SCD Take 3!!

[Tigerschick]

Hello again!!

...and is it me or did Brendon look peeved just now?....

I thought Brendan was trying very, very hard not to squeal 'It wasn't fair!'

Oh yes, Brendan's face was a picture! It was the same when they showed the moment they were all told on saturday. His face was like thunder, as well it might.

The bottom line is that the only couple who must be genuinely pleased are Tom and Camilla. The other two are just trying not to appear churlish so as not to jeopardise their chances of the public vote this saturday.

Claudia asked Brendan about that on ITT tonight, and he said something very unconvincing about being all psyched up to do that dance off and taking a while to understand what had just happened.

I am also cross that the people who write the BBC website can't even explain it properly (ie how the situation arose). It states

"Scoring is split 50:50 between judges and viewers
The two couples with the lowest scores once the votes have been combined must perform in a dance-off in front of the judges alone
If there is a tie, the viewers' votes take priority
In this case, the judges' votes for Lisa Snowdon and Rachel Stevens (above) were so high, viewers' votes for Tom Chambers would have been worthless"

NOOOOO you dimwits. It's not because the scores for Lisa and Rachel were so HIGH it's because they were the SAME and that their rules allocate a 3 each. Whereas the rules should state in the event of a tie they get 2.5 each perhaps.

I know Turniphead, otherwise it's like saying "because Lisa and Rachel were so much better than Tom it's not fair, so we have decided to keep him anyway".

Having watched ITT they are actually going to carry the judges' scores over so I am pleased about that.

It's fair enough that Brendan looked annoyed - what happened on Saturday night has completely jeopardized Lisa's chance of winning.

If there had been a dance off last weekend, Tom would have very probably gone no matter which of the girls he was up against, leaving Rachel and Lisa in the final. Lisa and Rachel are very much tied on public support, but Lisa is fractionally more popular, so probably would have won.

However, with Tom in the final, he is almost definitely going to win, as he has tremendous public support. There's a poll going on at the BBC SCD forum where over 500 people have said who they are supporting. It goes like this:
Tom & Camilla = 71%
Lisa & Brendan = 15%
Rachel & Vincent = 14%

Now, I know these are just 500-odd people, and may not reflect the public at large, but that's still a pretty compelling margin.

Obviously, it should all be about the execution of the dances on the night, rather than who you like (Lisa's so fake! Tom's a phoney! Rachel's so bland!) but sadly, it doesn't seem to work like that.

By the way Turniphead, if the girls had been awarded 2.5 each rather than 3, Tom still wouldn't have been able to avoid being in the dance off on Saturday.

Girl 1 : 2.5 + 1 = 3.5
Girl 2 : 2.5 + 2 = 4.5
Tom : 1 + 3 = 4

Bottom two in dance off.

However, I agree that the BBC have created some appallingly bad statements on this issue, which seem designed to confuse and bewilder people even more.

I spend too much time thinking about this . My prediction is that Tom actually got more votes than the others this week, so that next Saturday will start with him on 4 points, and the others on 4 and 5 points. This is why the BBC is not worried about it being unfair to Tom to carry the votes over. And why the BBC man said that one couple would start with only a slight advantage.

If I'm right, it seems very likely that Tom will win since he has so much public support, which I do think is very unfair on the others who should have gone through together really.

Just watched last night's ITT - Brendan definitely not happy! And, the more I think about it, rightly so.

The truth is, if the BBC had only made a quick script change on Saturday when they realised what had happened (i.e. Tess saying "well Tom is going to be in the dance-off, so you can vote for only Lisa or Rachel now") this whole thing would have been avoided.

And I, too, think Tom is going to win and that is unfair. I might even vote. First time for everything!

I agree squeaver - I think Tom will win and it isn't fair. Rachel and Lisa were better on Saturday and deserved a fair shot at the final.

Oooh, just saw this. I wonder if Tom and Camilla will bow out?

I may be out of turn joining this thread so late in the day (I do lurk!) and I'm not sure if anyone else has suggested this (I've read most of the posts, but not all), but why couldn't Len have had a casting vote between Lisa and Rachel the way he does between couples in the dance off?

So - Rachel and Lisa are tied at the top of the leader board and you know that means Tom is definitely in the dance off. You therefore announce at the start of the show that tied positions are not allowed in the semi final and that, therefore, if two couples receive an identical final score, Len will have a final casting vote. That couple then gets three points and the other two. Alternatively, you could have all the judges vote to rank them, just like a dance off vote, with Len having a casting vote on a tie.

