I don't have any problem with there being mixed ages, does it really matter who goes out first, someone has to, if they are all between 20 and 40 then we would have young people going out first. It's the nature of the competition that couples leave one by one.

I'd like more celebs with personality, I'd like them to be in a couple of weeks before any eliminations, I had only heard of three of the celebs this year.

My favourite changes are dump the dance off, I have no desire to see the two least popular dances again. I would like to see the number of votes per phone line limited to two and to be able to vote on line and on the red button, the latter two being free.

This year's final four were all somewhere in the 30-40 bracket. That isn't particularly young.

All I'm saying is that I don't want a bunch of 18 year olds chosen purely because they're young totty. I want celebrities with a bit of humour and spark to them. A range of ages is great - Louisa Lytton had a lovely, bubbly personality and she was very young. If the producers really want to boost next year's show, they should put some effort into finding celebs that bring interest and wit to the show, rather than merely a pretty face.

I agree that the show is too long with too many couples - however the age of the contestants has been about right most years - the BBC is far more susceptible to criticism than other stations because of the way it is funded so if they had contestants only under 40 then they would be accused of ageism - however due to the nature of the competition older contestants will always find it hard to master the new skill so to satisfy all parties they need a mix of ages

Dropping it back down to 12 couples with no elimination in the first week or so means we see the couples tackle both latin and ballroom and see if initial success was a flash in the pan

Bruce is fine I think he handles the live format well and controls the judges if it gets out of hand - Tess is dead behind the eyes swap her with Claudia Winkleman - I'm sure she wouldnt mind doing 6 days a week

Any scoring issues could be fixed with a Eurovision style solution - in the event of a tie those with the most tens would be the top - then 9s, 8s etc

I think the sunday results show has provided a much needed second boost to BBC One's ratings on a sunday evening and they would find it hard to move it back - however the gap could be filled by other family entertainment - Merlin/Robin Hood or how about bang up to the minute Top Of The Pops

The only problem with having the results show back on saturday nights is the clashing with the X Factor for most of this series Strictly has avoided the clash and ratings seem down on last year? Oh well I'm sure they will sort things out

With vote money going to Children in Need I can't see that happening

As I said I don't have any problem with there being older celebrities and I've liked a fair few of them - I'm just saying that it doesn't seem like the public as a whole really care. It's not about chasing the young demographic. The existing demographic don't seem to be that fussed with them either.


If you order all 16 contestants this year in order of age, they're the 11th, 12th, 13th and 14th oldest. The only two younger were Jodie and Christine, both of whom were very popular with the public. This means that the top 6 were also the six youngest. The show is weighted very very heavily indeed towards the young folk, both on the part of the judges and the public.

I do agree that what we need are celebrities with strong, interesting personalities. We also need celebrities who are able to be compete. John Sergeant could under the rules of the competition. Most middle aged and older celebrities can't. I'm not saying they shouldn't be cast - I'm just saying there should be less of them.

I'd also like to see a rethink of some of the dances, Ballroom ok. But on the latin side, I'd axe the jive, it's way too difficult for amateurs to get close to, even the young ones, I'd replace it with West Coast Swing, and you have a choice of fast or slow, then we don't have to listen to the judges banging on about people being too tall for the jive.

My personal hate is the rumba,(most of the time it resembles a pole dance in a downmarket bar) I would replace it with the Argentine tango or the milonga (which technically I am told is ballroom because most of is danced in hold, but phooey to that).

Then we seem to have three dances which the pros seem to think are interchangeable, salsa, samba and cha cha cha, all of which I like but the pros need to be sent away to learn a proper salsa and the judges to recognize one.

I don't mind the make-up of dances, but I'd like to see the Argentine Tango cut loose from being a semi-finals only dance, and allowed to roam a bit early on but not so early that the really poor early celebs have to do it. Something like the placing of the paso. This way the pros would actually have some incentive to learn it (although that doesn't seem to have worked with the salsa, so maybe not)

I gotta agree with this, I'm not expert and a lot of the time I cannot tell the difference between these three dances

Monkseal don't you call it the 'salsambcha' or something? I think that's a good word for it

Yes but save at least one double elimination till the semi/quarter final so if someone does pull out then it wont effect 3 in the final

t's a Salsamba. I'm usually alright telling cha cha cha, except when it's people like Quentin Wilson or Gary Rhodes when God only knows what it's supposed to be.

lmao....

I would actually like to see a traditional Salsa, as so many are apparently actually sambas. I may away to youtube to find one...........

Double irony because the one with the highest judges marks last night (perfection in fact) got dumped first.

I'd also go for the judges being sent to learn about the AT. Because of their comments, all the pros apart from Vincent and Flavia, turn it into a public grope and their ATs have more rumba content than tango.

I agree that the celebs should actually be fit enough to do justice to the training. But this doesn't necessarily come down only to age. Cherie was far better than Mark despite his youth and obvious athletic ability.

Jodie and Christine were both very popular with the public. As you point out, they were the youngest there, but they also had engaging personalities. People genuinely liked them. I'd say that the five dancers most popular with the viewers were John, Austin, Tom, Jodie and Christine. Wide spread of ages, but the common denomenator was a spark that lifted them from the crowd.

