I know it's been put on other threads but just thought I'd remind you if you had a free hour! It's my favourite episode ever! I just love it.

Martin & Erin
Aled & Lilia
Lesley & Anton
Denise & Ian
Natasha & Brendan
Jill & Darren

x x x x x

Please watch especially if you think that series 6 was rubbish. The band / singers / camerwork / Brucie / judges / dancers are nowhere near as good as they are now.

Nice tables though.

(In my opinion of course!)

Just said the same thing - how smooth the show is now too!

What???? This is Strictly at it's best! It was so much better back then!

Nah! Until this series Strictly got better every year!

Len doesn't even say SE_VEN yet!

Tess's dress is dreaful LOL!

The scores were actually accurate in series 1 & 2 though! Not everything was a bloody ten! Len doesn't say SE-VEEEN yet because that wasn't the only score he seemed to possess under that desk.

It was far better back then! This is vintage Strictly!! You haven't lived if you haven't seen series 1!!!

The show is much slicker now, all the flash decorations etc, but the older shows were better where it mattered....especially the scoring!!

In those days it was more realistic. This series I feel some couples were given 8s and 9s just for walking onto the dance floor without falling over

Completely agree even the judges' favourite back then didn't get excessively high score and even in the Christmas special they complained about lifts (not like this year) and Bruno still give tens despite lifts

just noticed that not only did Kelly dance a jive to rocking around the christmas tree but they wore purple like Jill and Darren

Vikki I was mainly referring to the production values and the band more than the dancing.

For example in Denise and Ians dance you saw the steadycam man, the singers went wrong (again) and the picture in picture for the scores didn't come up until it got to Len.

If that had happened this series OFCOM would have got 50 calls.

Jill's Jive and Denise's Quickstep both would have gotten at lest 38-40 in this years Christmas Special. And Lisa's Quickstep would have gotten about 28 (all 7s).

I definitely wasn't meaning the scores!

I don't remember ever even thinking the judges might have their favourites until Series 3 or 4 - I thought they were all such experts and their scores must all be above board and tbh I think they were in at least Series 1 and 2.

The judges did their jobs properly back then (cue Hovis music)!

I think they have become 'addicted' (not right word but I am tired and brain not working) to the positive attention they get when they give high scores.

Arlene gives a 10, the audience cheer wildly, Arlene feels good about herself.

Arlene gives an 8 (which is a decent score! and more than likely what the couple deserved) the audience boo. Arlene feels bad.

I honestly think the judges egos mean they can't face the reaction if the score realistically.

Jill's jive and Denise's quickstep from this episode are just in a completely different league to almost everything from series six. Despite the technical problems, one of the best episodes ever.

Also I really quite liked Natasha and Brendan
I loved his choreography with her scarf or whatever it was at the start, really sweet.

I loved watching Natasha and Brendan - they more than anything else made me love Strictly.


I sort of know what you mean - goodness only knows what will happen next year. If the judges do start scoring sensibly, then everyone will be complaining about the comparison with the ridiculous scores from this series. I can't see the BBC or the judges saying "Right, from now on we'll be scoring what we see, not what we'd like to see or we imagined we saw".

... and watching that tonight made me desperately hope that perhaps next year they might be persuaded to join the other five winners for some kind of performance like this years. I know she loves watching it ... and perhaps sitting in the audience the other week might have made her consider it ... maybe just a tiny bit.

I know their Foxtrot wasn't technically fantastic but I still think it would score decently now ... but who cares, their chemistry just makes me squeal with joy.

I think Natasha would have held her own quite a long way into this series if she'd had the same length of time in training as everyone else.

I also think that the pros who have been with SCD for several series now know what training a celeb on SCD really involves and she would be a real contender if she was joining a series now for the first time. She has the same kind of natural elegance that Cherie has.

I'd love to see her get a bit more training and take part in some way again.

Loved jill's jive in this xmas special.

Very possibly... I don't remember if they said how many hours they trained together, but it was mentioned last night that Jill and Darren did around 250. I think Mark and Karen did 300, and Alesha and Matt 400. SCD1 was only eight weeks long so I bet Natasha did less than 200.

Natasha was told in the press release she'd only have to rehearse acouple hours a week! Haha! I'm not actually 100% sure how much training she did, the JLC show didn't seem to dwell on such things but I should think it was no more than three or four hours on weekdays.

BBN, I totally agree! I saw so much of Natasha in Cherie! Probably why I loved her and James so much!

x x x x x

I remember reading an interview with Len after series 1 and he said both Natasha and Lesley each did 200 hours training.

I loved the way they fooled the first year celebs into thinking they'd only be doing a couple of hours training a week! I also remember during the first series it was bloody hot for a couple of weeks and I kept thinking of them sweating cobs in training and hoping they had air conditioning! You see, the first series celebs had it much harder- they had to train in the summer!!