That would mean that, if Tom were top of the public vote, depending who was second he might not be in the dance off. I know that it relies on the result of the public vote for the top two couples, but in plenty of competitions you rely on other results if you are lagging (look at the England football team!). Provided that Tess didn't talk about "vote to save them" and just talked about "voting for your favourite" I think it would all work.

Is it me, or is it just the Tom fans who are crying foul on other forums?
Rachel and Lisa danced much better, so they deserve to be in the final anyway.

Oh I can't help but feel a bit sorry for Tom & Camilla now. I haven't been his biggest fan, but this fiasco is not his fault. And if John Sargeant hadn't pulled out there would be 3 in the final anyway so I suppose it's not that terrible that he's there. Did anyone see Brendan on ITT yesterday - making pointed comments about getting 4 10s meant that he felt that he and Lisa really deserved their place in the final!

squeaver - the more I think about it, the more I think that your suggest is correct ie Tess should simply have said - right Tom is definitely in the dance off. Vote for either Lisa or Rachel to avoid joining him.

That would have saved this whole sorry fiasco. We could have had a dance off between Tom - who couldn't avoid being in it despite what the public voted - and whoever got the least votes from the public.

Oh hindsight is a wonderful thing!

Exactly, expo. But then the Tom-hordes would have all claimed that the judges fixed it to ensure he was in the dance-off. In a way, the BBC couldn't win either way.

They couldn't have done that squeaver as otherwise the public wouldn't have had their 50% of the vote which is the whole basis of the show. Agree with ribenaberry the fairest way was probably that Len should have decided between 1st and 2nd place but hindsight is a wonderful thing!

I love Tom so am really glad he is in the final and after all if the public had their way both Lisa and probably Rachel would have gone out long ago and it would have been Austin, Tom and probably John Sargeant in the final!

I don't think Tess could have told people not to vote for Tom; no-one should automatically be in the dance off, as that isn't fair on the competitor or the viewers who have voted for them throughout the series (especially given that he almost certainly would have lost the dance off).

It's just absurd that the Beeb keep saying they could never have planned a contingency for this situation - if they kept an eye on the forums, they would have seen that fans have been going on about the possibility that this one day might happen for ages.

They need a new system of scoring really, after this muck-up this year, and the Gethin situation last year.

What was the Gethin situation last year?

Well the Gethin thing was that in the the 3-person semi final, the judges had them ranked as

Alesha 3
Matt 2
Gethin 1

It seems the public voted overwhelmingly to try to save Gethin from the dance off, and he would have been saved if the public vote had been Gethin 3, Matt 2, Alesha 1. However, it seems that that public vote must have actually been Gethin 3, Alesha 2, Matt 1 - this resulted in Gethin being in a dance off, that he lost.

The flaw in the SCD system is that is doesn't matter how overwhelmingly the public support one dancer - it all depends on the order in which the other dancers rank too. Gethin could have received 100 million votes, but if Alesha had 2 votes and Matt just 1, Gethin would still be in the dance off. The public are urged to 'vote to save your favourite', but the favourite could actually receive all but 3 of the phone votes, and still be in the dance off.

It's likely that Austin had a similar situation the other week - he seemed to have masses of public support, but because of the system, that doesn't matter unless the other contestants place in certain orders.

Surely the point is that the judges' vote and the public vote are combined. So it's not just a case of how much the public want to keep a couple in, but how much the public want it combined with how good they are. Otherwise it becomes a popularity competition rather than a dancing competition, since there are certainly a proportion of people who will just vote for their favourite regardless of how well they dance. I accept that it is not just a dancing competition and people enjoy the whole entertainment aspect of it, but I would prefer the public vote to carry less weight. I don't like it that the judges have no say in the actual final.

OMG ! Brian and Kristina are doing a workshop locally on Sunday !!!!

Saker I agree with you to a degree, but the problem is the judges behave a bit loopily themselves. They can't be relied on to mark purely according to the quality of the dancing, as we see some wildly erratic scoring from them. (I'm not a SCD conspiracy theorist, but last weekend alone showed how oddly some of them ...Len... mark).

Did anyone else think that Anton looked as though he was drunk on ITT this week? He's normally so fluent but was really slow off the mark and even forgot Brian's name- it was hilarious.