BBC Strictly Come Dancing 2008 - Week 11, Christine Dances out

The Public alas failed to save her from the bottom two and after performing two dances and the subsequent dance off, Christine becomes the 11th person to be voted out of Strictly Come Dancing.

The One Show Presenter landed in the bottom two against the impressive Rachel Stevens, who had already scored a maximum. With Lisa Snowdon finishing top of the Leaderboard, Christine must have known that the end was inevitable.



Rachel danced brilliantly once again in the dance-off to survive to the last 4 and Semi-finals. This is the Second time Rachel Stevens has landed in the bottom two despite brilliant scores. It may show that she does not have much Public voting support. This could be crucial if she makes the final.



Christine Bleakley's happy personality will be missed from the show, but it was the right decision for her to go. The Judges votes were unanimous in keeping Rachel in.

There are just four people left in who can win now. They are Austin Healey, Tom Chmabers, Rachel Stevens and Lisa Snowdon. Austin is still the favourite to win, but this year it looks very close and unpredictable to call. If Lisa Snowdon takes it from where she started in Week 1, it would be an amazing achievement.

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BBC Strictly Come Dancing 2008 - Week 11, The Judges Scores

Week 11 in Strictly Come Dancing, the celebrities had to perform two dances. One Ballroom, one Latin. The Ballroom dances have tended to score slightly higher this series, but with everybody having to perform both, there were no advantage to be had.

There were a lot of perfect 10 scores bring waved around this week, but here is the Leaderboard before the crutial Public vote is added.

Lisa Snowdon & Brendan 76
Austen Healey & Erin 74
Rachel Stevens & Vincent 71
Tom Chambers & Camilla 70
Christine Bleakley & Matt 58

Lisa Snowdon was odds-on to go out before Saturday's performances. It's extremely hard to see this happening now. She tops the leaderboard on 76 after performing two superb dances.

If the voting public get behind Christine Bleakley again, which is very possible, we could lose one of the big favourites! Tom Chambers looks very vulnerable to finishing in the dance off. If Christine escapes, then Rachel could be dragged into the bottom two with him. This would be amazing after Rachel's maximum 40 score of last week.

Stay tuned this Sunday night, because there may be some carnage!

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BBC Strictly Come Dancing 2008 - Week 11, Tom Chambers Chasing a 10

He has remained 2nd Favourite for quite some time, but Tom Chambers is yet to score a perfect 10 from any of the Judges. This fact is starting to rile him and he will be determined as ever to score one this week as the final looms only a matter of weeks away.

Tom Chambers has scored a vast amount of nines in Strictly Come Dancing and last week, his Tango picked up another 4 of them!

Is 10 possible for Tom? Is he always destined to score 9?

Well... 10 isn't completely out his reach and I'm surprised he hasn't been awarded it already. Some of his performances have been superb.

This week the remaining Celebrities have to battle their way through two dances, making the task all the harder. Tom has the Waltz and the tricky Samba. The Waltz gives him a fantastic chance of finally nailing that elusive 10 score.

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BBC Strictly Come Dancing 2008 - Week 9 - The Judges Scores !

It's week 9 and the dancers of Strictly Come Dancing are really looking good now. Well... all of them apart from one. But that one was so entertaining then I will let him off this week. Here are the Judges scores!

Rachel Stevens & Vincent - 39
Austin Healey & Erin - 38
Tom Chambers & Camilla - 35
Christine Bleakley & Matt - 34
Jodie Kidd & Ian - 33
Cherie Lunghi & James - 32
Lisa Snowdon & Brendan - 30
John Sergeant & Kristina - 25

After drifting in the market week after week, suddenly a bomb goes off and Rachel Stevens delivers the performance we all she was capable of. Last week she performed will with 35 points, but this week was something else entirely with a huge 39 to top the leaderboard. Wow! She is safe from the bottom two this week... unless some one changes the rules.

Austin was back in gear, scoring 38 and everybody did particularly well. If the Public save John Sergeant again, the bottom two are going to be fairly unpredictable.

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BBC Strictly Come Dancing - Week 8/9, Could Tom Chambers snatch it?

Tom Chambers may be behind favourite Austin Healey to Win 2008's Strictly Come Dancing, but he is definitely the more consistent of the two. Austin has had the odd bad week, but Tom is yet to put a dancing foot wrong.

His Quickstep this week was fantastic. An inventive and impressive start, the dance held energy and excitement right until the final beat.

Tom Chambers's performance here score 36 points to claim joint top of the leaderboard with the comeback queen, Cherie Lunghi and, the vastly improving, Lisa Snowden. All three of these could threaten Healey's chances of victory.

