Bring on the Xmas Special!

Previously : THE WHOLE OF THE REST OF THE SERIES!

Were you not watching? It was the toughest Strictly yet. On the dancers. Not on the viewers. Oh no.

Hey, remember when we all though that he was a dead cert to win, and that Sports Reporter guy we’d never heard would go out wk1? Him or Ricky Groves anyway. Heady days people. Heady crazy days.

Ok, so the only explanation for this dress and those boobs is that she’s trying to clear the studio of Eric’s remains before it gets turned over to So You Think You Can Dance, and she’s periodically having to stuff his head in there. Because one of them keeps on inflating every 5 minutes or so, at random, but not in a natural “Nicole Cutler POST DIVORCE” way, but in a “no really, there’s an entire human head just appeared in there” kind of way. Anyway, Bruce and Tess go through the motions (just like Erin has all series), to an appreciative audience of :

the dads. Not to insult the families of these two in particular, but, apart from perhaps Ricky’s incredibly awkward dad, the families have been hella lame this year. I almost miss the heady days of Tom’s New Wife Claire. Almost. Also in attendance :

Head Vampire Felicity Kendall, ready to partner Anton next year, and

Oh God I’m laughing again already. Ahem. Calm down Monkseal. Someone really should tell her to have a word with Darren about proper wig care and maintenance though. Damn thing’s on sideways. Bruce starts with a lame-o joke about how it’s a shame that Ali & Brian went out last week (not hilarious, like it was when Anton & Laila went out, obviously) but at least they get to go on a proper date now. WHAT, YOU MEAN THAT AWKWARD EVENING OF BOWLING AND TRYING TO SEXILY DRINK MILKSHAKES WAS NOT A REAL DATE? YOU HAVE LIED TO ME FOR THE LAST TIME SHOW!

Once the audience has recovered from dialing OFCOM about these BBC LIES until their fingers bleed, we’re reminded that it’s our votes alone that are responsible for who wins this evening, and that the judges are scoring for guidance only. Well, guidance of a sort. If a blind man had to get around using it they’d have been squished by traffic long ago. Tess then tells us that the race this year is SO fascinating, that it has inspired analysis, debates, and a bad rip-off of Dancing With The Stars “Dancecenter” segment :

(the debate in my living room :

Monkseal’s Boyfriend : So, Chris is definitely winning then?

Monkseal : Yes, yes he is)

Do football commentators still use those massive old-style microphones? Surely technology has moved past that now. Unless this is just an individual case of Alan Hansen sticking it there with superglue 10 years ago and nobody having the heart to tell him. Anyway, Elton John there whitters on in sports-speak, taking about a minute to tell us that there are two pairs competing this evening, and they are called “Chris & Ola” and “Ricky & Natalie”. Thanks for that Elton. We then cut to a shot of said pairs in a football changing room doing their damndest to look as :

much like they’re auditioning for the role of “Team Rocket” in “Pokemon : The Musical” as possible. Anyway blah blah blah “Chris & Ola are real crowd-pleasers”, “Ricky & Natalie have really dominated the season” blah blah jumpers for goalposts and you can suck on Tess’s satsumas at half-time, and other such waffle until we get this :

and I feel like all the persuasion and petitions and arguing of the last month about whether to have a two-person final or not has been totally pointless, because really someone should have just waved a picture of this around and say “THIS IS THE SORT OF FRUITLESS BIZARRE RUBBISH THAT WILL HAPPEN IN A TWO-PERSON FINAL!”. They’re waltzing up the team tunnel for Chrisssakes.

Ricky says he’s cleared a space on his mantlepiece for his Strictly trophy (it’s alright Ricky, put a china dog there or something), Chris says greatness might not be enough (oooh get you Confucius), Natalie says we’re going to see the best choreography we’ve ever seen (…), and Ola says she intends to set the roof on fire. Oh Ola, I think they’ve stationed secruity guards up there after Erin tried to do that in the final last year. Chris and Ricky set up some more “Chris is the underdog, yes he is, don’t listen to YOUR ACTUAL HUMAN BRAIN” rubbish, some even more hobbit rubbish, and then Ola says breathlessly “it’s Ola vs Natalie”, to which Natalie replies “Ola who?”.

And do you know what the interesting thing is? Even when making a joke about not knowing who she is, NATALIE STILL MANAGES TO PRONOUNCE OLA’S NAME CORRECTLY BRUCE! We then get the nerve-jangling sight of this :

No, never, at least not for 2 series, because I GET THE WINNER I WANT FOR THE NEXT 2 SERIES SHOW! THAT’S THE PATTERN! DON’T DENY ME NOW! NOT WITH LINEKAR! NOT EVEN WITH ERIN!

(…alright maybe a bit with Erin)

At this point, the madness ends, and both couples enter, to rapturous applause. Bruce tells the audience to calm down, because they’ve not done anything yet, and it’s sillyfor people who’ve done sod all to demand applause.

Not that he does that every single week you understand.

Bruce’s opening joke (well, to this bit) is that if Ricky loses he will cry because he is a sensitive new man (/woofy-poofy airy-fairy in Lenspeak), and if Chris loses, he’ll cry because Ola will beat the shit out of him. If Brian & Ali had somehow made the final instead, I so would have left that joke in the autocue and just changed the names around. Like Bruce would notice. And then he’d try to draw applause for it. BUT YOU CHOSE TO ELIMINATE HER YOU BASTARDS! Anyway, Ola’s all :

“yeah, ha ha, I’m violent and I’m half-naked and I’m a pole dancer from Poland, that glitterball’s still MINE”

Ricky Nipple & Natalie Lowe dancing the Quickstep :

We start with the unpleasant reminder that Ricky said at the start of the series that if he reached the final he’d dance in a thong. Yeah, the problems with portraying himself in a likable fashion began early with that one. Anyway, according to Bruce, Ricky has decided to actually go through with this, with Alesha’s help :

because she gave him a pink frilly thong with flowers on it. THAT SHE GOT FROM BRUNOS’ DRESSING ROOM BECAUSE LOL HE IS GAY! It’s going to be a long evening. Anyway here is their Strictly Story from Natalie’s point of view :

Natalie : OI MIT RICKY WITTLE AND OI THOUGHT TO MOISELF, NATALIE LOWE, YOU’VE PULLED YOURSELF A ROIT SOLID BLOKE THIRE NAT NAT. HE’S BILT LOIKE A BRICK SHIT-HOUSE, NOT TOO LAIRY, BIDDAFASPUNK, ALTAHGITHAH NOT NOT BAD FOR A POMMIE BASTARD! MOYBE A BIT OF A FIGJAM, BUT WHAT SELF RESPECTING BLOKE ISN’T THESE DOYS?

IS THE WOYKS WINT BOY, HE PREUVED HIMSELF TO BE A BIDDAFA GROUSE MOVER ON THE OL DANCEFLOOR, BUT THOSE WHACKERS IN THE AUDIENCE COULDN’T TILL, CAUSE THEY WERE WAS TOO FLAT OUT LOIKE LIKE A LIZARD DRINKING WATCHING THAT SHORT SHEILA WITH THE DAGGY GOY. CUNNING AS A DUNNY RAT THOSE TWO. WE INDED UP IN THE DANCE-OFF TWOYCE, AND THOUGHT WE WUS ABOUT AS POPULAR AS A MUDDY IN YUS TRAKKY DAKS. BUT THEN WE MINIGED TO BEAT THOSE TWO WHAT WAS ROOTIN ROUND THE GARBO TRUCKS AFTER IVERY SHOW AND OI WUZZ GRINNING LOYKE A SHOT FOX!

