Strictly Come Dancing--am I on my own here?

And here's the reason, more or less...

Although the Sergeant issue in turn begs the following question:

What are audiences more likely to watch and be entertained by on peak time Saturday television - a technically immaculate but boring artisan, or John Sergeant falling on his arse/dragging his partner like a sack of Cambuslang coal every week?

The producers put him in so that they could benefit from a laugh at his expense but with truly sweet irony, the joke's on them.

alex, lymington,

Yup.

John Sergeant, arguably the least talented person ever to feature in a talent contest

This is unfair. Gary Rhodes was much worse.

Nothing about Austin Healey, arguably the least interesting person ever to feature in a talent contest.

I could understand there being a certain warped appeal in voting every week for someone terrible if it was something really off the wall (like if Bez came on every week and did the Birdie Song dressed as a giant chicken), but there's really nothing amusing about John Sergeant just dancing poorly. It's not comically bad, just a bit rubbish.

John Sergeant, arguably the least talented person ever to feature in a talent contest

Lol at celebrities and journalists acting all surprised that a contest in which the public vote is not based primarily on talent... People will vote for contestants that they identify with, and a lot more people identify with JS than muscle flexing Austin.

See, we dunno that they do, though. Healey's not been in dance-off yet, so it's entirely possible that the public find him enthralling. Maybe.

Mandelson admits Strictly 'envy'

Lord Mandelson says he has been watching Strictly Come Dancing with "a degree of envy" and told the BBC it would be nice to be asked to take part.

The business secretary said he was supporting ex-political correspondent John Sergeant on the show.

But he joked he was a better dancer and offered to demonstrate his skills next time he was invited onto the BBC.

Lord Mandelson later added: "It would be nice at least to be invited into the audience."

How good that Mandelson has the time even to think about this programme, let alone go on it, in the midst of the worst recession this century.

Every great statesman needs a cultural hinterland.

This from AA Gill in the Sunday Times yesterday, totally OTM:

There is a crisis at the very heart of democracy. Last week, just as the American media proved that, yes, they could manipulate the man they loved into the White House, so it was here in Britain, mother of parliaments. The crisis is that the electorate have got it all wrong in two polls — on The X Factor and Nonentities Come Dancing. All right-thinking people realised the masses had made a desperate error, akin to Germany in 1933, by voting off some dumpy-arsed, tearful cruise-ship warbler from The X Factor. Cheryl Cole said it was a travesty, and Simon Cowell that it was plain the public weren’t voting for talent. In the Upper House, on Strictly Come Dancing, a terpsichorially challenged audience failed to dismiss the political broadcaster John Sergeant for not dancing properly, or at all. One of the judges — the strangest collection of human effluvia this side of Grimms’ Fairy Tales — admonished us by saying we must remember this was a dancing competition.

Now, I think it’s time I called the old dancing judges, Cheryl and Simon into my office to remind them of a few home truths. Listen carefully, all of you. Strictly Come Dancing is not a dancing competition. The X Factor is not a talent contest. The Queen Vic is not a real pub, and Basil Brush isn’t actually a talking fox. They are all entertainments. Dragons’ Den isn’t real venture capitalism, and I’m a Celebrity. . . Get Me Out of Here! isn’t a real jungle or, indeed, real celebrity, and everybody there has been begging their agents to get them in it. You are all suffering from a common green-room delusion: you believe your own billing. You are not on television because you’re experts or gurus. You’re there because you’re either funny, hateful or shaggable, and if you’re in any doubt which, then it’s not the latter.

The public votes for what makes the best television. If that means dismissing a dull genius for amusing crapness, they’ll do it without thinking. Hands up anyone who remembers the name of the men’s ski-jump gold medallists the year Eddie the Eagle came last? Exactly. Who knows, who cares?