The Bookmakers all have Austin Healey as the strong favourite to win, but I think Tom Chambers could just beat him by a short head at the line. It maybe a photo-finish with both Cherie Lunghi and Lisa Snowden also in the picture.

This promises to be one of the closest finishes ever... unless John Sergeant makes it to the final of course, then it won't be worth watching. Hopefully his run soon ends and Strictly Come Dancing turns into a proper dance competition again as it was originally intended.

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BBC Strictly Come Dancing 2008 - Week 8, Rachel Stevens 35 points = Bottom Two Dance Off

So... these days in Strictly Come Dancing, 35 points from the Judges can leave you ending up in the bottom two dance off. What a joke this is and not a very funny one.

Professional dance partner, Vincent Simone, choreographed a brilliant American Smooth routine and wouldn't have believed what happened with the voting public. This was Rachel's best performance week so far and she was rewarded with this travesty of events. It appears she must have very little support with the viewers at home which is a bit of a mystery. Has something gone wrong with the vote counting system?

One thinks that maybe it has.

Thankfully Rachel survived the dance off this week, but it was to the detriment of Heather Small, who also danced well. Truth be told, neither of the women should have been there.

Head Judge Len Goodman said of Rachel's original routine, "Diamonds come in small packages and that was a gem of a performance."

Bruno added, "it was Fred and Ginger for me tonight, so elaborate and demanding... you did that effortlessly."

It is perhaps impossible to fathom. Bruno said he felt as if he were in the Twilight Zone. In a week where a score of 35 out of 40 can land you in the bottom two, the dance part of this competition is becoming less and less relevant.

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BBC Strictly come Dancing 2008 - Week 8, The Judges Scores are in

It's week 8, the dances have been done, and the Judges scores are in. Wow, what a high scoring week... well... for all non-former ITN people.

Here are how things shape up at the half-way stage,

Tom Chambers & Camilla 36
Cherie Lunghi & James 36
Lisa Snowdon & Brendan 36
Rachel Stevens & Vincent 35
Christine Bleakley & Matt 31
Austin Healey & Erin 29
Heather Small & Brian 27
Jodie Kidd & Ian 23
John Sergeant & Ola 12

3 couples top the table on a fantastic 36 points. This is the first time this has ever happened. Tom Chambers was outstanding, Cherie Lunghi was back to the style of dances she does best and Lisa Snowdon showed she is not to be underestimated.

Rachel Stevens finally came good to indicate she perhaps now will be a threat in the competition's final stages ahead. Thank goodness. Up until now, she had been Strictly Come Dancing's serial under performer. Not by any means bad any week, but you sensed she was not performing to the best of her ability. Rachel's American Smooth scored a well deserved 35.

Jodie Kidd struggled a bit with the Samba, but compared directly to John Sergeant's Shambles, she was the greatest dancer of all time.

Favourite to win, Austin Healey, had his worst week yet, but that's mainly due to being scored a shocking 5 by Craig. He totalled 29, but should still escape the bottom two.

What can be said about John's Cha Cha Cha this week? Judge Craig said it was a Disaster. I think he was being polite. Craig scored it a 1, but that is only because there were no score paddle with zero written on it. A woeful total of 12 points still seemed way over-marked. It was the worst dance I have ever witnessed and I'm not 100% sure he was really bothered. I've honestly seen people on fire dance better than him.

In danger of being in the dance off this week are Jodie Kidd and Heather Small.

What? No John Sergeant?

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BBC Strictly Come Dancing - Week 8, Can Heather Escape the Dance Off?

Heather Small must be feeling she's in a bit of a war zone at the moment. She has faced three bottom two dance-offs and survived each time. The Bookmaker considers her a strong favourite again to be in a similar situation, but she is not without a chance of escaping the drama.

This week will see Heather Small perform the Tango and in practice she has looked pretty good. Clearly it is a style of dance she is more comfortable with and she has even confessed to liking the routine. This must be a first!

If Heather converts her good work in training to Saturday night then it could spell trouble for Jodie Kidd and Christine Bleakley. John Sergeant is the unknown quantity here. This deep into the contest, it is going to be interesting to see if he continues to have such massive support with the voting public. I'm suspecting that he will.

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BBC Strictly Come Dancing - Andrew Verses Heather

After the completion of this weeks Strictly Come Dancing performances, we are down to just nine remaining couples.

In the bottom two dance off this week were former Tennis star, Andrew Castle and singer, Heather Small. Here's how the four Judges presided.

A unanimous decision and Heather Small survives the dance off for a third time. Small and professional dance partner, Brian Fortuna, are starting to become dance off specialists. Heather's Cha Cha Cha was deemed to be better than Castle's latin Samba. It was the right decision.