NIW OI THINK WERE IN WITH A ROYEL CHINCE OF WINNIN, AND IF WE DO, OI WILL BE GUZZLING BICK MIDDYS AND LONGNICKS ALL NOIGHT LONG AND IND UP PROPER STINKING ROTTEN!

Apologies (profound apologies) to everyone even tangentially related to Australia for that. Oh God, remember when her hair was like this :

Amazing.

Anyway, they’re dancing their quickstep again, to “Down With Love” again, and once again it’s just a really good quickstep. He does appear to be :

catching flies a lot of the way round, but at least he’s pulling happy faces even if they are a bit weird. I guess that’s dance faces for you – I only really object to them when they make people look tense or nervous. Otherwise we wouldn’t have Karen Hardy or Matthew Cutler. We wouldn’t have half of what I don’t like about Anton’s Latin either but…swings and inappropriately sexual roundabouts frankly. Oh and look who it is in the audience :

No not Head Vampire Felicity Kendall or David Haye trying to get a look at Natalie’s bum. That’s right, it’s Dominic Littlewood. Why, oh why (Points Of View) am I continually denied tickets when Dominic Littlewood is there EVERY SODDING WEEK? (Oh yeah, and Andrew Castle). Anyway, they end by

going up the stairs like Fred & Giiiiiiiiiiiiinge and we all know what that means right? Sadly, Fred himself was busy taking a dump during this dance, and by the time Giiiiiiiiiiiinge called him back to the Heavenly Sofa it was too late. He still can’t work that sky+. Once they finish Natalie reacts like this :

because bless her, she hasn’t worked out yet that every dance tonight is getting a standing ovation, whether it likes it or not.

As they walk over the judges, Ricky high-5s some guy in the audience, and Bruce asks who it is, and Natalie says that it’s her flatmate. Bruce obviously automatically jumps to “it’s your mate” because in Bruce’s world, unmarried women don’t live with men of the opposite sex lest it provoke scandal amongst the townsfolk, unless they’re a woman of loose virtue, and we certainly wouldn’t have one of those amongst the female pros on this show (stop your sniggering at the back there). Natalie gushes about the crowd, as well she might, because judging from the clips the Australian version is filmed in a cow-shed in front of two men and a sheep.

As always, when we’re not performing contemporary style rumbas to Bonnie Tyler, this is a good time for Bruce to introduce our band, Dave Arch, his wonderful singers, the orchestra, Dr Teeth on keyboards, Zoot on saxophone, Sgt Floyd Pepper on bass, Janice on guitar, Animal on drums and

THE MAN IN THE HAT. Out of focus, probably because he’s told the cameramen he’s scared of my love.

Now to the judges, who are apparently still talking about Darcey’s dance from last week. They’re the only ones.

Darcey herself starts for the judges, by saying “wowie Mr Whittle!” still looking like she can’t quite believe the words coming out of her own mouth. Apparently Ricky made a hard dance look easy with his athletic frame. (OH MY GOD SHE SO FANCIES HIM etc etc). Len follows by saying that tonight is all about great dancing, great entertainment, stupid sections featuring John Motson that go nowhere, laughing at Lisa Snowdon, and “Great Expectations”. You just know that Erin would make an amazing Miss Haversham, all dressed up in her American Smooth outfit still convinced her glitterball is coming. Estella can be…erm…I dunno, Aliona.

Oh yeah, the content, erm, the quickstep met Len’s expectations. Great. In fact it was the best quickstep by any male celebrity in 7 series (Colin Jackson says no). Alesha concurs, clutching her hands and saying it will go down as one of the great dances in Strictly history. Nice that she’s already got “absurdly portentious” down. B- overall in your Strictly Come Dancing Judging A Level Alesha Dixon. Bruno leaps up and :

from now on I’m just going to post a picture of Bruno rather than retell what he actually said. Saves time and is about as insightful. Bruce segues from this to making a “on springs/on something” joke that even I managed to make from the privacy of my living room. Why you’re paying this guy hundreds of thousands when I could do the same job for simply getting to breathe the same air as Ian Waite I do not know.

Craig starts by saying that they’ve not yet found Bruno’s cage, then Bruno springs to his feet yelling that no cage will hold him, then Alesha calms him down, then Craig drones “calm down Norma Desmond” and Darcey :

looks like she retreated to her happy place a long time ago. Oh yeah the dance. It was quite good wasn’t it?

Back to the Tesspit, where Darren

is doing his usual impression of a vent’s dummy being operated by nobody, along with all the other pros. Tess asks Ricky how he feels after performing the best quickstep ever, says Len (not even what he said Tess. Not even what he said) and Ricky replies that it’s all down to Natalie, especially those 3 weeks they spent training before the show started, when she “ground him down and broke him up” until he was a dancer. Wow, way to sell her Ricky! This is apparently the cue for Ian (of course BECAUSE HE IS A GAY) to pass Tess a thong for Ricky :

I don’t think even ballroom dancers are that tacky. Scores are in :

Yeah, it’s that sort of night. Notably, when the first 10 is revealed, the camera follows Natalie instead of Ricky for a reaction shot. Yeah, they know where the money is in that pair face-pulling wise. Speaking of which :

YOU WERE ELIMINATED MONTHS AGO RAV, NOBODY CARES ABOUT YOU AND YOUR FACE!

Team Cola dancing the foxtrot :

Bruce’s opening joke is about how the mean ol judges keep on calling Chris names, and then it’s a load of fish puns. Seriously, I could do that. Read my introduction for the Apprentice recap for when Howard got fired. There were tonnes of them. Ahem.

Ola : Yeah Baby! Olachops here, from Team Cola. I liked it so much, I put my name on it. With a C on the front. Because that’s what starts Chris. He’s the other one. The boy one. No, not James, the boy one who people LIKE. 9 out of 10 Strictly viewers prefer it! Or thereabouts, we’ll know when they release the voting figures. When I met Chris, I thought “hmm good things come in small packages. And if Carlsberg designed dance-partners, I think they’d go something…like Chris”. Let’s face it, it was about time I had a good dance partner. Why? Because I’m worth it. Also because they never paid me the danger money they promised me for dancing with a GMTV presenter last year.

Over the weeks we’ve had our ups and downs. Way back in week 1 our rumba was finger licking good (that’s why his fingers were splayed, honest, it’s cause they were covered in Team Cola’s Special Sauce (buy it for £9.99 from all good retailers. Say “James Jordan really should move into presenting, he comes across really well and totally naturally on It Takes Two” for a 50% discount (and to be sectioned)) and our tango reached the parts that other tangos just couldn’t. But then we faced problems. Just like when I went to work on a Spoony (/egg) things started to fall apart. Chris kept on going wrong. But then,just when he was at his most upset I said “Schhhh….Chris, Just Do It. Have it your way. Happiness is a foxtrot with your flexible friend Ola”.