There have been some interesting studies done on the wisdom of crowds. It turns out they’re almost always intuitively right. You really can’t chase ratings, court popularity and then claim your audience has got it wrong. They understand that the airwaves and iTunes are chock-a-block with talent they will never get round to listening to, better than anything on The X Factor, and that there was once a real dance competition on television. Only late-night drunks watched it. What we want is a fat oik who’ll sing Nessun Dorma once a week, and that kid who fell on his back in the shower. The audience isn’t a talent agency. They want to switch on the telly and be amused for an hour, and John Sergeant dancing is Dr Johnson’s dog and, therefore, entertainment.

Blimey, AA Gill "Also" commands people into his office!

Monday morning, 9 am sharp, I don't doubt.

Could have sworn Vince Cable also sent some feelers to the BBC about being on the show as well.

Hey, the Australian version had a far-right politician come second once, maybe it's time for N.Griffin to get his soft shoe shuffle on.

The "At Least I'll Make The Trains Run On Time" routine.

Every great statesman needs a cultural hinterland.

Goethe was a writer, scientist, and philospher. Mandelson likes to watch himself a bit of telly!

I read that as Mandelson likes to watch himself a bit on telly!

Still true.

Would Goethe have done any better than Sergeant in the jive section, though?

He learnt about Faust through a puppet show so I'm sure he would have had something to say about this.

Fozzie Bear to win next year's series.

"Where is the man who has the strength to be true, and to show himself as he is?"

Mike Yarwood?

".. and this is me!"

Sergeant to pull out of Strictly

Former political journalist John Sergeant has decided to pull out of the BBC One show Strictly Come Dancing.

The 64-year-old has received strong support from the public since the show started, but the judges have been critical of his dancing.

In a statement, he said: "The trouble is that there is now a real danger that I might win the competition. Even for me that would be a joke too far."

BBC One controller Jay Hunt said: "We are very sad to see him go."

Alltogether now!

"YEAH, RIGHT!"

lol at office of 50 people grinding to a halt as half the sales force goes "What? He's gone? Oh my god WE MUST TALK ABOUT THIS AT LENGTH"

Bang go the ratings, bang goes the probability of any more series.

I trust that the BBC will be refunding charges to everyone who rang in and voted for him.

Another victory for the bullies and thugs and A Good Story.

I thought this might happen, and I was wondering how JS would time it/explain it. (You've got to tread carefully, when thousands have spent money keeping you in the show.) I'd love to know the full background to his decision.

I trust that the BBC will be refunding charges to everyone who rang in and voted for him.

Well, the votes were only ever to keep him in the show for one more week, not for the whole series - and since JS will be dancing a "farewell" performance on Saturday, you could argue that the contract hasn't been broken.

I'm sure that the BBC will.

Privatise it now.

Beeb would have wanted him to stay in, tho. Strictly beat I'm A Thingy in the ratings at the weekend, and that's not because of Christine Bleakley, now, is it? Plus, if you wanna be proper conspiracy theory about this, you'll notice that the judge that's been doing the talking in the papers is Arlene Phillips, co-creator of Britannia High. On ITV. Also, the last time Beeb tried making stars out of the judges, they wound up with DanceX.

Well I guess we won't be seeing AP on the panel after the current series then.

Britannia High is the worst TV programme ever.

I saw the 2007 DanceX winners supporting Rihanna, just under a year ago, on the last night of her world tour.

"Our workout video is coming out soon!", they pleaded, just before disappearing for good. It was almost poignant.

DanceX - proof positive that the British public does not want to watch a "dancing competition."

Update from Beeb News:

BBC One controller Jay Hunt told journalists the BBC had "have every intention of reimbursing people" who had voted for Sergeant during the series.

Money raised by calls to Strictly Come Dancing goes to Children In Need.

Come to think of it, where does all that Children in Need money go?

Paying for Sharon Shoesmith's Ascot tickets?

The current series of SCD is the first time I've watched any of them. It's the "dancing competition" aspect that interests me the most, so I like it when the judges get technical, even when I don't fully understand what they're saying.

