I assume I'm not the only one to notice that on both SCD and ITT, they are going out of their way NOT to say that it was Tom's bacon was effectively saved by the decision to put all 3 in the final.

Why are they so scared to say this, or to even broach the subject?

The only time we've even got close was when Brendan admitted he was somewhat ambivalent when the decison was announced. He didn't have to say it, we all know what he was thinking - he wants to win and he knows his chances would have been better with 2 in the final rather than 3.

I just wish they would come out and discuss this openly.

Because the only reason Tom needed saving was because the show messed up, the fact that they hadn't thought of a contingency plan for something so simple makes them look a bit silly.

I think most people are over it including the majority of viewers, apart from newspapers who drag every story to it's death with constant repetition.

I imagine because its a bit awkward and it goes without saying, every major newspaper has reported it and I assume they want to move on now and discuss the final (edit; and len's pickled walnuts)

Very perceptive post ealingkid Not really wanting to fuel the OTT 'debate' (and I do think Tom's a sweet guy) but I know exactly where you (and Brendan - and probably Vincent!) are coming from! I have a sort of discontented knot in my stomach about it all - I should be thrilled, as a fan of his/theirs, that V&R are in the Final, but it all feels a little besmirched to me

Swap V&R for B&L and I totally agree

Although Tom and Camilla were the weakest dancers last Saturday, the voting debacle wasn't their fault, and if anyone can think of an alternative resolution I would be interested in hearing it.

This is from someone who thinks Tom was very luck to survive - so no agenda or favouritism here.

My ONLY idea would be to have taken the Eurovision route (I know it's that desperate) whereby when they have a tie then then count back the number of maximum scores for the two countries (12 in that case 10 in this) then if that is still a tie the second score down (10 there 9 here)

That if I remember correctly would have meant

Lisa and Brendan - 3 (5 tens)
Rachel and Vincent -2 (4 tens)
Tom and Camilla - 2 (0 tens)

However as tens are often controversial and this has never been done before in SCD then I guess the all in result was the only way to go.

As I said that's my only idea and yes it's not a good one

I'd say there are three elephants each in a different corner as in addition to Tom and his elephant there is also -

Nellie the elephant - can be seen but ignored by those who don't think Rachel has been constantly over marked by the judges and is only in the final because the judges saved her twice after the dance off.

Dumbo the elephant - can be seen but ignored by those who don't think Lisa has been constantly over marked by the judges and is only in the final because the judges saved her three times after the dance off.

If everyone agrees to squeeze passed these three large creatures we could have a great final!

I like it.

Rachel was saved against clearly worse dancers and should never have been in the dance offs. Lisa was saved against worse dancers and people dancing poorly that week. There is no elephant there to see.

Arlene has already shot the big elephant on breakfast TV. Tom was out unless the girl's popularity reversed the order of their marks or he found 6 marks in the dance off or, as it it turned out, the girls were both equally better than he was.

Sorry, but from what I've read on here some people would say that Rachel and Lisa were kept out of the dance off by the judges' over marking. Nellie and Dumbo are there for some people.

I'm not saying which elephants I can see but am ignoring!

I got involved in a long argument about this on an older thread, but Ignazio is right; Tom & Camilla needed to be 'saved' because the BBC failed to foresee a scoring situation where they would need to be 'saved'.

They were the weakest dancers, but if the judges hadn't tied Lisa & Rachel (and I believe this was an unfortunate coincidence instead of a fix or a conspiracy; if anything or anyone is to blame, then blame Len for overmarking Lisa's AT and Craig for overmarking Lisa's QS) then Tom and Camilla still could have avoided the dance off if Rachel (who for sake of argument, should have been at the top of the leaderboard) had come last in the public vote.

If there hadn't been a tie between Lisa & Rachel, then there would have been enough uncertainty about the judges + public result to continue with the phone vote (even if Tom's fans had to give him the most votes AND take a gamble on Rachel getting the least votes). The dance off could have contained any combination of the three couples (although Tom's chances of surviving it were zero).

