Strictly Come Dancing

Having watched and enjoyed Strictly for many years I am disappointed in this year's show. It's getting very tired. What is all the fuss about over Angela Rippon. I don't feel she's been tested yet with the more complex dances. I believe the Strictly producers are being selective. Also, let's not forget she has a dance history. A definite advantage in my view. Get her out. Just look at some of the work the contestants with no dance background are producing. They are the real winners in my book. I'm not a producer so I'm unable to make any suggestions but I feel it needs a completely new formula.

Strictly Come Dancing is by no means a bad show, it is quite fun and the celebrities participating really enjoy themselves but as a Saturday night TV show, I do feel it is taken far too seriously, judges can be quite harsh and often seem to forget it's just a light entertainment show (Len Goodman blaming the viewers for voting wrong for example). So too do some viewers, getting quite angry if their "favourite" is knocked out.

I loved Saturday night TV in the 1990s when I was a kid, it used to be just all about fun and didn't take itself seriously. If they made Strictly a bit more like that, then it would be a great Saturday night show.

I will admit I don't think it is the best show on earth, it does get a bit too serious at times with the emotional training sessions and sometimes the wrong person gets voted off, two excellent example are Gabby Logan and Spoony. But the reason why I love this is because it is entertaining, what with Bruce Forsyth reciting his corny but hilarious jokes and pratfalls. One of my favourites was when he likened judge Craig Revel Horwood to a sour lemon. Here you see some truly talented dancers, honestly Jill Halfpenny and Alesha Dixon were amazing, and not so talented dancers, namely Quentin Willson and possibly Fiona Phillips. I loved the dresses, and the choreographies, and through the programme I got a lot of tips of how to dance a particular dance. And where would we be without the judges? The hissable Craig Revel Horwood, the sincere Arlene Phillips, the encouraging Len Goodman and the eccentric Bruno Tonioli with his increasingly silly comments, like "It's like a Robin Reliant with a Ferrairi". My favourite Craig criticism has to be "D-U-L-L, Dull!", and some of the celebrities make some truly hilarious comebacks, most notably Julian Clary's "You Wouldn't Know a Passo Doble if you sat on one". All in all, despite the flaws, this is a very entertaining programme, that people aspired to dance, should give it a try. 8/10 Bethany Cox.

With shows like this spanning two hours of a Saturday evening, it's no wonder people go out and turn to drink. I'm appalled by the fact that by paying my TV license I'm helping fund garbage like this. Surely there's a better way to keep families entertained than two hours of people dancing and then cardboard cutout caricatures of judges play the crowd? I swear, the audience is only interested in hearing numbers of increasing value being shouted out, no matter how good or bad the performance was, and if one of the judges threw out the rules just for a moment and gave a contestant a mark of 11 out of 10, the audience would scream so gleefully loud that they'd all tear not only their vocal chords, but also a hole in space and time itself.

"Oh, but you simply must see (insert celebrity name here) do the Charleston!" I hear you say. No. No, I simply must not waste another second of my life watching this show with almost zero entertainment value. This is more the standards of ITV than BBC. In fact, I'm almost certain that this is actually a nationwide experiment for girlfriends and wives to test the patience and loyalty of their partners to the extreme. Can you sit through this without drifting off and staring at the wall for long periods of times? Without completely zoning out to the point of slipping into a coma? Try it. I dare you.

Fortunately for me I have to work Saturday nights. Unfortunately, with the wonders of catch-up, iPlayer and being able to record TV, I now have to witness it at any other moment in time as it's no longer restricted to its allocated slot. However, I do occasionally manage to slip through the net and avoid seeing around 90% of the show if I'm lucky.

I gave it a score of 2 out of 10. It gets one star/point for me and my partner still somehow being together, despite this show. It also gets a second star/point for my TV still being fully intact, no matter how strong the urge is to put my foot through the screen.

2/10

I love Leighton, he is a fantastic dancer, a nice person, he and Nikita are a great partnership, but.... He is obviously a trained dancer, he has ballet moves, and can move his body like a trained dancer and is currently in the West End.

Strictly is either a professional and an amateur, or it is a professional show.

The organisers have got it so wrong this year. People like Annabel who has been dancing her socks off, a true amateur, have got to compete with a professional duo.

If they win it will be a travesty.

It is putting me off watching the results on Sunday !

All amateurs or at least people who haven't danced for years, next year please. Back to the original script.