[1] Camilla Dallerup, Karen Hardy, and Hayley Holt were replaced as professional female dancers by Natalie Lowe, Aliona Vilani, and Katya Virshilas.
[4] BBC Breakfast sports presenter Chris Hollins and Ola Jordan were announced as the winners on 19 December, while Hollyoaks actor Ricky Whittle and Natalie Lowe finished in second place.
Color key: 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, Len Goodman, Alesha Dixon, Bruno Tonioli.
Jade Johnson also suffered a knee injury during dress rehearsal and was unable to perform on the live show.
Musical guest: Dame Shirley Bassey — "This Time" Jade Johnson withdrew from the competition earlier in the week due to her prior injury.
Individual judges' scores in the chart below (given in parentheses) are listed in this order from left to right: Craig Revel Horwood, Darcey Bussell, Len Goodman, Alesha Dixon, Bruno Tonioli.
Individual judges' scores in the chart below (given in parentheses) are listed in this order from left to right: Craig Revel Horwood, Darcey Bussell, Len Goodman, Alesha Dixon, Bruno Tonioli.
Musical guest: Lily Allen — "Not Fair" Each couple performed two routines, one of which was the Argentine tango and the other of which was selected by the judges.
Individual judges' scores in the charts below (given in parentheses) are listed in this order from left to right: Craig Revel Horwood, Darcey Bussell, Len Goodman, Alesha Dixon, Bruno Tonioli.
Musical guests: Alesha Dixon & Bruce Forsyth — "Something's Gotta Give" Each couple performed one routine (either their highest-scoring ballroom dance or their highest-scoring Latin dance), and then both couples participated in a group Lindy Hop for individual points.
[8] Nonetheless, the sixth series' audiences had suffered as a result of direct clashes with ITV rival The X Factor.
[10] Sources at the BBC described the move as "better for the viewers... people at home lose out if things are competing against one another... We wanted to make Strictly Come Dancing an unmissable TV event".
[11] Writing in The Guardian George Dixon, head of scheduling for BBC One, argued that "the ability of viewers to see programmes again, whether via personal video recorders like Sky+, online catch-up services including iPlayer or on channels such as E4 or ITV2, [makes] the notion of 'forcing' viewers to watch... outdated", adding that "There are around seven repeats of The X Factor on ITV1 and ITV2 each week".
[13] Strictly Come Dancing's runtime, previously fixed at two hours, was also expected to decrease as contestants were progressively eliminated, leading to a further reduction in overlap.