Thanks for watching along with me, glittery gang. Our surviving nine pairs – assuming is back from injury – now progress to the eighth live show, which sees them bidding to make it through to the annual Blackpool special.

It airs at next Saturday at 6.25pm on BBC One. Meet you back here to see who deserves to be beside the seaside, beside the sea. In the meantime, you know what to do: keeeeep dancing! Nighty night and have a good week.

Finally, says: "Wow! Did not expect that curveball from Shirley, given she marked Bethancy higher last night. As much as I'm happy we'll get to see Cach dance again, I'm absolutely gutted for Bethany. She didn't deserve to be in the DDO tonight and I do think she deserved to stay over Cach, as much as I love watching him."

adds: I'm kind of hoping that Bethany goes full-on Game of Thrones during her farewell speech by turning to the panel and shouting 'YOU KNOW NOTHING, SHIRLEY'."

says: "Pleased Cach is safe, though gutted for Bethany. Cach has so much potential but please Maddie, we need much better choreography next week"

says: "I'm sorry to lose Bethany and Nancy, but I love watching Cach, despite anything the judges say. I find him so talented and instinctive, I'm glad he survived. Just shame he was up against Bethany."

adds: "A shame to see Bethany go. And I hope this is a wake-up call for Cach to learn the next dance properly."

says: "I really feel for Bethany as this DO is undeserved. Cach, on the other hand, was at the bottom so it's not so far-fetched. The whole of NI must be voting for John."

says: "I'm not surprised about the dance-off couple in that they've not had such a good public vote behind them but oh! I don't want to lose either pair. We have reached that time when there isn't anyone who is expendable."

says: "Nancy's face says it all. They did not deserve to be the dance-off. Not sure that Cach did either (though who does at this stage?), but poor Bethany and Nancy. Enjoying watching them."

says: "Well, I thought that Bethany and Nancy's dance was a huge improvement on last night, whilst Cach was still dancing the-waltz-that-never-was. Shirley, you really are rock-bottom in my estimation."

says: "Ludicrous decision not based on dancing ability at all. How the judges can go from voting Bethany from halfway up the leaderboard to leaving the competition in the space of a single evening is beyond me."

adds: "Of course, it's Shirley who has the casting vote tonight. Two girls or the good-looking young bloke, it really is impossible to say which way she'll swing. Oh, hang on a minute..."

On the musical guest, says: "I love Gregory Porter's velvet smoothie warm tone."

says: "Lovely song, thank you, Gregory. Could actually understand what you were singing."

says: "Why can't the BBC turn down the background music compared to the guest singers? It's the same problem every Sunday. You can barely hear the singing over the accompanying music. They can get it right with the singers for the dance music, so why is this so hard?!"

says: "Goodness, Aljaz and Alexis dance well together! What a pairing. Really shows how good a dancer Aljaz is. Alexis reminds me a little, as a dancer, of Janette, with her athleticism and gymnastic abilities, so I imagine Aljaz is good at tuning into that. Either way, I completely stopped listening to the singing and was transfixed by the dance."

adds: "Just seen the Aliajz and Alexis dance, which was really lovely. However, cos of the biscuit chat, all I could think was that the lighting behind Gregory was made of iced party rings!"

says: "What a lovely Remembrance Day dance, remembering everyone at war and at home."

says: "That's not something in my eye, I'm crying. What a wonderful opening dance from the pros."

says: "A more muted dance than the usual Remembrance Sunday commemoration, but beautifully done."

adds: "Nice to be reminded of women's contributions to WW2. If it all goes tits up for WW3, I hope I get to have nice WRNS uniform before I get evaporated."

Time to take the temperature of your comments. says: "Giggling at Lauren's giant custard cream as motivation for Graeme. Josh is so much more comfortable in Jojo's Dojo."

says: "Custard Cream? Nope, definitely not the best biscuit. It has to be a digestive with cheese on top, so dreamy."

adds: "Back in the early days, the upstairs/backstage room used to be called 'Tess's Area' which, let's face it, sounded a bit, er, 'anatomical'. Maybe we should continue in that vein and call it "JoJo's Uh Oh"..."