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X Factor - Week 3, Relief for Louis Walsh, JLS through

Mentor Louis Walsh must be breathing a huge sigh of relief this week as he, at last, manages to keep one of his acts in the X Factor 2008 contest.

Week 1, he lost Bad Lashes, week 2, he lost Girlband. With both his girl groups gone, mentor Louis Walsh was just left with boyband JLS.

It was Big Band night and JLS performed the 1960 Dean Martin classic, Ain't That a Kick in the Head? Martin performed the song in the original film version of Ocean's Eleven.

The boys performance was credible. Entertaining, if not completely blowing the audience away and they deserved to survive another week.

JLS are not the best act left in the competition, but they are by no means the worst and now they have that added uniqueness... they are the only group left in it. In a year where the voting public may be numbed by act after act of fantastic female singers, JLS may be hoping they offer a refreshing alternative.

This Saturday is Disco week and that should suit them again.

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BBC Strictly Come Dancing - Week 6 - Mark Foster verses Andrew Castle

BBC Strictly Come Dancing, Week 6. This week the bottom two, in the fight against elimination, were Swimming verses Tennis or more accurately, Mark Foster verses Andrew Castle. Here is how the Judges viewed it.

Neither performances were a perfect dance by any means, but Andrew had shown a lot of improvement over previous weeks with his posture and deserved to go through with dance partner Ola Jordan.

Mark will be missed as he is a genuine all round good guy. He certainly improved in the competition, but in the end was a bit of a fish out of water.

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BBC Strictly Come Dancing - Week 6, Scores after the Judges vote

Week 6 tonight of BBC Strictly come dancing saw the celebrities dance either the Paso Doble or the Viennese Waltz.

Here are the scores from Len Goodman and his band of Judges.

Austin Healey & Erin 34
Tom Chambers & Camilla 32
Rachel Stevens & Vincent 32
Cherie Lunghi & James 31
Lisa Snowdon & Brendon 29
Heather Small & Brian 27
Jodie Kidd & Ian 26
Andrew Castle & Ola 24
Christina Bleakley & Matthew 22
John Sergeant & Kristina 21
Mark Foster & Hayley 16

Austin was back on top after a bit of a dip last week confirming his favouritism. Rachel Stevens also bounced back to score 32 which Tom Chambers equalled despite a week which saw him get married, have a honeymoon and only put in 9 and half hours practice!

Last week, Heather Small ended up in the bottom two dance off despite finishing mid-way in the table at this stage. The same thing could happen again as people at home vote in their droves for John Sergeant and Christina Bleakley.

Be sure to watch this Sunday when the 6th Eliminee from Strictly Come Dancing 2008 will be revealed.

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BBC Strictly - Week 5 - Heather verses Don

The sixth series of the BBC's Strictly Come Dancing, Week 5, saw Don Warrington be voted out of the competition after finding himself for the second time in the dance-off. Here's how the Judges saw it,

Heather Small survives her second dance off in as many weeks. Arguably neither of the two should have been in the bottom two, but that's just the way the cookie crumbles. Mark Foster and Andrew Foster perhaps should have been competing instead, but it goes to show, they both must have some support with the viewers. Heather could well be in the bottom two next week also.

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BBC Strictly - Week 5 - Scores after the Judges Vote

The BBC's Strictly Come Dancing competition completes its fifth week. Here are the provisional scores as the men and women compete for the first time in the same competition for survival.

Lisa Snowdon & Brendon 35
Tom Chambers & Camilla 35
Cherie Lunghi & James 34
Austin Healey & Erin 32
Rachel Stevens & Vincent 30
Jodie Kidd & Ian 30
Christina Bleakley & Matthew 30
Don Warrington & Lelia 25
Heather Small & Brian 23
Mark Foster & Hayley 17
Andrew Castle & Ola 17
John Sergeant & Kristina 16

As I expected, Lisa Snowdon improved yet again. This time she finished with an impressive 35 points and shared top place in the table with Tom Chambers. Rachel Stevens was a bit down on other weeks and shares 30 points with both Jodie and Christina from The One Show. All should be safe come Sunday.

Despite by far being the most entertaining, John Sergeant, finishes last for the first time. Quite cheekily afterwards, he quipped, the Public would keep him in, they know what they have to do. Head Judge, Len Goodman, said if he was a member of the public, John would get his vote. That is good enough for me.

The voting fan bases of both Mark Foster and Andrew Castle are probably not that great, so it looks as if they will find themselves in the dance-off when the Viewers vote is added.

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BBC Strictly - Week 4 - Cherie serious contender

She wasn't favoured before in the competition, but Cherie Lunghi's first two performances in BBC's Strictly Come Dancing Series 6, have been very impressive. Saturday she again performed almost flawlessly to top the Leaderboard after the Judges Votes.