From then, there was no stopping us, and the plink plink fizz was back in Team Cola. Our Charleston was magically delicious and our Argentine Tango was full of Eastern Promise. Really far east. Like, so far east it’s be quicker to go west. To South America. So tonight, let your fingers do the walking and vote for Team Cola. You won’t regret it! BAH BAH BAH BAH I’M LOVING IT, EVERYONE’S A FRUIT & NUT CASE, VORSPRNG DURCH TECHNIK!

They’ve got catchphrases is what I’m saying.

They’re reprising their foxtrot to “I Could Have Danced All Night”, and I apologise for getting this all wrong in my preview originally and getting the music choice for this mixed up with his Viennese Waltz. I fail at PURITY OF DAHHHHHNCE obviously. Anyway, it’s slightly better this time, and I quite liked it first time round. His top portions, from his shoulders upwards, no longer look like they’re on the verge of imploding like a dying star, and he just seems far more relaxed this time around. I guess the same old studio with a few crappy Xmas trees put up isn’t nearly as daunting as the magical land of Blackpool. Although whichever cameraman chose to shoot his hands from this angle :

is officially a right bastard, especially as they can normally barely keep peoples heads in focus half the time. Also, if you’re not shouting “PIVOT!” every time they happen a la Ross From Friends you’re not playing along properly quite frankly. Also brilliantly when they end, Chris’ mouth is an awkward position and Ola :

jams it shut as quickly as she can. Canny girl that one. Although she then does this :

A little bit late for the TRIPLE WEDDING Ola. My lawyer friends are still drafting Lilia’s restraining order against Dominic Littlewood, we can’t draw up a divorce from James Jordan that quickly.

Over to the judges (after another standing ovation, natch), and Alesha starts by saying that Chris was really enjoyable to watch and has been on an Incredible Journey (was he the labrador or the talking cat?) Bruno?

Very good Bruno.

Craig

dressed like a gay Tremaloe praises him for his timing and footwork, but thinks he still needs to work on his hands and that it lacked swing and sway. But it was better than Blackpool. LIES! NOTHING WAS BETTER THAN BLACKPOOL! Sadly.

Darcey follows up by saying that this dance showed the best of Chris dance ability (and this is my real problem with Darcey – she’s seen what, 4 of his dances? What does she know about his dance ability? HOW CAN SHE TRULY APPRECIATE HIS INCREDIBLE JOURNEY?) and that he was clearly really enjoying it, before Len finishes by saying that this dance has travelled well, because it was Top Notch in Blackpool and it’s still Top Notch now. And 5 judges is still too many. Just saying.

To the Tesspit, which Chris enters in his usual ebulliant style,

where Tess calls them Tiny Dancers and I am officially over this whole SHORT PEOPLE thing. I feel like Randy Newman, and I AM a short person. WE GET IT, THEY’RE SMALL! Chris talks some about how the foxtrot was a really special moment for him and how it represents his journey from non-dancer to dancer, but really I’m distracted by the fact that Joe & Kristina are basically shagging behind them the whole time, whilst Lynda’s stood there with the frozen expression of the lady on the tube with the snogging 13 year olds next to her.

Scores are in – 46(/36) including their first

and let’s just say it’s entirely coincidental that Alesha is the judge I’m choosing to ignore tonight. Honest.

Back to Bruce now, who tells us that’s it for the Ballroom Round, and didn’t it go quick? IT LASTED ALMOST HALF AN HOUR BRUCE! THERE’S ONLY TWO OF THEM! I watched the So You Think You Can Dance USA finale last week (and yes I will be recapping the UK version, stay tuned for details etc etc) and they got through 9 DANCES in 40 minutes. THIS WAS NOT QUICK.

Anyway, it’s Filler Time (Cola could have used that one as well), as the filler is embedded all over this night, like shotgun pellets all over the corpse of a dead Mexican gun-runner. This particular piece of filler pie, is the marvellous recap portion :

WEEK 1: Couples had to learn and perform two dances! It was the start of the toughest Strictly ever (as bourne out by the technical brilliance of the eventual winner!) Ali had the potential for magic (as she’d got the David Blaine Junior Start Up Kit for her birthday and was already working on the complete lack of affect!) Chris & Ola were like two lovely little dancing hobbits! Erin just said

sod it, I don’t even care about dignity any more, whatever, I’m dry-humping the mechanic from Eastenders ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?! Joe had rigor mortis! Martina Hingis found the show just as nerve-wracking as driving through the Colombian border with a bootful of…PLAYING IN THE WIMBLEDON FINALS! AND THEN SHE WENT HOME!

Week 2: 8 more couples took to the dance-floor! And we didn’t even know how crazy

these two were yet! Ricky & Natalie were going to be the most formidable couple ever (at Junior Cluedo!) Phil bowled Len over! Anton’s Latin choreography continues to be

full of subtlety, nuance, and Latin Passion! The best part of Jo was when she was just standing still! Richard had Lilia’s voice ringing in his ears in the middle of the night! AND THEN HE WENT HOME!

Week 3 : This was it! All 14 couples up against each other for the first time! Lynda opened up a whole

TIN OF HAM ON OUR ASSES! And she was like a stunned mullett said Craig (who would know, as he had one sat on his head for the last 3 series!!!!!)! Ricky Groves was like a bull in the mating season – HILARIOUS! Rav’s quickstep was whiffy cheese! AND HE WENT HOME!

Week 4 – Natalie knew how to get the party started (SIMPSONS MONOPOLY!) Bruno could not believe Phil could work his bum with such enthusiasm! Phil’s bum! Not Bruno’s bum! BECAUSE HE IS GAY!!!! Ali & Brain were clean, fast, but too hectic for Len (I told them they should have performed position #14 not #29!) Lynda didn’t get it first time round AND SHE WENT HOME! AND THE FIRST SIGNS OF DEPRESSION OF A LEVEL PREVIOUSLY ONLY SEEN IN SWEDISH PLAYS WERE VIEWED IN FLAVIA’S EYES!

Week 5 – Ricky got the first 10! Absolutely nobody minded! Laila failed to get her bum in gear and do proper Latin! Craig was like someone’s dad dancing down the local disco! Jo was more like a bush kangaroo! (ANIMAL IMAGERY!)Chris did an

invisiwank! Joe put Kristina through the ceiling ( as opposed to through the headboard) AND THEN HE WENT HOME!

All those losers are now back, and Bruce tells us not to worry, because they’ve got their professional partners with them. It didn’t seem to help them last time Bruce.

Martina’s first, reprising her rumba and she’s absolutely awful. And this was the BETTER of the two dances she did. I really don’t get the “Martina Hingis had such potential” thing. I still would have saved Rav, even with the knowledge of what was to come later. She’s giggling throughout, awkward, and her arms move like someone built a rescue claw out of Twiglets. Richard next, and he’s doing his cha cha, complete with those bloody

hitch-hiker steps. Lilia is clearly yelling “DO THIS! GO HERE! DON’T YOU AGREE THAT I DIDNT GET ZERO?!” throughout and again he’s utter bobbins. Rav next, doing his tango, and I still think I could find Aliona’s choroegraphy agreeable if she toned it down to a “oops, Flavia’s gone mental again” level, rather than a “Bad Choreography montage” level. I mean, Rav’s still not very good, and she basically flinging herself around him but…I wouldn’t be too averse to her coming back next year. Lynda & Darren are next, reprising her foxtrot, and really who wanted to see that? GIVE ME DEVIL WOMAN OR GIVE ME DEATH!

