Something else that happened to help Chris Hollins was that Ricky Whittle, while being clearly the better dancer, had issues with his private life during the series. I forget exactly, but I think he broke up with his fiancee for his pro-dancer. Something like that. After which, people needed someone else to vote for and Chris picked up the slack. Plus, amazingly, in the final Chris actually danced better than Ricky due to a combination of choice of dance and clever choreography.