Julien in Jeopardy

Oct 4, 2013 by

Julien in Jeopardy

Tomorrow night will see the first elimination in Strictly 2013. While viewers won’t find out until Sunday night, punters can expect to discover the result on the Digital Spy spoiler list by around 11pm.

It looks a 4-horse race for the bottom 2 places: Tony (16) vs Julien (20) vs Vanessa (19) vs Deborah (24). The thinking here is that Dave will have built enough support on the back of his hilarious CCC last week to comfortably escape the bottom 2. And eye candy Ben will also be safe, especially as he looks much more comfortable doing ballroom and should put in an improved display tomorrow night performing a waltz.

This is how things stand at the moment on the leaderboard, with current scores in parentheses, which will obviously be redundant after tomorrow night’s scores are factored in. It is worth remembering that in the event of a tie on the Strictly leaderboard, the contestant or contestants immediately below are scored only 1 point less than those tied above them.

Abbey & Aljaz – 32 – CCC (15)
Natalie & Artem – 31 – Waltz (14)
Patrick & Anya – 28 – Tango (13)
Sophie & Brendan – 28 – Charleston (13)
Susanna & Kevin – 28 – Tango (13)
Rachel & Pasha – 27 – Salsa (12)
Ashley & Ola – 25 – American Smooth (11)
Deborah & Robin – 24 – CCC (10)
Fiona & Anton – 24 – CCC (10)
Mark & Iveta – 24 – Salsa (10)
Julien & Janette – 20 – Tango (9)
Ben & Kristina – 19 – Waltz (8)
Vanessa & James – 19 – Waltz (8)
Dave & Karen – 16 – American Smooth (7)
Tony & Aliona – 16 – Charleston (7)

Mark will no doubt come out and produce a crowd-pleasing salsa, while Fiona looks capable of a decent CCC and looks safe enough aided by Anton’s likeability. Vanessa, dancing the waltz, has the chance to gain on Deborah but has a 5pt deficit to overcome. This looks unlikely as Deborah, dancing the CCC, has looked ok in the training room and sounding quietly confident. But Deborah’s popularity is questionable.

Who proves more votable between Vanessa and Deborah is a tricky one to call and it is also worth remembering that if combined scores (leaderboard ranking + pv ranking) are equal then it is the contestant with the bigger public vote who is safe.

Despite Tony having the potentially viewer-friendly Charleston, he is likely to be eclipsed by Sophie, also doing a Charleston. Sophie has been the subject of a gamble in the Outright and looks like putting in a quality effort based on training room footage, which may also mean she is given the pimp slot, which could see Tony performing much earlier in the show, which would be a further blow to his survival chances.

With Tony vying for last place on the leaderboard with Dave, the key positions above him to keep an eye on are probably Vanessa and Julien. Currently Julien is a point ahead of Vanessa but his tango didn’t impress this week on It Takes Two while Vanessa’s waltz looked reasonable enough.

Can Tony beat both Julien and Vanessa on the public vote? On balance, this looks a big ask but Tony around 10-11 to be eliminated makes little appeal. Julien’s OTT behaviour last week couldn’t have done much more to completely alienate Strictly voters which means that at the odds Julien has to be the selection to find himself in the bottom 2, and facing the dance-off, at 3-1 with Ladbrokes.

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19 Comments

  1. Stu

    Hi Rob – nice write up.

    I was initially a Julien backer, but trying to reverse my position now.

    I like the B2 bet, but would you think decent for the actual elimination also?

    • Rob

      Hi Stu. Julien was certainly value for elimination at 12-1 but not so much at 6-1. It will probably require Tony to escape b2, and Julien to face Vanessa in the dance-off for him to get the bullet.

      Julien’s tango did look very suspect in training room footage whereas Vanessa’s waltz looks like being ok. But it does look tricky for Tony to escape b2.

  2. Rob

    WH have some series match bets priced up:

    11/10 Rachel Riley vs Sophie Ellis-Bextor 4/6

    4/5 Ashley Taylor-Dawson vs Susanna Reid 10/11

    2/5 Patrick Robinson vs Ben Cohen 7/4

    4/9 Natalie Gumede vs Abbey Clancy 13/8

    The only semblance of value looks to be Ben Cohen at 7-4. Ben’s ballroom looks like being decent & he should continue to get a very healthy pv, and avoid the bottom 2, until the show’s latter stages.

    • And did you see how awkward Patrick looked during rehearsals on ITT? He’s massive in comparison to Anya. OK, it looked fine last week, but this week’s ballroom dance will highlight what is an ungraceful mismatch.