Finally out are Joe and Kristina doing their

vag-punching jive and he’s… about the level I’d expect someone who’d kept up their dance lessons since leaving the show to be at, compared to where he was before, given his prior level of progress. So well done to Joe for that at least. I’d rather watch this against than any of the 4 other messes that just happened.

Chrissy Nipple-Tweak and Team Ratalie dancing the Lindy Hop :

Bruce informs us that both of the couples will be performing on the floor at the same time, so we will be able to compare them like for like, as they perform exactly the same choreography. Oooh, will points be knocked off for collisions as well Bruce? (*STILL A BIT ANNOYED ABOUT THAT ONE*)

So yes, the Lindy Hop is yet another new dance this year, and yet another American one, and yet ANOTHER one that’s just a load of leaping about and pulling faces. This show gets more and more tailored towards the type of winner I enjoy watching with every passing series I cannot even tell you. It’s sad, because I quite like these people

and their choreography and their ability to pull silly faces, and at the same time would rather have seen substantially less of them. You can’t imagine Erin doing this shit out of choice can you, and that is why it has no place on this show. It is hampering Erin. Anyway the lady one assures us that you can’t dance to Lindy music without enjoying it. How about watching people dancing to it? Oh right, I’m about to get the answer to that one in spades.

To training, and there’s a lot of semi-ironic grumbling from Chris & Ola about how Ricky & Natalie are so good at this and how they pick it all up so fast (yes, that’s right, not because of these two, but after 7 series “naturally gifted at dancing” is now an insult. This show has done so much to encourage respect for dance I can’t even tell you) and a lot of semi-ironic grumbling from Ricky & Natalie about how it suits Chris & Ola so much better because it’s basically the Charleston all ove…because it suits their personalities. Oh and this

Marvellous. I do notice that “tweaking” is up on the wall there, so it turns out that Ola’s training methods are a valid part of the dance world after all. Who knew? And tweaking may well explain some of Aliona’s choreography…choices as well.

Both couples take to the floor and :

I’M SORRY GOD, WHATEVER IT IS THAT I DID I’M SORRY! Basically the whole dance is like one Technicolour trad Blue Peter Swallows & Amazons explosion. Spanking, leapfrogging, silly faces, knee-trembling, slow motion rubbish, lame burns :

trousers up to your nipples,

pretending you’re a monkey. Basically it’s like watching other people play Cranium on my tv for 90 seconds+ Who wants that? I will tell you now, I have never HATED a dance-style more on this show. Come back cha cha, all is forgiven!

Oh right, the actual merits. For the (very, very few) bits where they’re actually performing the same choreography, they’re about the same, with Chris being slightly more fey, and Ricky being more masculine, although who knows with this bloody dance which of those you’re supposed to be. The bits that aren’t the same are clearly far simpler (choreographically speaking) for Chris, although he manages to get through them fairly cleanly, unlike Ricky, who does a nice series of lifts until Natalie damn near takes his head off with her knee, and they retreat into the shadows in an ungainly heap. Basically I’d say it’s a wash, leaning towards NEVER DARKEN MY DOOR WITH THIS NAZI HOGWASH EVER AGAIN!

EVER AGAIN!

The important take home message is :

THESE PEOPLE DON’T HATE EACH OTHER! Take it with you. Please.

Craig starts for the judges (because yes, this is being marked and no, I don’t know why) by saying that the Lindy Hop is a dance for HOBBITS and not for TALL PEOPLE like what Ricky & Natalie are. Because of the length of bone apparently (I said stop giggling at the back!). Anyway, their timing was good, but it was a bit laboured. Darcey agrees with Craig – it was sharply executed, but there was a minor fluff in the lift (when Natalie almost decapitated Ricky) and that it suits SHORT PEOPLE more than it does TALL PEOPLE!

Len next, and he says that it was great having them both on the floor at the same time, because it gives you the chance to compare. Now do you remember how we compare children? Basically we look at the two people in front of us, and we look at how they’re dancing, and then we make a value judgment on whose dancing is better. This person is the better dancer. Then we look out again, just in case Craig has dragged Flavia out on the floor in a desperate attempt to prove he can do this better. If not, the other couple are the worse dancers. And this is how we do compare. Anyway Chris held his own (I would imagine that was probably part of the choreography at some point) but Ricky was sharper and more rhythmic.

Alesha says that both couples did really well, and that it was too close to call, and she wonders how their brains aren’t frazzled at this stage. Given that there’s about half an hour between each dance, they’ve probably whapped out the Dr Kawashimas in between dances. Bruce then says we all have to remember that these two are doing 4 dances tonight, to which Alesha replies “we had to do 5″ very much in the manner of the cardboard box sketch from Monty Python. She had to hand-choreograph all those dances herself as well. In the rain. Bruno finishes :

Thanks Bruno.

Everyone back to the Tesspit now, where Tess calls that whole dance a battle for “Soo-pree-muh-cee”, which is nowhere near how that word is supposed to be pronounced, not even close. Everyone high-fives and then Chris waffles about how that dance was so much fun, and that it was great dancing with Ricky & Natalie, whilst Rav…

oh just go away Rav. Natalie follows this by telling us that if she wasn’t a ballroom dancer she’d want to be a Lindy Hopper and… a boy could go off you Lowe. Very quickly. Scores are in – 43(/34) for Ricky, 44(/35) for Chris. Most brilliant is the moment that Chris & Ola realise they’ve outscored Ricky & Natalie, at which point they both do a Bill & Ted style :

“woah!”

No seriously Rav.

Oh God, now it’s time for the worst filler of all :

filler that involves Westlife. And didn’t Shane go to seed quickly? Happily this filler involves people other than Westlife as well, unfortunately those people are members of the general public, quacking on about who they want to win. And honestly, people debate at length about how much the showdance makes a difference in terms of the actual quality differential, and how long there is to vote, but really if Team Cola could withstand having these

tits (/perfectly lovely people for all I know, they might only have been doing a VT dressed like tits, for a bet or something) voice their support for them, nothing that actually happened on the night really mattered.

Would we have got that in a three person final? All I’m saying. In terms of celebrity supporters, Ricky has Paul O Grady, and Chris has…some BBC news woman, I can’t really tell them apart. I’m going to guess Kate Silverton and be horribly embarassed. Then the parents come out again, and oddly enough, Chris sister does not declare herself to be Team Whittle in revenge for Chris shaving her Barbie at age 7. Might have made things a tad more interesting though.

When we come back, we get a brief reminder about the judges leaderboard, with Tess calling Ricky & Natalie the “judges favourites” for like the third week in a row now because they’re at the top, and we all know what Pavlovian reaction that causes in people. I would imagine some people just set up a campaign for Rage Against The Machine to stop Ricky winning. Lines open, everybody cheers, I briefly consider the void in Lisa Snowdon’s life that Strictly left and hope both these people will adapt a little…better when all this is over in a few hours time.

Recap of the dances done so far time. Creeping realisation that tonight is basically a clips show, containing clips from the clip show in it time.

MORE PAST WEEKS RECAPPING!

Week 6: It was MAGIC TIME for Ali, as she finally worked out how to get the little ball out from underneath the cup without anyone noticing! Zoe ascended to heaven!

Len promised that if she were in the bottom 2 he’d do the lambada with Craig! SO SAD THAT NEVER HAPPENED! Jo was worried that Craig would call her a monkey! (ANIMAL IMAGERY!) AND THEN SHE WENT HOME!

