As I've become more experienced as an instructor, I have, on occasions, allowed the student to get into as much difficulty as possible before coming in with a helping hand. It's when things start to look all wrong that you learn why you're supposed to do it the right way. As a result some of the landings that I have been supervising have looked decidely unsafe - but the student has gone away having learned something, and should be able to do it better next time around.
Capt Crash's onlooker has no idea about what is going on in the a/c, and once satisfied that an instructor was in command left it at that, and not made himself look stupid.