Here's a conspiracy theory -

Arlene has been praising Lisa and Rachel a lot more because she thinks Christine is the weaker dancer and she has learnt her lesson from the JS saga about being particularly negative about the weakest dancer. So she doesn't say really negative things about Christine, she just doesn't praise her much and then praises Lisa and Rachel much, much more. She's not bothered about Tom & Austin because they've got a good fan base whereas Lisa and Rachel don't.

Any takers?

Sounds pretty reasonable to me. But then, if I might say, you often sound pretty reasonable, Buddybonthenet.

They had a problem with Cherie's marks ( I think because they couldn't ask her to do what she wasn't doing (move faster) and were impressed by what she was doing) I don't think they did anything crucial to save her against a real threat of going - just gave some benefit of the doubt too much. They certainly didn't save her when her limitations became clearer. Gabby over Penny is a mistake but it didn't look so wrong at the time before Penny's limitations also became clearer - the much bigger problem was the public vote giving them two people who should have stayed. Len's 10s are often Craig's 8s or 9s so I can't get too excited when Len throws one away either - Austin was clearly outstanding early on even without a 10.

I don't see anything inconsistent with the story we are seeing or the one we are being spun or the one that the marking suggests at present. Christine is the weakest one left though she's not bad and likeable. The boys hit a high plateau but have been more inconsistent of late and still have some of their original problems and health issues. Lisa has good weeks and less good and performs below or at/above her capabiliity at different times - sometimes beween the original dance and the dance off. Rachel was consistently good but missing something - which she seems to have found to move on up. If she can keep on finding it and the boys remain where they have arrived at and less consistent, I can't see why she would be out of place in the final. If less consistent Lisa pulls it out big time in the crucial weeks its arguable she belongs there too over more consistent people.

Seems to me the evidence is that if they had favourites they can't decide who they are. The boys were early favourites and your comment about Len seems possible as he seems like Arlene to like the muscular male winning story. Len was hardly pro-Rachel for most of the serie but has led the recent praise. I think he realises he just got it wrong and assumed she would be good and less good at the wrong things. Arlene though seems more impressed with Rachel of late which suggests she at least is open to whats going on. Lisa gets very strong praise some weeks- to the extent that you think they have forgotten Rachel. ITT ignores Rachel for large periods of time and then has intensive patches to make up. After early spinning that the pairing wasn't warm and emotional recent VTs have shown that Rachel and Vincent are at least as close and having as much fun as anyone else - thats past spin being made more consistent with reality not a new campaign. Markwise Rachel gets her 40 but I havn't heard any argument yet that she should have had less than anyone else that week and the judges can only give 36 or 40 or a random mark inbetween. Everyone but Christine has topped the leaderboard so its hardly surprising if Rachel makes it too. I don't think any of the recent leaderboard orders have been open to any clear challenge - even if 40 might be 39 or 35 might be 36. .

The agenda that is being spun fits all that and its saying to me loose Christine and then lets see which of the remaining 4 gets to the last two on merit. I can see an argument for Rachel v Tom/Austin on the basis of who might pull out the best performances on the night and who is least likely to be hit by stage fright , but I can also see them not wanting Rachel to repeat the Alesha story or Austin to repeat the 2006 and 2005 story.I can't see any reason for spinning both Rachel and Lisa as they won't want an all girl final and spinning both just makes the other one look less good. If they are telling us both are good it may be because this week they are and the public vote needs reminding.

At the moment it looks to me as if its going on ability in the week and I suspect they don't care that much- as long as a weak dancer doesn't get to the final and get 20s on finals night.The alternative counterspin ends up arguing that Rachel didn't really outperform the boys in the last couple of weeks and they still have their lead from the early weeks or that Christine or Lisa is much better than her marks . Neither of those spins fits what I see.

Yes but thats what judges comments are for. You tell the public that X and Y are really good and if they still keep voting for someone who isn't you tell them again.Its all a judge can do because as you say saying someone else is bad just gets them votes.

In this show its particularly necessary if the votes are not with the top girl dancers. If a girl and a boy are the most capable the final will be over before it starts unless people start voting for the girl's dancing . If one or both girls are better than the boys a final without either will look silly. If a weaker girl gets to the final on popularity you either have a walkover or a result thats opposite to what anyone saw of the dancing.

It also serves the other purpose of making it clear why you will vote for someone in the dance off against someone with more public votes. The clearer the gap in ability the easier it is to explain why you did what you did. Its a hiding to nothing though as people will complain one way that you had decided beforehand and the other way will claim that the issue was close and you made the wrong choice.

Thank you Rhumbatugger


That's my point. Arlene is now doing her job properly and it is coming over as favouritism.

