Strictly Come Dancing (series 17)

It was announced that Pasha Kovalev had quit the show after eight years as a professional dancer.[7][8] On 30 July 2019, Nancy Xu was announced as joining the cast of professional dancers.[9] On 21 August 2019, it was confirmed that both Gorka Márquez and Graziano Di Prima would not have celebrity partners, a change from the previous series.[10][11] Instead, the three professionals who did not have celebrity partners in series 16 were all given ones for the first time in this series: Neil Jones, Johannes Radebe, and Luba Mushtuk.[12]

On 31 July 2019, the first three celebrities announced to be participating in the series were David James, Chris Ramsey and Emma Barton.[13] Celebrity reveals continued throughout the next week until the full line-up was revealed on 7 August 2019.[14] Made in Chelsea star Jamie Laing was originally announced as a contestant, but on 5 September 2019, it was announced that he had withdrawn from the show due to a foot injury.[15] Laing was replaced by former Emmerdale actor Kelvin Fletcher on 7 September 2019, though Laing appeared that evening on the previously recorded season launch show.[16][17] On 3 September 2020, Laing was announced as one of the celebrity participants for Series 18.

Due to a knee injury, sustained when he landed after jumping from a raised platform in studio rehearsals, Will Bayley was unable to perform on 26 October in the live Halloween Week episode. The injury was such that, on 30 October, he withdrew from the competition.[18]

  indicates the couple eliminated that week

  indicates the couple that was in the bottom two that week but not eliminated

  indicates the couple withdrew from the competition that week

  indicates the winning couple

  indicates the runner-up couple(s)

  indicates the third-place couple

Red text the couple(s) with the lowest score for that week

Green text the couple(s) with the highest score for that week

"—" indicates the couple(s) did not dance that week

The highest and lowest performances in each dance according to the judges' scale are as follows.

Dev Griffin and Emma Weymouth are the only celebrities that don't appear on the list

Unless indicated otherwise, individual judges scores in the charts below (given in parentheses) are listed in this order from left to right: Craig Revel Horwood, Motsi Mabuse, Shirley Ballas, Bruno Tonioli.

  Highest scoring dance

  Lowest scoring dance

  Not performed due to injury

  Couple withdrew that week

• Week 1: Cha-Cha-Cha, Foxtrot, Jive, Quickstep, Samba, Tango or Viennese Waltz
• Week 2: One unlearned dance (introducing American Smooth, Charleston, Paso Doble, Salsa and Waltz)
• Week 3 (Movie Week): One unlearned dance (introducing Rumba and Street)
• Week 4: One unlearned dance (introducing Contemporary)
• Week 5: One unlearned dance
• Week 6 (Halloween Week): One unlearned dance
• Week 7: One unlearned dance
• Week 8: One unlearned dance (introducing Jazz)
• Week 9 (Blackpool Week): One unlearned dance
• Week 10: One unlearned dance (introducing Argentine Tango)
• Week 11 (Musicals Week): One unlearned dance
• Week 12 (Semi-final): Two unlearned dances
• Week 13 (Final): judge's choice, showdance and couple's favourite dance

In Week 4, Dev Griffin and his professional partner Dianne Buswell were eliminated after a dance-off with Emma Weymouth and her partner Aljaz Skorjanec, leaving Buswell inconsolable and angry fans subsequently reported being unable to vote by phone for Dev and Dianne while other couples' lines were always open.[46][47] Others also blamed the judging panel for their exit, including former professionals James Jordan and Artem Chigvintsev, citing their questionable scoring throughout the night and the need to amend the voting system to prevent such shocks in future series.[48][49]

In Halloween Week, head judge Shirley Ballas gave the casting vote to save Mike Bushell and Katya Jones in the dance off, sending home Catherine Tyldesley and Johannes Radebe, angering many fans who accused the show of fixing the result in favour of Bushell, who was a BBC Sport employee at the time. Bushell even received a vile death threat online, but carried on until he was voted off two weeks later.[50]

In Week 10, another questionable dance-off was slammed by viewers as judges' favourites Karim Zeroual and Amy Dowden ended up in the dance-off despite being joint-top of the leaderboard, while a tearful Saffron Barker and AJ Pritchard were sent home after finishing bottom with the samba, a dance which Pritchard had been voted out on for the previous two years with Mollie King and Lauren Steadman. To add to the controversy, Saffron and AJ later revealed that they tried to avoid performing the Samba to dodge the curse, but producers refused.[51] Fans pointed the responsibility to the 3-3-2 scoring system (implemented after mathematical errors in the 2008 semi-final) where in the event of a scoring tie, the next ranked couple scores just one point less instead of the previous two points, thereby possibly giving extra leverage to 'popularity' couples, and demanded that the system be changed fully, citing an unfair lack of 50/50 in the way couples are scored each week.[52][53]

On Musicals Week, the online voting system also suffered severe technical problems as fans reported the site either erronnously telling them their votes were not open yet or they had cast their votes without it being so.[54] The show rectified the issue by extending the voting time.[55] And in the Grand Final, similar problems were also reported to have occurred, with fans claiming the site told them they had reached maximum votes without casting one, and others slamming the show's request of phone votes instead with one commenting, "Not everyone can vote via phone, people aren’t made of money".[56]

Weekly ratings for each show on BBC One. All ratings are provided by BARB.[57]

• Strictly Come Dancing at BBC Online