Week 7 : Ricky was Strictly Come Dancing in Top Gear in his quickstep! (Much better than Top Gear in Strictly Come Dancing! Never ever ever let that happen!) Ali stubbed her toe! Zoe got embarassed and awkward when James told her to act sexy :

Can’t think why! AND THEN SHE WENT HOME!

Week 8 : BLACK POOOOOOOOOL! Natalie had enough energy to keep the illuminations going for 2 more weeks! (But where would you insert the plug?) Ali’s enchanting dance was perfect for this magic venue! Even Bruno finally realised that all the magic references were starting to get boring! Craig thought that the waltz would finally be his dance but HE WENT HOME! And Flavia orgasmed even harder than Matt Di Angelo managed to make her do!

Week 9 : Bruce was dead! Long like the Bruce! Laila finally managed to find a way to make Anton’s Latin watchable :

Chris looked like a child having a tantrum! And was awful but Bruno liked it! For some reason the clips package focused on Phil’s injury even though it happened weeks before! AND THEN HE WENT HOME!

Week 10 (bleeding heck) :

AND THEN SHE WENT HOME!

First back onto the floor are Jo & Brendan, to inform us once again that he’s been shaved by a woman, as they dance their Viennese Waltz to Trouble. And she still looks a bit lost in general bless her, but it’s not too embarassing except for how it looks like :

Brendan went fun time on her dress before they came out and nobody bothered to clean it up. Next up are Zoe and James, reprising their American Smooth, minus those darned arm-hankies that messed it up last time. It is noticably a bit better this time, now she’d not not directly fresh from getting  her soul utterly crushed by being in the dance-off. Craig finishes this round of celebs off (Phil has the flu apparently) with his foxtrot, and he’s still a bit wooden and awful, but they at least let him do a lift. Tragically the lift is :

this. Afterwards, Flavia pegs it off the dancefloor as fast as her legs will carry her.

Now, the moment we’ve all been waiting for. Bruce tells us all that the next couple on left the competition under “extreeeeeeeeeeeme circumstances”, making it sound like she was eliminated in a special dance-off on the side of a mountain, where the loser gets shoved off via bungee cord. EXTREEEEEEEEEEME! Actually that’d be rather fun. At any rate, it’s Jade & Ian who were “tipped as possible finallists”. Oooh, they possibly could have made the final. Don’t go overboard Bruce.

Their VT reminds us that Jade was an

amazing spice-pirate gypsy in tranny make-up come to save us all, who I loved a little too much and who saw this show as the tipping point on her journey into womanhood. I think that’s the first time any girl has said that Ian entered her into womanhood. I hope he didn’t take Jade’s SPECIAL FLOWER the cad (you know, the one she wore in her hair for this performance). Athough yes, this show helped me understand adulthood better, as Jade’s exit taught me that life is fundementally unfair and disappointing AND OH GOD WHY, WHY COULDN’T IT HAVE BEEN LAILA’S KNEE INSTEAD? (no offence Laila…)

We’re also reminded in her VT that Claudia called her “sweetiepie” when she was severely injured. Bless Claudia and all her raccoon-voiced works. But now! Jade is back! Looking :

stunning, to do her tango!

Fiercediculous.

Oh alright, she’s a little bit ginger, and her mouth is hanging open for no discernable reason a lot of the time, and no it’s not Zoe Ball or Alesha Dixon, or Rachel Stevens, or Denise Lewis or…any of the men who could tango (I’m blanking momentarily), but whatever, Jade is back, she’s doing alright, I’m happy and I gave it a standing ovation anyway.

Notably, she gets her own weight up off the floor this time.

Over to Tess they wander, who says that everyone’s so glad to see Jade up and tangoing, and Jade responds by saying tht she was really nervous, but glad to be back, and then she thanks everyone who supported her and Ian. THAT WAS ME! SHE JUST THANKED ME! DIRECTLY! Sigh. And other people as well obviously. BUT ALSO ME! I feel so gratified. Anyway, now that we know that Phil and Laila aren’t here, there’s time to see her paso right? RIGHT?!

Next up :

Feels like one of them’s calling in a favour. Sad thing is, I can’t tell which one it is. Anyway, Alesha sounds nice, Bruce sounds…nicer than Andy Williams did, they sing “Something’s Gotta Give”, none of the pro dancers come on to pull focus so obviously these 2 just broke the Ego-Meter. So far as ways to close out the first half go…this is certainly one of them. Of course Bruce has to ruin them charting through those particular rocky waters by waggling his cock at her and (mis)paraphrasing her hit single her singing “the boy’s got something, the boy’s got something”. It it degenerative psychosyphilis?

We then get a VT of the finallists talking about their journeys. Normally I’d complain, but the last bit of the final that actually involved them was about half an hour ago. It’s nice to be reminded who they are (hint : none of them are Alesha Dixon’s Singing Career). Anyway all these people are quite nice, and they all want to win, a bit, not too much, just enough not to make you uncomfortable. SO MUCH NEW AND WORTHWHILE CONTENT TONIGHT!

Everyone meet back here in an hour ok?

*wibbly wobbly timey wimey effect*

Said hour over with, and we are back on the floor, with another run-through of the numbers (CHRIS’ IS ON SCREEN FOR .2 OF A SECOND LONGER THAN RICKY’S! FIX!) and also (oh good) a run through of all the “drama and tension” from earlier in the evening. Can we have the enjoyable bits rather than the tension and the (fakey) drama? No. Oh ok.

Anyway yeah, some stuff happened, you just read it. Re-read it if you want. Point out any spelling mistakes or grammatical errors, write them down in a little notebook, and feel satisfaction. The recap is of course peppered with feel-good team moments like so :

Notice that Ola’s hand is on top. All I’m saying.

Once we’re back Tess recaps the scoreboard AGAIN, and says “judges favourite” in relation to Ricky & Natalie AGAIN and all the anti-authority people start mashing their dialling keypads with their faces. FUCK YOU BRUNO – WON’T DO WHAT YOU TELL ME! Oh yeah, and having disposed of the last of Eric in the interim, Tess has reached her natural conclusion and :

donned a sparkly bin-liner. Brilliance.

But before we get on with the actual content, we follow up a recap of tonight, with a recap of the last month. Glee abundant and efulgent.

Week 11 : Tess’ time travelling necklack of evil! The celebrities did their first ever group dance that was compared (how does that work again?) and scored! Badly! Len had to be honest and admit that Natalie wasn’t that great! (took your time) Chris owned the Charleston! Somebody weaved in and out with good floor-craft (NOT BRIAN!) Natalie was going to die if Vincent didn’t come now! With a roly poly!

AND THEN HE DIDN’T! AND SHE WENT HOME!

Quarter Finals : We were joined by one of the world’s leading ballerinas! Darcey Bussell! For all the difference she made! Alesha wasn’t (weren’t?) sure that Ali was born to be wild, but she still loved her tango! Ricky produced two fantastic dances! Natalie was :

quite pleased. A deflated balloon would have had more rhythm and tone than Laila. AND SHE WENT HOME!

Semi Final : Ali CAME AHT AND COCKED HER LEG UP GORN ALI GIRL!

