This is stupid, i am not making digs at any of the people still left in because i think they are all lovely, however
Lisa or Rachel cannot win because they do not have the public support so why are we still having a dance off???

The judges have just put through someone who does not have a hope of winning and has just put out someone who is the public favourite- and just because they had the wrong dance!

Austin was not in actual fact my complete favourite but his departure is going to make lots of people (including my 5 year old cousin) really sad.

Strictly has now just lost its magic and i think its going to pay the price. i love the programme but now i dont really care who wins or gets to the final.
Last edited by rose92 : 07-12-2008 at 21:27

The judges have effectively done us out of a cracking final (and semi) and handed tom the trophy.

I know, and i dont want to seem like i am taking anything away from the others but the whole point of strictly is that the public have 50 % which they clearly don't.

No offence but I think you could be wrong there.

I believe both girls are better dancers than Tom, and the way this series is going I really wouldn't be surprised if it was a 2 girl final, remember the judges will have choose again in the dance off next week.........let's see if they have the necessaries to choose the best dancers

My 7 year old is very happy with Austin going

it's called life we don't always get what we want

He was the worst dancer in the dance off

A lot of us don't care about the best dancer.
We care about the people we like or warm to.

Tom doesn't actually seem very popular on these boards at least - so i don't think it's a foregone conclusion.

Remember, the fans of people who've been voted out may want to put their votes elsewhere.

Who's to say it won't be with Rachel or Lisa?

I think Tom is a much better dancer than Lisa but I think the judges will save Lisa over Tom next week.

it's certainly unfairly judged in that there is too much variety in the dances. leaving it to the semi-final and the first few rounds where everyone dances the same means there's room for huge inconsistency and makes it difficult for the public to judge fairly too. bring back the days of there being only two dances danced in each night!

Er, wait a minute, not so long ago those of us who did not like John Sergeant being kept in were told to accept that half the vote belongs to the public, but now that YOUR favourite has gone out it's all a con.

Unfortunately 5 year olds have to learn to cope with disappointments, Rose.

Plenty of people think this was the right decision and really didn't want to see Austin in the final. This is not the first series in which a proportion of viewers have been disappointed with the progress of the competition and declared they're "not going to watch it anymore" as if expecting this to prove to the BBC that they somehow should have arranged things better for their benefit. In the series in which Darren Gough won, I stopped watching after the quarter finals as did most of the people I know. That series I believed Darren Gough wasn't the best dancer and shouldn't have won, but the way the competition worked then, he was able to get through by the vote of his fanbase. This series, Austin was unable to get through on the vote of HIS fanbase, and rightly so.

How much say do the judges have next week? I thought it was purely a public vote in the final?

I can't believe there will be a dance off next week. It is completely ridiculous at this stage.

No, there is always a judges' vote and a public vote.

So you're sad - some of us were sad when our original favourites went out - doesn't mean the programme lost it's magic.

Yep im one of those people.
I was lucky last year as my favourite "personality" ended up being a good dancer and popular with the judges.
The year before that it was Louisa who i adored.

However the best dancer this year (Rachel) isnt someone i can warm to as a person unfortunately. And i really have tried because i adore vincent.

Lisa won that dance off fair and square; had the judges voted in favour of Austin the whole thing would have been farcical.

Why though? I have never seen her being nasty or anything - she seems very likeable to me.

Do you really hand on heart believe that Lisa is a better dancer than Tom? I'm willing to concede that Rachel is, but Lisa, while obviously much improved over the series, has certainly been the beneficiary of Brendan's clever choreography that has maximised her strengths and masked her weaknesses - a much harder task for the female pro, surely?

Erm, if Austin was the public favourite why didn't people vote in droves to keep him in?

I have no particular favourite this year. I'm just enjoying the competition.

if he was that much of a public favourite, then surely he would have been in the dance off? ... i think it goes to show that many people vote on the night for the dances they think are the best as opposed to a favourite

omg - Austin is out - Armageddon is here and the end of the world is nigh.

Can civilisation as we know it survive?

Hmmm...you don't know the order of the public vote any more than I do, but the only way Austin could have avoided the dance off was for Rachel to come last on the public vote and him to come top. No other combination would have worked, so its not as simple as saying his fanbase didn't vote for him enough.

Its not that i dislike like her i think shes perfectly harmless. im just neutral about her. I dont care about her winning one way or the other.
I think she probably will win as shes technically the best but shes not someone i personally would vote for. Im one those odd people that dont relaly care about which celeb always has the best foot work. I prefer to watch people that can actually sell a dance and look like they love being there.

Even with the most 'phone votes Austin was almost certainly doomed to the dance-off since he couldn't exceed 5 points. The different permutations are much diminished as time goes on.