And we’re back for another week! After the buildup of the launch show and the first week, Strictly Come Dancing finally feels like it’s starting properly now that eliminations are upon us! But after how show-stopping last weekend was, can the celebs keep the high standards up or will nerves get the better of them? Let’s find out…
A dud start, and it doesn’t really get much better
The start of the show always feels a little bit strange now, as for some reason last series, the iconic announcer stopped introducing Tess and Claudia, so they just sort of awkwardly appear. It’s a small change, but I do think that set the tone for the show and now there’s no big fanfare.
The dance floor feels so crowded with so many contestants on it, and on that note, we’re in for another two and a half-hour spectacular, so on with the dances!
Strictly: what are we dancing again?
La voix and Aljaz dancing the jive First up are my faves from last week. In the VT, Aljaz joined La Voix on stage at one of her drag shows, and the BBC show VERY select clips from the show. The dance itself is fun and full of humour, mostly because, for some unbeknownst reason, the producers gave them a song with the word tango in it for a jive. The gag is that they’re supposed to have mixed up a tango and a jive, but it doesn’t translate really when the dance ends up being mostly tango. Aljaz told Claud he has never enjoyed dancing a jive until now, which is weird because this wasn’t a jive. But all in all, it was still a really fun dance. They scored 19.
We then come to the terms and conditions, which this week are read by newsreader Clive Myrie, who always looks very weird to me when he’s dressed casually and not as a newsman.
Karen and Carlos dancing the tango
Karen revealed she has got a condition which causes her to have a curved spine and can’t stand up straight, so they are going to have to adapt a lot of the ballroom positions. They cracked out one of the most famous lionesses, Jill Scott, far too early. I would’ve kept her back til the midseason slump. It was a good dance, but it feels awkward and like she’s holding back. There was also far more paso in it than tango.
Most of the judges are understanding of Karen’s condition, except Motsi, who enraged me by saying:
We’re going to challenge your condition.
This feels ableist as fuck to me, and in comparison to how patronisingly Ellie is treated, it seemed like the reason is because Karen isn’t perceived as disabled. As a result, she gets seriously undermarked (and I suspect lost points for her posture). They scored 20.
Jimmy and Lauren dancing the cha cha cha
This was VERY painful, however, that was quite a bulge at the front of JFH’s trousers. He’ll have someone’s eye out with that. As I sat watching, I put in my notes “if this scores higher than Karen and Carlos WE RIOT” and it looks like we’re rioting lads, because they scored 25, and wtf.
Points peaking TOO EARLY on Strictly
Lewis and Katya dancing the Viennese Waltz
In the Strictly VT, we got a step-by-step breakdown of the elements of the dance, even though we’ve definitely already had VWs this series. Has everyone forgotten which dance they’re doing?? Because that wasn’t a waltz. It was all very sexy, except he is not. Up in the Clauditorium, we find out that one of Lewis’ brothers is in the audience; however, because he has so many, he didn’t even need to use Lewis’ tickets, he got drawn in the ballot. Well, there are 700 of them. They scored 27.
Alex and Johannes dancing the samba
When you’ve been watching the show as long as I have, there are some songs and dances you come to look forward to: a Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go jive, Ballroom Blitz quickstep, and a La Bamba samba. However, this one felt far too tame and again like she was holding back. In fact, this was the case for a lot of the couples tonight. However, the judges clearly loved it as Shirley called it one of the best sambas she has ever seen and Anton did a lot of his loud Anton exhaling. They scored 31 and are massively overmarked imo, I know this because I screamed “IT’S TOO EARLY FOR THREE 8S” at my TV.
Ellie and Vito dancing the waltz
I really loved how much Vito is changing his teaching style to accommodate Ellie and her Down’s syndrome. He even has cutouts of the judges to remind her about their (very limited) feedback. They went to a butterfly house, and Vito was fucking adorable. It was good, but it didn’t deserve a standing ovation from Motsi and Shirley. The whole thing from the judges still feels very patronising and doesn’t make sense when they score her low. She scored 23.
Nana trolleys and pee breaks
OFFICIAL PEE BREAK Tom and Amy dance something, I don’t care
I went to get me dinner out of the oven at this point of Strictly, but I did hear Our Singers Dave Arch and His Wonderful Orchestra do an unreal rendition of Bonkers. The sweaty gammon was in a silver sparkling vest, which made it even worse. I was informed via Twitter later that he pulls all manner of disgusting sex faces, and I am once again asking how he got two women at the same time. They scored 13 hahaha.
Harry (Nitro) and Karen dancing the quickstep
Harry and his muscles were back, except they trussed them into a waistcoat and shirt. He looked absolutely stuffed into it. Whilst I’m not happy about his muscles not being out, I was made aware of his incredible arse, which I was not complaining about (my pal Cath dared me to get that part in, so you’re welcome, Cath). The dance was good and involved a lot of throwing Karen around, which I sense will be a theme with these two. They scored 26.
