Sarah Hadland wowed the Strictly Come Dancing judging panel tonight – with her delivery of the Argentine Tango earning a whopping 38 points.
Sarah, 53, and pro dancer Vito Coppola performed a Goth-inspired dance to Ready or Not by the Fugees, coming away with the joint highest score of the night – tied with EastEnders star Jamie Borthwick.
However, there was some controversy in the two 10-pointers handed out to Sarah, with a flubbed lift at the start of the dance holding the performance back from perfection.
Craig Revel Horwood was quick to pick up on the pair’s error, but ruled it ‘wonderful’ regardless – awarding their performance nine points. It was an opinion shared by Anton Du Becke (as well as a Halloween costume inspired by the twins from classic horror film The Shining), who also gave nine points.
Motsi Mabuse and Shirley Ballas were even more effusive with their compliments, with both awarding 10 points and Motsi deeming it the ‘dance of the night.’
There’s no denying that it was popular – but some viewers were more unwilling to let the mistakes made go.
Reacting to the judging on X, viewers shared their thoughts on the unfolding controversy – with many highlighting a dissonance between the scoring and the performance.
‘Loved that Argentine & I love Sarah but they did get caught up at the beginning. Stop giving 10s when it’s not perfect. Getting to the point in the competition when we start listening to Craig more,’ said @jaimewoowaa.
‘I’m sorry but how can you give Sarah & Vito high scores when they made mistakes and their first lift nearly went completely wrong!’ wrote georgehandmusic.
‘Sorry but you can’t give a dance a 10 when there’s such an obvious mistake… UGH tonight has annoyed me so much,’ agreed Evelynsmin.
‘Huge huge fan of Sarah and Vito – thought the dance was INCREDIBLE! But how can you give a 10 when there was an obvious mistake at the beginning? I thought the marking was supposed to be impartial?’ asked roseleighmedia.
‘Listen, i LOVE sarah and vito but how can you dish out tens when the beginning went kinda wrong,’ said stacey_who.
Elsewhere in the episode, Jamie Borthwick racked up an identical 38 points for his American Smooth with Michelle Tsiakkas.
Dancing to the Addams Family theme tune, the pair were mysterious and spooky, and altogether ooky – and the judges agreed, with Anton describing the routine as ‘joyous.’
Just behind by one point, Tasha Ghouri and Aljaz Skorjanec scored an impressive 37 points for their Samba, and Montell and Johannes fell into fourth place with their Cha Cha.
This left current favourite Chris McCausland and Dianne Buswell at the bottom with Punam Krishnan and Gorka Márquez, having scored 26 points each.
Chris brought viewers to tears with his Waltz last week – performed to the football anthem You’ll Never Walk Alone – but struggled with his Samba, which Anton described as having ‘too much hopping.’
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While Chris and Dianne didn’t score as highly as in previous weeks, it’s doctor Punam who is favourite to be eliminated this weekend at odds of 2/1 – just ahead of former hockey player Sam Quek.