On the other hand, there were celebs who weren't as successful connecting with the public. I'd count Rachel and Heather among them, although they were among the younger contestants. They were in the dance-off far sooner than they should have been according to their abilities.

Yes yes yes. I am bored now with the same tired old comments about "ballroom" and "latin", let's have all sorts of dances. Charleston, Cossack, Habanera, Rock'n'Roll, Spatchcock, etc. Why not.

I think the fans of Strictly that have always watched it will continue to watch it - some like Bruce, some don't same with Tess and Len but in my view they are all part of its success. I loved this series - yes it was a shame about all the fuss with John Sergeant and that silly mistake with the leaderboard but I still enjoyed it and was delighted Tom and Camilla won. I hope they don't mess about with it too much - Brian and Christina are fantastic but I still love Vincent, James, Mathew, Lilia and Ola and would not like to see too many changes in the line up.

And I never ever believe what the News of the World says!

I would like the judges to have mabyey 2 sets of scores

1 for entertainemnt and one for technical ability

That's a very good idea.

I'd like to see it go back to less couples and all celebs of the same sex do the same dance that evening - ie girls all do the same latin dance whilst the boys do the same ballroom (so you get all the girls doing a rumba at the same time and all the boys doing a waltz at the same time and so on). It's almost impossible to judge who's dancing best when they're all doing different dances. Also:

Scrap the dance off

Results show back to a saturday evening

Change the judges

Agree with whomever said to show the dance VT's before the dances so that those who have no dance knowledge know what to look out for

Give us decent camera angles so we can actually see the bloody dancers feet!!!! How can we make accurate judgements when for most of the time we don't see their feet for the entire dance.

Contingency plans to ensure a 3 person final before the semi-final. If someone drops out there should be no vote off that week - simple! Why the BBC cannot grasp this is beyond all of us on this forum.

But no money from the phone votes goes to Children In Need any more!

ALthough I do agree somethings need to be revamped such as Dance off, number of celebrites, judges, Tess etc...

However, IMO I think the BBC are CLUELESS

They believe that we want to see broken marriages/relationships just so the pro and celeb can 'get it together' - nobody wanted Brendan/Camilla and Vincent/Flavia to break up! Thats horrible

They want younger celebs and soap stars? Thats a right turn off I can't stand most soaps. Also want is young? Tom was 31, Lisa 37 and Rachel 30. They all made the final I can understand some of teh oldies like Gillian and Phil never got much love but sometimes you need a bit of time to get to see them.

Younger pros??? Ola is one of the WORST on the show and shes teh youngest (I think). Some of the best and more loveable pros are in their thirties. I don't personally like them all but Ian, Darren, Lillia, Camilla, Brendan, Erin and Anton are more popular then James and Ola and Hayley.

In teh NOTW it mentioned that Ian, Karen Lillia and Darren are in danger WHY??? three of them are WINNERS and you don't want to upset them so they never return to do a champions dance or xmas specials in future years.

How would Camilla feel if all her friends are ditched and shes still there? The whole family feel that Brucie gives us every week is under threat for what? A watered down X-Factor?
I cannot stand X-Factor and don't watch it so why would I want SCD more like X-Factor???


BBC are CLUELESS to what the public and it's audience (which includes many older generation viewers) want.

Yes please.

Also don't understand why the show is on so early on a Saturday night, if it's just because of ratings against X factor, can someone tell me why is the Beeb so obssessed with ratings, ratings are basically a tool to sell advertising space, the Beeb is publicly funded, so put the show on at 7pm, results show that night, then repeat the whole thing early Sunday evening.

I agree with this post as well.

I don't watch any soaps, that includes casualty & holby so I am in the dark about a lot of the contestants, would like to see all the couples stay in for a few weeks get a couple of dances under their belts, there could be a rolling leaderboard adding public votes and judges scores then after two or 4 weeks the bottom 2 leave, then its back to voting as normal.

It is quite disgusting, if true, that the Beeb want to completely downgrade Strictly to a guess who is snogging who. Also don't like the x-factorising of the show, stop dragging on relative after relative, they all say the same thing. No one says, well going by his/her school reports we're very surprised they didn't turn out to be an axe murderer, so a stint on strictly is quite pleasing.

Please don't get rid of Brendan & James, what would the non-app thread do. I'm quite happy with the current mix of pros, I like some better than others, but feel they all have a lot to offer the programme, and a hissy fit or two is quite welcome amongst all the amazings.

Have a league table. Keep them all in for the first few weeks, then bottom two out every week. That way the nonsense of a good dancer being out for one poor week would stop.
Do something to stop repeat voting (but I don't know if the technology is there.)
Cut the background "stories" and so on - I really am not interested in how some actor spends there time, or how much of a struggle it has been to earn their massive fee.
Judges to give marks on technical merit and "performance."
No Sunday show.
Alan

Okay, maybe I'm passed the point of rational thought due to sleep deprivation or thenetworkbabe has confused me again - gotta love her for that - but on another thread, "were they not that bothered to try last night", post 36, if you ignore all the exclamation marks and bold bits, I actually like that as a possible partial solution. It's too long to quote and I'm not sure about copying and pasting someone else's post. But as a solution to the dance versus entertainment, I think it has something. Or I'm totally shatrinacked beyond belief. Insomnia's a bitch.