Ross and Jowita dancing the waltz
Ross was dancing in a kilt, and dear lord, make it stop. He told a convoluted sob story about Scotland, which it was far too early in the series for. The dance was supposed to be all Scottish and patriotic, but he looked like my nana’s auld trolley – he dances like my nana’s auld trolley too. My best friend branded him hetero kilt nana after the revelation last week that this old queen is in fact straight, so that’s his name now. They scored 15.
Geordie foxtrot making the north east proud
Amber and Nikita dancing the samba
It was very good, but of course it was, and honestly I just don’t know where Amber’s supposed to improve? Even the feedback is tiny little things. Up in the Clauditorium, Nikita described in detail how to make a house, but we allowed it cos he has got his shirt open. It was Amber’s birthday, so she got a cake and Nikita ate it with his face. Absolute scenes. They scored 29, which is less than I was expecting.
Vicky and Kai dancing the foxtrot
They did a Geordie Strictly foxtrot to Sam Fender, who we’re all proud of if we forget he went for a pint with Johnny Depp the night he won his defamation trial. We are also, of course, very biased because Kai was in a waistcoat and he growled “you beauty” at Vicky at the end. Shirley warned Kai that Vicky is actually a good dancer and that he doesn’t need to babysit her, so I’m looking forward to seeing how they make it harder for her. Vicky made me sob by hoping that she made the north east proud because “I didn’t at the start of my career” and oh babe you did. They scored 24.
Boring, not sexy men
Chris and Nadiya dancing the Viennese Waltz
I just can’t get excited about this personality-less man; he even brought his kids in to give his personality a boost, and it didn’t work. However, we got some classic lesbian auntie scenes from Motsi and Shirley when they displayed how a woman should be cuddled into the man in the dance, for reasons. They scored 16.
Stefan and Dianne dancing the cha cha cha
What an excellent bloody pairing this is on Strictly. The dance itself was, by all accounts, absolute dogshit, but they were having such a great time dancing to Baby Give It Up, you don’t care. Motsi shows herself up again by suggesting they need to train harder. Yep, the oldest contestant and the pregnant woman. They score 17.
George and Alexis dancing the paso doble
I remain disappointed this isn’t George Clarke off of the housing shows; the other George Clarke, however, was trying to be sexy and vaguely bondage in this, and it is not hot. Man is just too vanilla for this level of sexy – he couldn’t tie up a fucking tie. It was unfortunately one of the best dances of the night. They scored 30.
Balvinder and Julian dancing the Charleston
Finally, we got to the last dance of the night! This was the first Charleston of the series, which always makes this silly dance even more exciting. Before the VT, Craig Charlestons in the background of Tess’ intro and nearly stacked it. This was a fucking excellent Charleston, my best dance of the whole night. They scored 30 and increased their score from last week by 13 points, the highest rise.
And voting for Strictly is OPEN!
So, to the Strictly leaderboard, as the scores from last week were added to this week’s, it was a bit of a weird one. The tops and bottoms didn’t really change much, with Lewis, Amber, and George at the top, and Ross, Tom, and Chris at the bottom. However, people who danced great this week such as Balvinder, found themselves middle of the pack. All in all, it was a good show, but I think far too many celebs let their nerves win and ended up holding back.
And with that, voting is open, oh and of course, we find out which of the judges will get the casting vote, which is still not as exciting as they think (It’s Motsi).
The Results show
Annoyingly, we have had to wait 24 hours to find out who’ll be booted off, but if Strictly wasn’t 700 years long, maybe we wouldn’t… just saying BBC. Anyway, we’re into the results show, we all know who we want to go, don’t we? Another new beginning change, we no longer have the pro routine at the beginning, just Tess and Claudia appearing, so again, the tone of the whole show feels off.
More weirdly, the other format change is that we don’t find out who’s in the dance off until the very end, meaning there are three rounds of finding out and coupled with the new dramatic sting it all feels very American and shit. Poor Nitro looks like he’s gonna vomit, but it’s Chris and Nadiya in the dance off with HAHAHAHAHA Tom Skinner and Amy, as a surprise to absolutely nobody. The amount of tactical voting that happened last night will have been off the scale to get this cunt in the bottom. Unfortunately, unlike Saturday, I accidentally end up watching and I won’t unsee that.
YESSSSSS Tom Skinner is fucking out of here, the judges vote unanimously to tell him to fuck off. Back off to his full-time job of being a dick on Twitter, BOSH.
See you next week for movie week, until then…. keeeep dancing!
Featured image via the Canary
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