Significantly, she has outscored favoured Rachel Stevens in both performances and seems more than a match for the two favoured men, Austin Healey and Tom Chambers. It seems very likely that the viewers votes are going to end up playing a major part on who the eventual winner will be.

If the competition continues in this vein, the final four left in will be Austin Healey, Tom Chambers, Rachel Stevens and Cherie Lunghi. John Sergeant is the enigma. Clearly no where near as good as these four, his popularity with the voting public is close to awesome. John could possibly spring a similar shock to Julian Clary did a few years back by reaching the final despite not technically being the best dancer.

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BBC Strictly - Week 4 - Scores from the Judges

Week 4 in the BBC's competition saw the women compete for the second time. After the Judges votes we can see that Cherie Lunghi has done it again. That's two performances running she has scored higher than hot female favourite, Rachel Stevens to top the leaderboard. It will be very interesting come Monday to see how Bookmakers alter the odds. It now appears that either one of four people could win the contest on what could well become the tightest series ever.

Tonight the two dances were the Quickstep and the Rumba. Here are the scores before the viewers vote is added on Sunday.

Cherie Lunghi & James 35
Rachel Stevens & Vincent 33
Lisa Snowdon & Brendan 32
Christine Bleakley & Matthew 26
Heather Small & Brian 23
Jodie Kidd & Ian 22
Jessie Wallace & Darren 19

Jessie Wallace places last again, but was saved from the bottom two in week 1 and the same could very well happen again such is her popularity. The bottom two in the dance-off could well be Jodie Kidd for a second time and Heather Small. Tune in Sunday to find out!

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BBC Strictly - Week 3 - Rhodes Out

Gary Rhodes becomes the third celebrity to be eliminated from the BBC's Strictly come dancing contest.

After finishing last with the Judges, this week, the viewing public failed to save him. Rhodes faced a dance-off with swimmer, Mark Foster. Although Mark's performance was nothing special, it was better than the celebrity chef's by a measure of light years.

In the end it was a unanimous final decision with the judges to keep Mark Foster in and it was an obvious decision. Judge Craig even went so far as to described it as "a no brainer."

Len Goodman said of Gary's dance-off, "It was a brave performance." and we all know that this is really secret code for rubbish.

Respect has to be given to Gary Rhodes for entering the contest as dancing is obviously not his strong suit, but now we can move up another notch as the competition starts to intensify.

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BBC Strictly - Gillian Taylforth Second out

Gillian Taylforth becomes the second celebrity to be voted out of BBC Strictly come dancing.

After the initial judges vote, she found herself in the bottom two with Jessie Wallace. Wallace escaped after the viewers vote was added, as often happens with the competitor who finishes initially last. The phenomena also happened to Gary Rhodes the previous week.

Taylforth and partner, Anton Du Beke, faced Jodie Kidd & Ian Waite in the bottom-two dance off. Jody improved massively over her first performance and arguably shouldn't have featured in the dance off anyway. The Judges decided unanimously to save Jody.

Gillian wasn't bad in the competition, but I think it was the right decision. The skill level of the Celebrities seems to go up every year, and Gillian probably wouldn't have gone out as early other years.

So here we are... two down, who will be next?

Cherie Lunghi was the revelation of the first dance and it will be interesting to see what her odds are to win on Monday. Before her first appearance, the Bookies didn't fancy her at all, but I strongly suspect they will be changing their minds pretty sharpish.

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BBC Strictly - Week 2, Lunghi leads

7-2 to go out first, before the show, now seems such ridiculous odds for Cherie Lunghi. Cherie and dance partner, James Jordan, made an impressive first performance to lead the table after the Judges vote. They scored 33, two points more than one of the hot favourites, Rachel Stevens. It was the best thing that could have happened and now the competition is well and truly set!

The scores after the Judges vote are,

Cherie Lunghi & James Jordan 33

Rachel Stevens & Vincent Simone 31
Chistine Bleakley & Matthew Cutler 27
Heather Small & Brian Fortuna 26
Jody Kidd & Ian Waite 25
Lisa Snowdon & Brendan Cole 22
Gillian Taylforth & Anton Du Beke 22
Jessie Wallace & Darren Bennett 20

As predicted, Gillian Taylforth and Jessie Wallace find themselves in the bottom two after the Judges vote. It is close. After the viewers vote is added, I believe any of the bottom four could find themselves in the dance-off this evening. It will be hard for Jessie to escape it, but Gillian and ever-popular Anton Du Beke may steal enough votes to be safe. This could leave Lisa Snowdon or Jody Kidd vulnerable.

Jessie Wallace looks favourite to go, but this week could be a very close one.

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