Natalie went mental! Finally the semi-finals were under way (it’s never a semi until a pro shows signs of needing professional help!) Simple, elegent, gorgeous! Was something! Chris looked like an Argentine who had just lost the Falklands

/ a badger who had just lost his virginity! Len loved Ali’s American Smooth the first time he saw it, but this was better! If Ali was being honest she would admit there was some mild flirting! SEXY! AND THEN SHE WENT HOME!

So back to the floor come Ricky, Natalie and Ali. Hang on, isn’t that a bit of an unfair advantage/disadvantage? Why do they get to show us 5 dances/why don’t they get to rest up before their showdance? FIX FOR RICKY!/FIX FOR CHRIS! Oh no wait… they meant

this one, doing his cha cha to Jump, presumably to show off his comedy skills, BECAUSE THAT PASO WAS NOT A COMEDY PASO, NO IT WASN’T! It’s alright, and given the paucity of Good Latin this series, I guess someone had had to draw the short straw. Oh and they also meant this one :

dressed up as a Farberge Egg again, doing her quickstep. Again I quite like it, and wonder quite why it went so downhill and so rapidly from here on out for her. Maybe she was denied the light-entertainment powers she sucks out of Bruce’s ring every week when he was ill, and so was drained. Finally Ali comes out and does her Viennese Waltz and once again it’s quite lovely, and he doesn’t try and jam his tongue anywhere at the end. Which is nice.

Oh yeah, unfortunately Laila can’t make it tonight, for reasons that aren’t explained. I like to imagine her sat with Phil, Jodie, and Jodie’s hot boyfriend all throwing twiglets at the screen in a viewing party for “celebs who couldn’t be arsed to turn up for the final”(/”had perfectly valid reasons for not attending the final that we shouldn’t joke about”)

Team Cola dancing the Charleston :

She looks like she’s going down a log flume doesn’t she? Maybe she just saw the shit celeb she’s going to have next year in order to balance this victory out. Is it Chris Moyles?

The VTs for this round are… good God more “my Strictly journey” crap. I have officially run out of comedy ways to recap these, so I’m going to try to be straight. And we all know how well that worked when I was a teenager.

Apparently when Chris used to get into cabs, the driver would talk to him about the Arsenal defence, or some rubbish like that, but now they tell him that his Charleston really cheered them up. They then spend the next 15 minutes complaining about Ken Livingstone. Still. In my experience. In his day-to-day life he’s used to sitting behind a desk delivering the news (pfft, sports Chris. Sports is not news, any more than what happens on I’m A Celebrity is news.) and going to the Gimplympics, but now he can’t wait to get on the dance-floor every Saturday. Oh God, I feel like we’re skirting dangerously close to “the void that is my life after Strictly”. DODGE IT CHRIS, YOU’RE A JOURNALIST, YOU KNOW NOBODY WANTS TO HEAR THAT CRAP!

Phew, he’s talking about how he didn’t have much natural ability in week 1, which is a total lie, given that he finished like, 4th overall out of 16, but whatever, it’s not THE VOID, so I’m happy. He praises Ola in the highest for how patient she’s been as a teacher, followed by one of the clips where I always thought “if they weren’t playing Noah & The Whale over this, it might look like they were actualy rowing”. Fortunately it’s followed up by plenty of clips where she shows genuine affection and patience with him. So that’s nice. We’re reminded of their Cafe Of Routine Boredom (home of the Team Cola tuna panini! Buy it now and get a free Chris Hollins Wind-up Charleston toy!) and he finishes by saying that Ola wants to lift that glitterball more than anything, so he’s going to try to help her.

They’re reprising their Charleston to Fat Sam’s Grand Slam and it’s still the same Charleston before. It’s a little looser (probably because he knows people will love it and so is less nervous) and more relaxed, and a little bit less technically sharp. And I still don’t think it’s worth more than 8, at a push, and also that Ali’s was better, but the crowd go mental for it, so what do I know?

Precisely Chris. Although at this point the man in the band looks how I feel. The fact that this :

is officially the best loved bit of any routine still makes me a bit sad though. HE’S JUST SCOOTING HIS BUM ALONG THE FLOOR! Then again, my favourite bit of any routine this series was Jade sticking her finger in the air/stamping on Ian, so I’m kind of a hypocrite.

Over to the judges they go, and once the typhoon of cheers dies down, Bruno starts for the judges :

Thanks Bruno. (He said Chris was riding Ola around the dance-floor and transporting her to a realm of ecstacy). This my friends, is Why We Keep Bruno Around. Craig calls it “quirky, animated, and wonderful” basically in a tone less gushing than he used for when he gave Natalie Cassidy a 7. Darcey tells him that he transported her to the Golden Era of The Movies, and I don’t know if she means the 70s or the 20s. Needless to say that Darcey doesn’t seem transported, so much as “mildly shifted”, as she always does. Anyway, Chris and Ola were made for both each other and that performance.

Len next, and he calls this “the best final ever” (A HA HA HA HA HA! No.) because it’s “the dancer vs the entertainer” (/that cold dead-eyed cold technically perfect cold joyless cold bastardy cold cold COLD COLD COLD (Word Of The Series – Official) one vs that gurning little HOBBIT who can’t even DANCE and only won because he DOES THE BREAKFAST NEWS IT IS RIGGED STUPID BLOODY PUBLIC) and that was perfect entertainment.

In the Tesspit, Tess tells them that this is the dance they’ve become known for and Chris wises back that some people would say it’s the only dance they can do (the world’s tiniest violin actually worked by the way. Who’d have thought it?) but it was a really good giggle and they totally enjoyed it. Tess asks him what it’s going to be like going back into THE VOID that is BBC Breakfast News and he’s all “boring, but I’ll be on News At Ten in about a week and hanging out with Huw Stevens, so I’ll be fine”. Scores are in :

And I’ll try to phrase this better than I did on Saturday night, when my argument against it was “FUCKKITY FUCK FUCK WHAT?! NO!” but, whilst I don’t care that it was better performed technically first go round (see : Jill’s jive where the same thing happened), I don’t think a routine should be getting a perfect score if :

1. I can imagine someone else from a past or future series doing a significantly better routine within the genre
2. I can imagine someone else from THIS series doing a significantly better routine within the genre
3. I can imagine THIS couple from this series doing a significantly better routine within the genre
4. The routine was of such a level technically that Joe Calzaghe could have managed the steps at the time he left
5. It involved scooting around on your arse whilst someone did swimming faces

On the other hand

1. Lisa Snowdon’s cha cha.

So…yeah. I’m still kind of with Kristina on this one :

Also :

FOR GOD’S SAKE RAV STICK SOME BOTOX IN IT!

They’re pleased anyway.

Ricky Nipple & Natalie Lowe dancing the cha-cha :

Oh good, more journeys.

Ricky talks about how special it felt last week to get a standing ovation for their Argentine Tango. Of course this was last week, when standing ovations actually meant something. Arlene would have had no trouble getting that standing ovation going for Alesha this series, is what I’m saying.Ricky says that it was really special to see his dad’s face after his dance, and he’ll file it away forever.

It’ll go some way to counter-balance the one he had when Ricky told him he was going to jack in law school to become a male model.

He now feels really close to Natalie, because he’s seen her at her best and at her worst, like that time she pissed in Len’s teapot when he criticised her choreography. Just like she’s seen him at his worst. And the Hollyoaks FlashForward Special had just been aired at this point so… there’s a good chance she had as well. They’re going to remain friends forever. At least until Natalie gets a new celeb who is her best friend forever next year. That’s the life of a pro baby, don’t judge it, they’re a law unto themselves.

