Strictly Come Dancing: The Glittering Finale

Tonight our three finalists will emerge from the spray tanning booth for the last time, dripping in bling and dancing their little hearts out for the chance of lifting the very kitsch glitter ball trophy.

Kara Tointon was said to be the favourite on BBC Breakfast Time this morning, but really it's anyone's game. I can't remember a final where we have had three finalists of almost equal quality.

J is convinced that Tara will swing it. She is the most consistent and is the highest scorer overall. But I can see Pamela lifting that trophy.

Strange things happen in the final. Underdogs who were "ok" during the series but never blew us away, such as Chris Hollins and Tom Chambers, end up winning. The judges tend to give out tens to everyone, and it's up to the public to decide.

The good old public likes to go for an underdog. They prefer to vote for men. So Matt has a very good chance, given that he presents Country File and occasionally the One Show, and used to be on Blue Peter. He probably has a lot of the old dear vote.

The public also likes A Journey. So in terms of journey, Pamela has the best one. She's lost two stone, regained her va va voom, and looks fabulous at 61 to boot. Plus she was always so cheerful; always looking as if she loved the dancing, even in training.

So all Kara has going for her is being technically the best dancer. Is that enough to make the public vote for her? I don't think so. She hasn't had much of a journey: as I said before, dancing is probably in her blood, having been part of her stage school training, and she was always super fit. There's the hint of a romance with him and Artem, which gives her a few extra points with the public.

But at the risk of being wrong two weeks running, I'm going for Pamela to win. Although Matt could seize it too. I am a little nervous about Pamela's show dance, having seen the sketch of her dress on It Takes Two. A very conservative number, unlike Kara's which has been engineered for lifts galore. Tonight all will be revealed! (Not literally of course - the costume designers are far too skilled for that!).

It was always Tom's crown

Hurrah, so one of my predictions actually came true for once! Tom Chambers is the new king of Strictly Come Dancing.

I'd suspected that he probably got the biggest vote in last week's debacle and this was shown last night (although of course a mathematical flaw meant that he could never have overtaken Lisa and Rachel on the leaderboard). So put that in your pipe and smoke it, all the n'er do wells on the forums who said Tom should have resigned last week. He would have been saved and Lisa would still have been third.

Credit to Lisa and Brendan for appearing so magnanimous in defeat. She could probably add actress to her growing list of credentials (DJ, TV presenter, model). Their show dance was a bravura effort, but as I said to J, slim though she is, she is probably quite heavy because of her height, so as Anonymous pointed out, it was a challenge for Brendan to lift her although he gamely tried.
Rachel and Vincent's show dance was as I expected, slippery and lifty with quasi romance and lust going on. Zzzzz.

Tom's show dance stole the night and Camilla delivered a superb choreography, as I hoped; capitalising on Tom's charm and character, and playing to his strengths. Only two lifts and they were no more demanding than those of an American Smooth, but who cares?

Camilla's shock and delight was well worth the 3 votes I rang up, much to J's disgust.

I suspect Rachel will be inconsolable, but no doubt we will see her and Vincent dancing together for years to come, perhaps in next year's tour (I see that Cherie, Kenny Logan and Gethin are among those taking part in January) and in the "champion of champions" show at Christmas. Yes I know she's not a champion but nor is Kelly Brook, and she's still featuring in this year's show.

So hurrah for Tom: he was always the public's choice. What a year it's been for him!

Saturday nights will be drab now. No more the weekly refrain "what time is the dancing on?"

Tom to win (reprise) ?

Well it looks as if we're in for a treat tonight with the final of Strictly Come Dancing. All sorts of shenanigans about the voting. And for those who thought their votes were being carried through to the final, apparently they will have a lot less impact than we were all led to believe last Saturday. There will be seven different calculations to arrive at the winner, and the BBC has taken no chances, using external experts to guide and advise on avoiding any debacles.

In terms of The Winner, I am revisiting an old prediction to say it may well be Tom Chambers.

Before you snort and recount how dire he was last Saturday, let me explain why I think he may come good.

Firstly, he's never been in the dance-off. So that tells you he has more public support than Lisa and Rachel.

Secondly, the show dance could potentially be a winner for him. If Camilla creates a choreography that will capture his exuberance and allow him to tap dance, it will be far better than whatever Lisa does (some variation on a waltz no doubt).

All three couples are doing a foxtrot and again this is an area where Tom is strong.

To my mind he's been a bit lazy: he has all the tools but he doesn't fully apply himself. Maybe the final will give him that extra ooomph. It will be historic to witness the dismay on Rachel's face if she does lose the final. To hear her saying she's shocked to find herself in the final is such a load of rubbish. The whole thing is pivotal to her regaining any sort of solo career!