(I'm crap at making technical judgements of my own, and so the judges' comments are often at sharp variance with my own opinions; I find this fascinating.)

From this perspective, I'm glad that the plug has been pulled on the Cult Of Sergeant. He deserves better than to be remembered as a comedy panto turn, and the show deserves better than being dragged down by it. Yes, I'm taking the high-minded Reithian angle here!

I'm taking the democracy/licence payers' money angle myself.

Since the BBC can't fiddle 'phone votes any more they arrange for inconvenient people to be bullied into quitting. Thus they get their way regardless.

The whole organisation is rotten to the core.

Well, it's all speculative either way. But if we accept the hypothesis that the programme-makers have bullied JS into quitting in order to further their own ends, then I'm confused. I thought JS was a ratings-grabber?

On the other hand, if we accept the hypothesis that the programme-makers have bullied JS into quitting in order to preserve the high-minded Reithian integrity of te show as a "dance competition", then I can at least see a logical consistency.

But I'm instinctively not a conspiracy theorist. Conspiracies often make for the most seductive narratives, but I have an innate suspicion of their neatness, and an innate scepticism that the alleged conspirators could be so efficient and effective.

My own speculation: peer pressure from JS's fellow contestants (including the dance professionals), which soured his enjoyment in taking part.

^^^ this
If the BBC have pressured JS into leaving, then they've just lost a good portion of their audience, who will watch X Factor in the run up to Christmas instead. But I don't think that's the case, they must see from the number of votes that he gets that a sizeable chunk of viewers are probably watching because he's in it.

So, yes, it's probably the prospect of having to mix with increasing bruised celebrity egos that's caused JS to leave.

I'm also thinking back to JS and Kristina's reactions on the "Sunday evening" (sic) results show, when their names were called out. They both looked astonished, disbelieving, uncomfortable, nervous, and far from happy. Especially Kristina. And then they both failed to show up for the hug-a-thon at the end. I'm sensing guilt and/or peer-pressure, not the wielding of corporate sticks from on high.

A conspiracy is a conspiracy, whether r not what is being conspired is actually worth doing.

Having said that, peer pressure, in a sense of "everyone else hates us" plus "I look stupid dancer now" probably forced his hand.

Then the not very professional pros should have been fired and replaced.

No one's going to watch "professional dancers" on their own.

They should have been taught in no uncertain terms to know their place on this show and to keep it.

But what else can we really expect from the gutless BBC?

More celebrities!

Actually, this is the best possible outcome for JS personally, isn't it? Just when it was all threatening to turn ugly, he Does The Decent, Gentlemanly Thing. As a result, Saturday's show will be one great big JS love-fest. The other contestants get to pay him lavish, emotional tributes, and (whether you were pro or anti his continued participation) he leaves the show as a National Treasure. Genius!

Marcello is turning into the Geir of BBC threads.

They should have been taught in no uncertain terms to know their place on this show and to keep it.

I thought that Cherie's partner's outburst on Sunday night was sincerely expressed and, from a contestant's perspective at the very least, entirely justified. One Saturday night TV talent contest whose participants are brow-beaten into knowing their place and never going off-message is quite enough, thank you!

I think James Jordan (Cherie's partner) is just paranoid and pissed off because last year he was dancing with Gabby Logan and she got voted off very early (in a dance-off with also-not-shit Penny Lancaster), before similarly untalented Kate Garraway and Kenny Logan. As I recall, Kenny asked if he could quit and let his wife stay on in his place, and wasn't allowed.

There's been a massive groundswell of "John Sergeant shouldn't still be in this", but if people feel that strongly that someone else should be in instead of him, they should pick up their phones and vote for them and not him. The level of vitriol thrown at Sergeant's abilities are quite incredible - he wasn't even the worst dancer in the series, and his ballroom is passable. Do none of these whingers remember the utterly cringeworthy performances that somehow got Chris Parker to the final?