I agree and it looks even more suspicious to us, the public, after the JS affair and the vitriol they spit. They then turn around after telling us that we can't vote for who we want to (I was never a JS voter) and expect us to listen to their advice after they've alienated us.

It doesn't work that way. It's too late for them to start doing their job properly, we've lost all respect for them in general and don't trust their motives. We just don't believe them, or many of us don't.

Their favouritism or abuse just feels too personal this year. We also can see for ourselves that these dancers are not perfect. If Arlene turned around and said, for example, about Lisa, "Well, she has gapping issues, but just look at her footwork" , I would probably be more willing to listen, but they don't, they don't temper their praise with criticism or their criticism with praise.

Apart from the "idiots" bit, I quite agree.

dont think there will be a perfect score tonight..
and that applies to lisa aswell, i think it will take alot of fab-u-lous for craig to give her a ten..

but who knows??

im hoping lisa or rachel goes tonight (yn) (yn)

I am, believe me, just about the last person to believe some of the rubbish that's been written about Strictly this year (take a bow, Daily Mail 'journalists') but the leaked figures in The People actually scan against what is happening on the show. Veri, I know they were only for one week - but they held up against last week's results, too: otherwise why would Christine get through over Lisa and Jodie?

The producers absolutely do try and engineer the results. This is true of all 'reality' shows and Strictly is no exception. As we all know, SCD isn't all about what happens on the dancefloor: the public have their own favourites. So the producers use the judges to try and create 'drama', in the most transparent and ham-fisted way possible: the popular Tom and Austin are criticised while less popular contestants are overmarked, to perpetuate the often-repeated myth that "Anyone could win" ... Unfortunately for the pea-brained producers, this theory was then blown apart by the "boy/girl" Q&A between the judges in the green room on last Sunday's show. So "anyone" can win - provided they're one of two (or maybe three) "anyone"s ...?

I completely agree with BuddyB's theory - makes perfect sense - and also with Alli-F's comments on the judges' pathetic efforts to influence the public vote. The whole JS thing was about the public defying the judges and if the judges/producers think that matter is now consigned to history, they are in for a shock ...

Does anyone know for sure about the contestants for the final - will they be chosen by the public, or is that a DS rumour that's been repeated so often that "idiots" like me think (hope!) it might be true?

Completely agree. I think Christine is lovely. I actually much prefer watching her dances more than Rachel's. I know nothing technical about dances and Lisa's Latin is by no means brilliant but she seems miles ahead of Christine in the Latin dances

I agree with lots fo what people say. I am just not convinced that Rachel's dance last week deserved quite that high a score. Especially when it was described as almost perfection?! Also didn't Len or someone say before the series started that he expected, or wanted or thought Rachel would win?

They lost me when they marked Cheries latin. Once I could forgive, twice no way!

I think what we'd all like to see is balance. A professional critique, nothing personal being said and fair scoring - we certainly haven't had that this year.
As for who's going to be in the final...well we all knew the top 4 would be either Rachel, Cherie, Tom, Lisa or Austin because they made it so damn obvious with their overscoring (and yes...I think all of them have benefited).

I do feel sorry for Christine because I think she has suffered from poor marking. I loved Jodie but her jive last week didn't deserve those marks (yes I know she was ill but they clearly wanted to save her not Christine who I thought was a better dancer).
Plus even Brendan said they were overmarked in their samba.

This year their marking and favouritism has been a complete farce. I would love for 2 of their favs to be out tonight but I doubt they will. Expect Lisa and Rachel to be stacked up at the top with equal scores.

Cx

I try to think logically too and come to pretty much the same conclusions.

I'd be really surprised if Lisa ended up top with Rachel on the same score. ITT last night was building up expectations of Lisa that won't actually come off tonight, I don't think - particularly in her Cha Cha Cha. I often find myself highly anticipating a dance from a couple that Arlene has hyped up on the Friday panel only to be somewhat disappointed on the Saturday show, and the judges are critical too. Take Jodie's Samba for instance. I recall Arlene being full of praise for Jodie on Friday only to be the opposite on Saturday.

I saw that too, mind you nothing wrong with those being interviewed having favourites. Anyway it doesn't influence how the public vote (as we all know!!!). Lisa is good too, very good dancer, hard worker and nice with it so no problem.

Lisa may have averaged fourth, but she has always been within reach of the top three. The music is good and Brendan has been delivering on the choreography this year, so if she has a good week, she can be in the top three on merit, even without some of the others messing up.

*Gets out the "told you so" card and waves it about*

Lisa was magnificent tonight!!

But she actually deserved to be top when compared to the other routines.