Tonight's Strictly Come Dancing was supposed to be the semi-final. With three excellent couples remaining, the heat was on. All couples danced the Argentine Tango and also repeated a new version of an earlier dance.
Lisa and Brendan were worried as Brendan had apparently never danced an Argentine Tango before, but they did very well and were praised by the judges. Rachel and Vincent's tango was even better, helped by the fact that this dance turned out to be Vincent's specialty. Only Tom and Camilla stayed a bit behind, which was worrysome as their earlier jive had been getting low points from the judges as well. With Lisa and Brendan getting perfect tens for their second dance (ballroom, Lisa's strong point) and Rachel and Vincent doing well on their American Smooth as well, this left Tom and Camilla in the bottom with no way to get out of the dance-off later that evening, no matter how many public votes they would get.
But the BBC had a surprise in store. In the results show they revealed that all couples would go on to the final next week and all public votes would be carried over. Had this been thought up weeks before, when they came up one week short due to John's early departure? Or did they make this decision to give Tom an honest chance? The official BBC statement points in this direction:
All three couples in BBC One's Strictly Come Dancing semi-final have gone through to the final after two hopefuls tied after the judges' scoring. As a result, presenter Lisa Snowdon and singer Rachel Stevens were both given the maximum points available. But that meant the audience vote could not save actor Tom Chambers from the dance-off and it was decided to put all three couples through. Viewers were assured their votes would be included in next Saturday's final. A BBC spokeswoman said: "We made a decision that the fairest option to all of our dancers was that all the votes cast will stand and be carried through to next week's final, where all three couples will compete for the Strictly Come Dancing title.
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