    • Rob

      Yep, he doesn’t have a naturally graceful pose in ballroom. Patrick may well have peaked in week 1 🙂

  3. Agree on your Julien pick, Rob. Backed him at 3/1 earlier in the week. He doesn’t have a particularly high profile or lovable personality viewers can invest in.

    Conversely, Vanessa has a strong presence and whether people love or hate her, they will at least form an opinion and display more compulsion to vote.

  4. Andy

    £11.43 was all WH would accept on Ben at 7/4 in this match bet Rob.
    I declined the offer.
    Unbelievable.

    • Rob

      It really is spineless stuff, Andy. WH among the 3 biggest bookies in the UK & restricting to that degree on a 7-4 shot is farcical.

      Might be better off trying to visit any WH shops within your vicinity.

  5. fiveleaves

    Excellent analysis as always Rob.
    I agree 3/1 on Julien B2 looks very big.
    I also like the 7/4 on Ben beating Patrick. Though I was less impressed with his training footage from last night.
    It’s always difficult to tell from such short clips where they can often cherry pick the worst bits.
    Who I did like the look of last night was Ashley.
    He looked very good to me. Especially given the limited training he’s had this week.
    I’ve become a backer again

    • Rob

      Yeah, Ben didn’t look as good last night. The initial training footage on Wednesday had looked a lot more promising.

      Ashley looked fine, especially given the lack of hours he’s had in the training room due to his wife giving birth.

      I’d like to see more of Sophie dancing proper fast Latin before assessing her. I don’t think a good Charleston is an accurate barometer. Obviously the likes of the TellyMix poll has also encouraged her backers:

      Strictly Come Dancing 2013: Who is your favourite?

      Sophie Ellis-Dexter (29%, 210 Votes)
      Natalie Gumede (15%, 109 Votes)
      Rachel Riley (12%, 88 Votes)
      Ashley Taylor-Dawson (9%, 63 Votes)
      Abbey Clancy (8%, 56 Votes)
      Susanna Reid (6%, 42 Votes)
      Ben Cohen (5%, 35 Votes)
      Dave Myers (4%, 31 Votes)
      Mark Benton (3%, 19 Votes)
      Vanessa Feltz (3%, 19 Votes)
      Deborah Meaden (2%, 15 Votes)
      Fiona Fullerton (2%, 14 Votes)
      Patrick Robinson (1%, 8 Votes)
      Julien Macdonald (1%, 7 Votes)
      Tony Jacklin (0%, 7 Votes)

      Total Voters: 723

      • I saw that poll in the week, Rob and thought it looked dodgy in comparison to DSpy. Their reader demographic should be identical, so I found it weird to find SEB top of the poll given she wasn’t ranked the highest by judges.

        What are you thoughts?

        • Rob

          Not too sure. I think having her mum Janet in the studio last week, weeping after she had danced would have certainly helped her on these early polls.

          It’s obviously a very small sample too, but among this year’s women she is perhaps the one, among the front 5 females in the market, it is hardest for female viewers to dislike, as they can be notoriously green-eyed.

          A sense of fair play comes into it further towards the end & she will still have to prove herself one of this year’s exceptional dancers to stand a chance of winning.

  6. Tim B

    I think Vanessa may do surprisingly well in the public vote. She has quite a high profile on the BBC, with a very loyal radio following on BBC Radio London, and more recently Radio 2. Surely enough of her ‘lovely listeners’ will pick up the phone for her to keep her safe for one or two weeks, where the voting figures will be relatively low. She’s also courting the grandmother vote, having announced to the Strictly audience that she’s about to become one herself. I’m guessing that Vanessa will outpoll Deborah for these reasons.

  7. Tim B

    Free online voting is available this year, with five votes per person allowed. Register here before the show:

    http://bbc.in/1hrHNBm

    It’s worth considering what impact this will have on the voting, if any.

    • Rob

      Thanks Tim. Yes, was aware of this. I guess it may sway things a little in favour of younger demographic friendly contestants. Strictly’s core voter is an older female but maybe this will encourage younger women to vote more. Hard to say.

  8. Rob

    Tony/Julien b2, Tony eliminated, according to DS. An excellent 1st result of the series – hope plenty got stuck in at 3s. Julien was 5s earlier in the week 🙂

  9. Superb rob looks like a great result.
    Fantastic calls you were bang on 🙂 followed your advice on julien bottom 2
    Happy days

  10. Tim B

    Great call! Loved the tears from Vanessa. She’s a clever woman, who knows what she’s doing! Thought Deborah was great too, so was surprised at her low score.

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