11:56AM, Dec 15, 2008
Just when we thought that this year's Strictly Come Dancing scandals were over, there's another row brewing.
The Beeb have reportedly received around 200 complaints over Saturday's result, which saw all three semi-finalists being put through to next week's show.
The result was due to a voting error after the judges awarded equal marks to Lisa Snowdon and Rachel Stevens, placing them at the top of the leader board and rendering votes for third-placed Holby City star Tom Chambers irrelevant.
With no way to fix the situation, the decision was made to scrap the dance-off and allow all three celebrities to compete in next week's final.
The Beeb issued a statement yesterday to explain that "due to the unprecedented outcome of the judges' vote the audience vote could not have saved one of our couples from the dance off," and confirmed “all the votes cast on Saturday will be rolled over.”
But show fans are apparently furious. At the end of the live show, presenters Bruce Forsyth and Tess Daly offered no explanation, simply announcing that votes would be "carried" to next week's show.
To add fuel to the fire, the BBC won't be offering refunds for votes cast for Tom as they will still be counted.
An insider told The Sun: “Everyone here is embarrassed by this as it was such a simple bit of maths to get wrong.
“No-one realised that there could be a situation where one couple would end up being a dead cert for the dance-off if two couples got full marks each from the judges. By the time they realised, it was too late - they’d already asked people to vote.
“What made it most embarrassing is people from outside the BBC who were watching the show had to alert them to what was happening.”
Hmm, we wonder how they'll manage to fix this blunder.
Find out when Strictly Come Dancing is showing on TV.