Brendan doesn’t even give Lisa a call on Sundays any more. Although she’s sure the fact that he changed his locks was just a coincidence. And barring his windows. And blocking up his chimney. And the restraining order. THAT COULD BE AGAINST ANY LISA SNOWDON!

Anyway, when this is all over, he hopes he and Natalie can catch up and have a cheeky Argetnine Tango (/shag) for old time’s sake. And then…Oh great, he tumbles into THE VOID, saying that not dancing with Natalie is going to be hard. And yet somehow, the rest of us manage.

They’re reprising their cha cha and…if I were them, I wouldn’t care that this is the routine their fans wanted. There’s only about 7 of us anyway. It might have been an idea, public vote wise, not to reprise the dance where either she’s playing a conceited bitch or he’s playing a deluded meathead. And in which she

shoves him at the end. When Chris shoves Ola it’s CUTE! When Natalie shoves Ricky, it’s NOT! They did wonders reprising a waltz from week 1 in the semis, why not do a reprise of say, a rumba, and try to persuade the viewers you have a soul? Also, I wouldn’t reprise a cha cha, but that’s just me. Even with the fresh hell that is the Lindy Hop in my life I still don’t like cha-cha. He stalks, he wriggles, she vamps, she snarls, it’s all quite sexy and exciting, but…this is just reminds me why I don’t like reprises. SIN IT BEFORE!

It still gets a standing ovation. Naturally.

They wander over to the judges, both gurning :

about how Ricky had a “Janet Jackson moment” because his shirt came open more than it was supposed to, revealing his abs. I’M SURE THAT WAS JUST AS UNINTENTIONAL AS JANET’S WAS AS WELL! Although it reminded me that he’s got an outie (blech) so it had the opposite effect on me than was probably intended.

Alesha starts by saying that Ricky & Natalie are “such a sexy couple to watch dance”. Hands above the table where I can see them Alesha. Alesha calls it one of the best cha cha cha’s she’s ever seen on Strictly Come Dancing as a judge (REALLY? BETTER THAN LYNDA’S?!) and in fact one of the best dances on Strictly ever. Oh God, the floodgates have opened- everything’s officially the best everything ever. Well, at least it took a little longer this year than it did last time. Bruno? :

Thanks Bruno.

Darcey says that she was “taken aback” and she so looks it.

If you were taken aback Darcey, jump up and down, waggle your bum, scream, and use Chas & Dave lyrics. They’re the only language this show understands. She then says she’d like to cha-cha with Ricky one day and Natalie’s all “take him, I’m bored now, I’ve done all I can with this one, WHERE’S THE FRESH MEAT?!” Craig finishes by basically it was just as good as it was last time. When it landed him in the dance-off from the top of the leaderboard. Bodes well.

In the Tesspit, Tess basically says “hot” a gazillion times and says every woman in the nation now wants to cha-cha (sex) with Ricky Whittle. The heteronormative BITCH! Tess reminds us that this cha-cha got 10s from the girls last time, even without the benefit of Arlene’s panty-poofing, but the boys remained stoic, like, even the gay ones despite it being so sexy. Scores are in : 48 (/38), with Bruno being the only man to cave. This causes Tess to say that “Bruno got his 10 out”, and Natalie and Ricky crease up laughing

and she mutters “THIT’S A BIT RUDE!”. See, she DOES GET BRITISH HUMOUR!

Team Cola dancing freestyle :

We’re right into the showdances this time, with no emotional VTs, like the one that caused Alesha to have a nervous breakdown 5 seconds before she took to the floor and I love that Ola is :

going to have to pick up the glitterball whilst dressed as a kung-fu cowgirl out of Dead or Alive. Their showdance is to “Do You Love Me?” featuring some brilliant literal choreography at the beginning when Ola BREAKS Chris’ heart (shoves him – seriously, enough with the shoving already) when he FAILS TO BE ABLE TO DANCE, but then he COMES BACK AND WANTS HER TO KNOW THAT HE CAN REALLY MOVE! etc etc. And if you in any way find Chris attractive :

Merry Christmas. Anyway, they break into the usual male celebrity lift-fest, including the :

VAGINA DISPLAY! and the

ONE ARM CROTCH GRAB!

There’s also a decent amount of Latin basic mixed in there amongst the lifts, although the best moment is when Chris does a handstand and

OLA SCREAMS “MASHED POTATO!” through his flailing legs. If that bit’s not used in every “Strictly Through The Years” montage from now until the show ceases to be profitable, then I don’t know what the editors are on. It’s all good clean fun and it ends like :

this. Jesus Christ, if Len claims to have pooed his pants again…

It gets a standing ovation, complete with floor stamping, which I really hope does not set a precedent. We’re not at a U2 concert people. Thank God. This recap would be about 3 words long (Fuck Off Bono), although some people might see that as a blessing.

Bruce calls it a showing off dance, and informs Chris that the Chippendales are still going, and ask if he wants to join them. I think he probably would make a good Rescue Ranger.

Darcey starts for the judges by saying plainly that that was a great dance, and the partnering and timing were perfect. For God’s sake Darcey call it “THE BEST THING HUMANITY HAS EVER ACHEIVED” and twirl your knickers round your head with your tongue. IT’S A FINAL FOR GOD’S SAKE. Len next and he says he was a bit tense because he saw a split in Chris trousers when he lept up on the table. For God’s sake Len, he wasn’t going to tea-bag you. Len moves on to say that “they talk about journeys on this show” (yes. yes they do) but Chris’ journey has been tougher than others, but he’s always come out of full of energy and enthusiasm, and this was no exception.

Alesha says that she loved that it was full of “Classic Chris Moments” and that her answer to the song’s question of “Do You Love Me?” is “yes”. I KNEW IT! IT WAS CHRIS THAT SHE LOVED ALL ALONG! NOT RICKY! THE TRIPLE WEDDING IS BACK ON! Bruce at this point thanks the two female judges for controlling themselves and not molesting Chris when he jumped up onto the table. Arlene’s gone Bruce. It’s fine now. Of course Alesha has to shout “I WAS TEMPTED TO HAVE A FEEL!” whilst Darcey looks like she’d rather douche with Lucozade.

Bruno next :

Thanks Bruno.

Down to the Tesspit, where everyone’s on their feet cheering, and Tess marvels at Chris’ strength in being able to do those lifts and really, he’s been fine with lifts up until now, he’s still young, he’s a very experienced sportsman, he’s in good shape…I don’t understand all this rather patronising fuss about him somehow being able to carry out those lifts. I suspect it’s to do with his height, which annoys me quite a lot, although at least nobody claimed he had a Napoleon Complex at any point. Or at least not that I saw. Tess asks if he thinks that was enough to win, and he of course ignores that in favour of talking about what a marvellous time he’s had and what a marvellous couple Natalie & Ricky are. I’ve always suspected that ignoring Tess’ stupid-ass questions is the first step on the ladder to Strictly victory.

Scores are in…wait what? Scores? For a showdance? Oh for God’s sake. I bet they even score the week 1 group dances next year (Shirley Ballas’ Crazy Mambo : 4) - 46 (/36). Oh and Alesha’s been taking lessons in obnoxiousness from Len :

sit DOWN Alesha.

