I only watched from the semi-final, but there has been a lot of publicity, excerpts and interviews shown along the way. They were equal in their "journeys" and why they wanted to to it, but for me the boys sailed through the dancing without it being a great deal of challenge for John. Whereas every dance for Rose was a challenge, how she managed to keep with the music was astounding.
Both of them have had a huge effect in the gay and deaf communities encouraging others to get involved in dancing, and people learning sign language. From the BBC's perspective, to get the public voting to put both pairs into the final, a win-win outcome for everyone.