The refreshing thing about Tom is that he seems to dance because he enjoys it. He's never come across as needy and desperate and determined to win at all costs. And as I've said before, that's what spoils Lisa and Rachel. For all their talk about The Journey and how they're loving it, they're both grimly determined to lift the glitterball at all costs, and their grimaces and facial expressions give it away.

Strictly Come Dancing votes fiasco continues

I knew it would be controversial and the fiasco over the voting in Saturday's SCD continues. Last night a BBC dude appeared on It Takes Two and explained why it had happened (with the two girls getting the same scores and tying for first place, the public's votes couldn't save Tom). After public pressure, the BBC is going to give refunds to those who voted and want their money back. An interesting one! I did vote, first time this series, and out of interest I will endeavour to get my money back. Apparently the process will be explained on the SCD website next Tuesday. Do you supply bank details? Does the BBC send you a cheque? Most fascinating.

Another interesting development is that the BBC dude said all the votes on Saturday will be carried forward to the final and we will see the positions of the three finallists. It does mean that one or two of them will (obviously) start at a disadvantage. Now presumably that's all the votes, even those of the disenchanted voters, because they can't start to get their money back until after the final.

Once we have got rid of the third placed finalist, the two finallists start afresh.

According to some of the headlines today, people are threatening to boycott the final. It's all getting a bit out of hand. OK, the BBC blundered and should have anticipated this problem with voting, (surely they brainstorm disaster scenarios?), but give it a rest folks! The final will be better with three couples. It's a drawn-out, flimsy affair with only two. And you never know - maybe Tom can dramatically up level his performance and win, as I predicted last week. That would be a Christmas miracle!

Tom looks dodgy: another Strictly Come Dancing preview

Can I change my prediction?! I know I said on Thurs that Tom would win, well I'm now thinking he may go out tonight!

The reasons are twofold. I think Lisa and Rachel are both going to do great Argentine tangos, whereas Camilla went out at this stage with Gethin last year doing the same dance. It's a hard dance for a man to lead and to create the "goucho" character. I'm not sure Tom is up to it. Plue he's also doing the jive, and I very much doubt if he will score as highly as Rachel (Smooth) and Lisa (foxtrot), so that if he's in the bottom two, he's bound to go out.

It would certainly be different this year if two girls were in the final!

Strictly Come Yawning

Strictly Come Dancing preview

I'm disappointed. I love SCD and am usually in a fever of excitement every Saturday after eagerly watching It Takes Two during the week. But this year, I'm missing some of those programmes and not bothering to watch the recording. It seems as if SCD has become a little boring.

I think it's this year's celebrities. Goodness they're all so earnest. So dedicated! So self-effacing. Andrew, when dinged over a bad performance, agreed with the judges! Where's the spark? All of them are on wretched "journeys" and there doesn't seem to be any of the usual tension or rivalry. At the start the show tried to manufacture rivalry between Austin Healey and Tom Chambers. But both are too affable. So we don't even have the usual "must-do-well-at-all-costs" aggressive competing from the athletes. Healey seems to do it effortlessly and Mark Foster was as gentle as a lamb.

Zzzzzz.

Even the business of John Sergeant being kept in by the public has been remarkably benign. He hasn't yet put the judges in the position of having to get rid of a good dancer, which really made things hot up last year. And he isn't as screamingly bad as Kate Garraway or Fiona Phillips. Sometimes hie scores are faintly respectable.

This week they're all doing a different dance so I can't remember who's doing what except that Tom is doing a paso doble, Cherie is doing a samba and Christine an American Smooth.

I predict that John and Heather will be at the bottom of the table and the dance-off will be between Heather and Andrew.

Mark Foster and John Sergeant were appalling, as expected

Strictly Come Dancing

As I predicted on Friday, swimmer Mark Foster made what my mum described as a "pig's ear" of his paso doble last night and now resides at the bottom of the leader board. I suspect the public will leave him there, but will probably save John Sergeant. So Foster will either be joined by Christine Bleakley or Heather Small. They're both in the dangerous mid-table position where it all depends on the public vote.

Ah, dear John Sergeant. He had a beguiling charm at the start but I'm getting a bit bored of him now. His paso was notable for him dragging his poor partner across the floor as if he was a caveman taking her to his lair, and for his endless foot stomping. Time for him to go folks!

Heather did a good job, better than I was expecting. I had anticipated that both Cherie and Christine would suffer with the paso doble and I was right. Christine lacked the dramatic performance and Cherie was thrown off kilter by a stumble at the start.

Jodie is looking doggedly good and Lisa Snowdon did OK, although near enough to keep her tenuous place at the top.

A lot of emphasis was placed on how Tom sacrificed his honeymoon to practice, but for crying out loud, he only practiced for 9.5 hours last week so he was lucky that his Viennese waltz was as polished as it was!

Austin Healey did a proficient job but I find him a bit boring, as I tend to find most of the sportspeople. To them it's just a competitive thing of having to do well. I don't see any love of the actual dancing.