally thought Jodie completely lost it in the dance-off. Who knows what would have happened if that dance-off had happened. We never will! If it makes you feel better though, keep believing that.

Spot on soulmate,if the judges had been reined in earlier the bad feeling that now surrounds this series, would never have occurred,but yet again a BBC production team allowed this to happen,and I suspect like many here this is done in the name of ratings,much like Brand/Ross.
The Beeb does appear to be going through a phase where "ratings rule",and at any cost it would seem.
I should imagine the judges are encouraged to cause as much controversy as possible thereby ensuring weekly headlines for the show,but they crossed the line this year when it became personal.
Christine I would love to see lift that glitter ball with Matthew,yes contrary to what some posts infer she can dance,and for a total novice I think she's been exceptional, she had a bad week last week,the week before was beautiful.
Everyone of the remaining couples have had bad weeks ,some quite a few, but still been overmarked ,but all 5 deserve their place,but Christine does epitomise what Strictly is all about ,the enjoyment and fun in dancing,not a desperation to win ,where you lose focus and forget this is light entertainment,and that the prize is only a plastic glitter ball.

Ellie

Well I voted three times for Christine, three times for Jodie and once for Rachel on Saturday. Unfortunately my three for Jodie did not stop her leaving . I hadn't voted for anyone previously in this series. I didn't vote to spite anyone but because I like the work of all three. I like the others too but these captured my imagination.

Christine is not, yet, as good as the other celebs but she tries very hard. She works on the problems pointed out by the judges and she improves. She may continue to improve for all we know and overtake the others. What people like about Christine is her dedication, humility and patience, as well as her engaging personality. She makes progress. I would be delighted if she won. I don't think she will but anything is possible.

I agree with all of this, in particular your points about ratings.

I agree and I'm afraid that's what's going to happen - look people does it ever occur to you that by pursing a vendenta against the judges and voting for personalities rather than dancing that you aren't 'saving' the show but actually helping it's decline. In the past the winner has always been a compromise between the best dancer and the most engaging personality on the show and I'm really worried that it's become a dance of death between the judges wanting the person they consider to be the best which appears to be Rachel at the mo and the public voting for their ah bless candidate which was John and now appears to be Christine the compromise has become a battle and I don't think this healthy at all.

I agree and could have written this post myself with one exception - I didn't vote for Rachel as 6 votes are my maximum and I though Christine & Jodie needed them more!

I agree that the best dancer may not win. Some people vote for the dancing, some for the personality. It was just fortunate that last year Alesha had both. I would much rather vote for effort and improvement than someone consistently scoring in the high 30s. Although ideally they'd improve from low 20s to perfect scores AND have a great personality, it's not going to happen this year. Hence the dilemma!

And I'd have made it too, if it hadn't been for you pesky kids.


Me too - so why aren't you responding to my post content?

You're possibly right (the beauty of the dance-off is that someone who under-performed in the show gets a second chance - Lisa proved last week proved the game can be upped enough to save yourself over someone who was reckoned to have done it better on the main show) but it would have been nice if Jodie at least had had a chance in the dance-off (and the person who had done just as badly even if you don't agree with the judges that she'd been worse didn't just get a free pass). I think everyone knew that unless Lisa had really messed it up the judges were going to save her. If Christine had done the dance-off and just done it better than Jodie then I'd have been a lot happier about Jodie leaving instead of her.

I understand that completely. However that's not the way the game works. If John had gone when he deserved to (in terms of dancing), do you think all the other bottom-twos would have bean the same? (I genuinely mean that as a question, I don't mean it as a smart-arse comment or anything)

Does the show really need to be saved?

I don't think so.

Over to you Tess.