Unfortunately, the judges' tie took away any uncertainty about the result so the rules had to be suspended. However, it wasn't certain that Tom would have gone if they hadn't tied Lisa and Rachel, so the Tom being lucky argument isn't as strong as it initially appears to be.

its possibly more than that though. The solution is to abandon the dance off that once or abandon it anyway and rely on the public vote or have a tie breaker. Escape one required a big decision in seconds. Escape two would be disasterous as it would end in a contest that had little to do with dancing and the BBC can't justify letting SCD turn into another I'm A Celebrity minus bugs. Escape three is the right one but letting the judges decide who was top would be subjective and raise problems and relying on something like accumulated marks would be objective but also controversial. Anyone who did see the problem might well decide to ignore it as something awkward that wouldn't turn up because it was awkward.

I agree with you 100% (I don't have a favourite btw).

If it had of been the old system (ie before dance off) both would have been out before now as to be in the dance off their scores had to be low to put them in the dance off to being with

So basically all three of the finalists shouldn't be there so give the trophy to Austin or John or let's all get over it give all the finalists a clean slate and judge on Saturday night performances or the person you enjoy dancing the best out of the 3 who are there


agree

Whenever there was a tie at any of the dance-offs the Lens vote was the "trump card". Would it have been possible once there was a tie to to allocate the three and two points on the strength of Lens votes? It would not have needed Len to then make a decision (which as judges they often object to having to do), just Bruce to announce Lens voting.

However, if it was not for the money grabbing BBC, on the week that John "retired", to still go ahead with an eviction there would not have been a problem the week of the semi-final. If they had declared that week to be a gala evening with no voting and no-one leaving (apart from the retiring John) by the time we had arrived at the semi-final there would still have been four couples.

I wont go into the maths but the only was the public could not have had the opportunity to save the couple placed last by the judges was if all the other THREE couples had the same score. The chances of that are far, far higher than what we saw last Saturday, and therefore less chance of Len's votes being the decider.

Rather than Len having to evict a couple after a "hung jury" following a dance-off in earlier rounds he would, in the semi final, only be condemning one of the top two (or three if there had been four couples) to join the last couple in the dance-off.

At least "joe public" could have had his say in who had a chance of avoiding the dance-off.

I think it makes sense... BBC please note.

Because the public ALWAYS and BY THE RULES have the chance to "save someone's bacon". That's the whole point of the show, and it's been the whole point of the show since it began.

If they'd had some kind of countback contingency plan for this tie situation (last week's marks, head judges mark, whatever) and the girls had been separated by a point, it's entirely possible the leaderboard would have been reversed and Tom would have gone straight through, leaving the two girls to fight it out in the dance off.

Good post, ealingkid - and Slinks - your post has described my feelings entirely.

If anyone at the bottom of the leaderboard had gone and the public hadn't been able to save them in series four then Emma Bunton would have won and judging by where she came in a recent poll on here that wouldn't have made many people on here - happy.

Lisa's jive in quarter-final was not worthy of a quarter-final and worse than anyone else latin on the night - she was as lucky that the system worked for her allowing her to get by on her waltz alone (and the fact that the judges didn't pick up on the fact she gapping through it in the dance-off). Also whether Lisa and Rachel deserved to be the dance-off (and Lisa did on two occasions being in the bottom two on the leaderboard - although she very fairly saved herself against Cherie) the fact remains their presence there means that the voting public didn't care about them and would rather have saved other people - which with the exception of Tom are not there. They are both Emma Bunton's - to ignore that and to say that only Tom's victory would be achieved under a cloud is ignore your very own elephants in the room. I personally could live with Rachel winning she's very talented even though I think some of her dances are over-rated and she's not very charismatic but to say that her or Lisa haven't been lucky to make the final is wrong.

Bring back Austen

No.

Yes

Why? Didn't he bore you enough during his long run?

Not possible due to her being a bit dead.