I agree and a lot of posters like Gill P's sister were saying on the program thread last night "Chrisitne's a lovely person but she isn't as good as everyone else still in and should go" which made me think she might be going home after being afraid she'd linger in the competition past her natural ability level buoyed up by public support.

I disagree with the poster who said Lisa tried harder than her. I think Christine, like Jodie, gave it her all but the tango just wasn't her dance (she's not got the character which fits it and isn't enough of an actress to make it fit). One thing I do agree with her fans on is she took judges comments on board and used them to improve.

She was utterly gracious in defeat last night and I think she knew she just wasn't as good as everyone else. She ought to be proud of herself she made it this far though (even though I thought she should have gone last week - she still should have been proud of herself to have got to that stage on merit alone).

Hmm, you haven't really got the hang of how the voting works have you?

uless the leaderboard was completely reversed Lisa was safe even if she recieved 0 votes from teh public. Even Brendan knew this. He was smiling all the time in the moment of truth.

Rigging is not beyond the realms of possibility; they did it last year to make sure Alesha and Matt reached the final and Gethin and Camilla didn't!

Oh that old chestnut again! :yawn:

And what would have been the advantage of this to the beeb, exactly?

Surely (IF they were going to bother rigging the votes :yawn: ) they'd have fixed it to keep the BBC employee (i.e Gethin) in the show? How did it advantage them to get rid of him at semi-final stage?

Why does everthing have to come down to a conspiracy theory?

Surely having a dance-off in a three person semi efectively means that the judges can actually choose both finalists with just a little bit of creative marking? They must have at least as much of an idea as we have sitting here who is popular and who is not, and it doesn't take a lot of working out, does it?

Could it be that cynical? I don't know...But I've seen enough of the Four Stooges to know I'd rather the final decision was back in public hands

Well as the BBC refuse to publish the actual number of phone in votes for each celeb, we will never know. I would love to know if there was a significant reduction in the number of phone votes overall for Strictly after the quick exit of John and Kristina. I wonder how much money the BBC will make from Strictly this year as none of the money goes to Children in Need? Regarding fixing etc., I have to agree that Christine was the worst dancer of the group. She tried but could not keep up with the other contestants. I do not understand why Vincent and Rachel are so unpopular with the viewers? I think they are fantastic.

The BBC makes no money and never has. Before with the CIN link half went to BT, now it all goes to BT for line rental etc.

What evidence do you have to support that? She worked very hard as far as I could see.

But Christine went out on Saturday because she was not the best dancer despite coming across as a lovely lady and a very sporting contestant.

All these conspiracy theories are just too ridiculous!

I hold my hands up if i misunderstand the marking but i was under the illusion that the two couples with the least amount of public votes are entered into the dance-off.

Isn't that correct?

As for the bullying, Arlene was bullying on Saturday and made it quite clear that Christine should play no further part in the programme. Now, some may say it was just harsh criticism, but it appeared to be more than that. In fact it came across as downright spiteful, which is why it crosses the line and becomes pressuring/bullying.

I hope not. CIN will suffer if there is rigging going on. Think of the children!

No. The two couples with the lowest scores after combing their ranking with their judges and the ranking in the public vote go into the dance off. It is very simple to understand!

If it was based on public votes alone why would there be a leaderboard of judges scores / rankings?


As for your second point about the 'bullying' ~ buy a dictionary and look up the meaning of the word 'bullying'.......

I just don't get people that cannot understand how the scores are combined. Its been 5 years people!

But none of the money actually goes to CIN any more. Even Louise Lytton seemed a bit confused about this on the results show . . .

bully - noun: a person who intimidates or frightens weaker people. OUP

bullying - verb: intimidate. OUP

Clearly Arlene is an intimidating figure as a judge with a professional background in dancing to a non-professional dancer; particularly a non-professional who struggles as much Christine did.


Pity you didn't read the dictionary yourself.

Ah, we seem to have gone more than a day without a new conspiracy thread, I thought that people were slipping.

In view of the many phone/voting/fakery scandals of the l;ast tear, the public voting is not likely to be rigged, neither is anything else.

I haven't read this thread yet (but will do) .. but my firm answer is YES (and that's why I logged in)

I'm watching the Paul O'Grady show, Austin is on, and I gather he's doing the American Smooth this week. In my opinion, the AS is a complete vote scorer, everyone loves the lifts, this means Tom will end up in the dance-off and be eliminated.

That is not rigging the vote though is it?

Or, on a wider view, as people seem to have problems with almost everything now (voting, public voting, judges, "bullying", music, singers, camerawork, presenters, celebs, pros ......) perhaps we should all just walk away from it and the BBC should consign SCD to the bin?

No, I don't think so.

One might expect the anti-judge bit of the JS vote to swing to any one else bad as its that sort of psychologically driven vote. The maths however don't support any of your argument . Lisa could have been anywhere in the public vote on Saturday and beaten Christine . The key point was that Christine could only escape the bottom two if she beat both boys in the public vote. Thats where she failed. In this case the leaks suggest the anti-judge vote added to a relatively small girl vote for Christine is smaller than the big pro male hunk vote out there. thats a problem for all the girls even if they dance as well or better.

SCD has nothing to do any more with CIN - there's a thread somewhere near explaining why.

*headdesk*


No, it's not correct.

The public voting isn't rigged, but the leader board sure was.

Lisa top was a farce. A pre-meditated farce to save her, as she was surely gone otherwise.

And everyone knows it.

Yes of course they do....now could you tell us why it was fixed and she was saved? I like my conspiracy theories to actually make sense in the grand scale of thinks.

course we do.

I just imagined that mesmerising foxtrot and the best cha cha of the series didn't I. She was fabulous and you know it

And anyway, why would the Beeb save a DJ on Capital Radio who presents a show on Living TV? Seriously interested why you think this. I think if this were so, she would never have been in the danceoff when she performed her Quickstep, they would have gone nuts about it and tried to influence the viewers surely