TV viewers can now stay on BBC One for . At 9pm, choose from new travelogue Stacey Dooley's Australia: Off the Beaten Track on Channel 4, gangster epic on BBC One, cosy angling stalwart Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing on BBC Two or infidelity flesh-fest on ITV1.

Tonight's film picks are (8pm on Sky Arts), Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes (9pm on Film4), (9pm on Great TV), (9.50pm on Great Action) and (10.45pm on BBC Two).

I'm not a natural blonde. I smoke all the time. I have a terrible past. I can never have children. And I'm a man. Well, nobody's perfect…

The top five on last night's leaderboard were all women, while the bottom four were all-male. Talk about a table of two gendered halves. It means three of those male celebrities can count themselves lucky to have dodged the dance-off bullet.

should be breathing the biggest sigh of relief. His plodding salsa notched his lowest score for a month and left John joint bottom with . Viewer votes lifted him clear of the dance-off but pro partner now needs to work more of her choreographic magic.

Equally fortunate is, who was left in the lower reaches for the second week running, It would have been harsh for the Dogfather to depart after that heartfelt Couple's Choice but Graeme's scores have dipped dangerously. He must arrest that decline fast.

The third escapologist is , who scored a point fewer than the eliminated Bethany and has the lowest average score of all last night's couples. It could be time for the Big Brother presenter to be evicted next.

After being undeservingly left on the subs' bench last year, Chinese-born Latin specialist was endearingly excited to form this year's only same-sex couple. Having previously been a semi-finalist with both and , she might have hoped for a similar run with Strictly superfan . Their affectionate farewell showed what a bond the pair had formed.

However, harsh marking and Bethany's scores hitting a ceiling in the late 20s/early 30s mean they depart at the contest's midway mark. Fan favourite Nancy deserves another promising partner next year. As the only Asian female in the pro troupe, she adds diversity as well as infectious energy and firecracker dancing. Hey, at least now we'll likely get to see her strutting her festive stuff in the Christmas special.

The last time that Love Islander danced ballroom – his stylish Frank Sriracha foxtrot in Icons Week – he notched a personal best 34 points to jointly top the table. Three weeks later, his technique had gone backwards. He duly plummeted eight points to finish joint bottom.

The judges were palpably frustrated by his waltz, which made lamentably little effort to adhere to proper technique. His footwork lacked heel leads. His posture was poor. At the midway mark of the contest, it simply wasn't good enough. Cach is hugely gifted but this is a ballroom and Latin competition. He has to perform the fundamentals and can't fall back on his natural flair every time. The slow pace of the waltz exposed his flaws. If Cach hadn't been generously scored eights by and , he would have been cut even further adrift at the bottom.

His partner should shoulder some of the blame. Is she drilling Cach hard enough in the basics? Is she coaching him through dances, like pros do with less naturally gifted dancers? At 21, Maddie is the youngest pro in the field. This is her debut Strictly series. Maybe her inexperience as a teacher is starting to show. They should both consider this miraculous near-miss a wake-up call. If Cach doesn't even make it to Blackpool, it can be considered a waste of his undisputed talents.

Head judge has long been criticised for appearing to favour male celebrities over young women. Such rumblings will only grow louder now. She scored one point more than on Saturday night and was scathing about his waltz technique. Did she really see enough of a turnaround in the dance-off to reverse that? Especially when two of her fellow judges had already opted to save Bethany and Ballas was forced to overturn their decision with her casting vote?

During last week's Halloween Spookatacular, ice queen Ballas was in frosty mood, issuing cutting critiques to the likes of and. She was almost as tetchy last night. If she was judging on potential and natural talent, sure, Cach had the edge. But she should have been looking at this dance-off alone, not the past or future.

Her fellow judges were equally erratic. Across last night's nine routines, easy-to-please Anton du Beke awarded everything an eight or nine, while resident panto villain dished out a couple of fours and a five. Overall, Craig gave an average score of 5.9 points, while Anton's average was a whopping 8.4. That's a drastic two-and-half-point variation per dance. Are they watching the same routines? And judging them on similar criteria?

You can't expect the panel to agree on everything, of course, but when they're consistently marking so differently, it's confusing for viewers and couples alike. Our pro-celebrity pairs must feel like they're at the mercy of all manner of moods, favouritism and random factors. The judges need to get a glittery grip. Sanity needs to be restored before further injustices are done.