Should He Win ? : I think we all knew that my opinion on this was always going to be “no”, so let’s move on shall we?

Ricky Nipple and Natalie Lowe dancing freestyle :

As Team Cola wander off, Natalie & Ricky enter, and Chris says “Good Luck Fellas” which is a rather unfortunate choice of words, especially given as how :

Natalie is dressed in such a manner so as to prove that, barring the greatest tuck know to drag-queen, she’s definitely a woman. Although Chris’ choice of words aren’t quite as unfortunate as the outfit itself.

Out they go, ready to dance their show-dance to “Last Dance”, because it is the LAST DANCE! Inspired music choice.

It starts off nice and soft and lyrical on the stage, with really graceful, elegant slow lifts. Whilst I can see how it might bore people who likes their dancing FRANTIC AND EXCITING, I’m kind of in awe at just how smoothly he’s pulling some of these lifts off. Then of course the beat kicks in and it goes

DISCO-LATIN CRAZY! This is how much I like this routine – I am not complaining about it being DISCO LATIN. Ponder on that. His hips are going crazy, albeit on in that slight exaggerated off-putting way from his earlier Latin dances and it’s just really upbeat and fun.

And then :

HE BLOODY WELL LIFTS HER WITHOUT USING HIS ARMS! AMAZING SCENES BRUCE! That better go in the montage as well. All I’m saying. He goes crazy at the end, trying to pull off about 3 different lifts one after the other, and he almost manages it, although things get a bit wobbly at the end (albeit no more so than in Cola’s lifts). EPIC!

I think I enjoyed those two showdances more than any of the ones last series. YES, INCLUDING TOM’S THAT APPARENTLY CURED CANCER.

Over to the judges they go, with another standing ovation (albeit without foot stomping), and Natalie and Ricky both thank the audience profusely, as one woman shouts “RICK-AY!” which Ricky humourously responds to with “wrong show”. This goes right over Natalie’s head, as you would expect.

Len starts for the judges, and reminds us that in wk 1 he said Ricky was the one to beat, and now in wk 14 he’s still the one to beat (why the heck did we even have the rest of the series then? It’s like how it was Tom vs Austin in week 1, and it turned into Tom vs Austin for the series at the end. This show is SO BLOODY PREDICTABLE) and let’s face it, he will get beat tonight, but Len wants him to take away that he was fantastic the whole time. Mercifully, he does not start screaming about JUSTICE AND TRUTH AND HONESTY!

Alesha says that she would have liked to have seen more dance styles worked in there, but that’s not a criticism (wtf? Yes it is?) and she loved it, especially all those lifts, and also that he’s been a joy to watch these past 3.5 months (/centuries, however long this series has gone on for). Ricky gets one last crawil in to Alesha by telling her that she’s been amazing as well. Eh, not really. Bruno? :

Thanks Bruno. But of a mild one to end on to be honest. I expected better. Natalie cheers me up by closing out her judges panel experience like this :

after Craig calls the whole routine “Lift-Tastic”. It was also incredible and jaw-dropping apparently.

To the Tesspit, where Flavia

tries to look pleased for them, but you can just tell she’s thinking “should have been mine, bitch. Should have been mine” Natalie crows “that was really good!” bless her, and Tess asks them how it feels to have danced their last dance, and to have Len tell them they’re the best dancers. Natalie’s all “sad” for the first one, and Ricky’s all “really good” about the second. Great questioning as ever Tess. Ricky closes by saying how everyone on the show’s had a fantastic time, and Natalie says she’s going to miss “her soulmate”. Good grief I’m retired the sick-bucket after the showmance left last week. That was apparently a mistake. Scores are in (*shakes head*) – 49 (/39)

Should He Win ? : Yes, yes he should. Ah well, this now means I’ve ended up rooting for more runner-ups than winners. I’M SUCH A REBEL!

Now that all the dancing is over for another year, Tess pulls out the final leaderboard

and…two points really :

a) Even with retardo final mark inflation I would have scored Ricky at 35 overall, and Chris at 31. I would be the most popular judge ever clearly.

b) I never ever want to see anyone score ONE-HUNDRED-AND-NINETY POINTS in one night on this show ever, EVER again.

c) FOR GOD’S SAKE TESS STOP CALLING RICKY & NATALIE THE JUDGES FAVOURITES.

Oh alright, it was 3 points. When we come back, Natalie is bent over like this :

and has to be corrected, before

looking mortified. STICK IT IN THE MONTAGE! Also include Tess being mildly panicked that something interesting might be happening whilst she’s talking, as even the most mundane of other details really would be enough to get 95% of the viewers to stop listening to her. Tess then reveals that the couples have done 654 hours of training between them, and Ricky & Chris are all “I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU DID THAT MUCH!”, “I KNOW, WE CAME IN ON WEDNESDAY!” and everything from this point onwards is just waiting for the result really.

ANOTHER RECAP! HOORAY!

Bruce now, seguing into another segment by saying that he doesn’t know who’s going to win. Thus answering the question “who is so slow that they don’t realise that Chris has this in the bag?”

Damn bippy he is. Anyway, he’s seguing into a brief VT of notable celebrities of seasons past saying what their defining memory was. They are as follows :

Tom : When we got the papers signed for Camilla so the nice nurses would let her out unaccompanied during the day! We still had to take the laces out of her shoes though! (Quickstep)

Kelly : WHEN WE CHEATED! WHEN WE WERE SO AWESOMELY CHEATY! (American Smooth)

Mark : 3 weeks after the series ended, when Karen’s screams of victory finally stopped ringing in my ears (Argentine Tango)

Austin : Getting my tits out and shouting “OLE!” (Paso Doble)

Alesha : When they detached the last of Arlene’s acrylic nails from my cheek (Cha Cha Cha)

Chris : When Ola spread my legs and shouted “MASHED POTATOES!” (Oh no wait…that’s this segment next year)

Next up, it’s time for the last pure pro-dance of the series ie the “James & Ola Moment of We’ve Got Nothing Else To Do, No Filler Left To Fill, We Might As Well Just Do A Pro-Dance”. It’s to “Just Dance”, it’s a bit Latiny,

raw seafood appears to have exploded out of Kristina’s rear-end, it’s quite nice, nobody really cares, except those of us wondering why this song is suddenly within the band’s remit when we were assured weeks ago that it wasn’t.

WONDER TWINS UNITE! And for god’s sake lower your hem-line Kristina.

Now it’s the time for the part of the show that everyone enjoys – Tess is let loose amongst the audience. She asks Chris’ mum if she’s impressed with her son, the answer is “no”. Ricky’s dad then says that if he loses, he’s out of the family. Oh alright, not really, Chris’ mum says she’s very proud, and Ricky’s dad( looking incredibly uncomfortable to be on camera) says he’s proud as well, and he and Tess have a bit of a sympathetic moment about, no really, his name is Richard.

What makes it weird is that he calls himself Harry. Which is a contraction. Anyway, bless Ricky’s dad.

Next up, Bruce waffles about how the tension (and the Joe Calzaghe) is currently mounting in the studio, so what better way to defuse that tension than with a good belly-laugh? That’s right, once you’re part of the Strictly Family, you never really leave it (apart from if you’re Emma Bunton, in which case everyone’s agreed that we don’t really talk about that any more), so here are Rachel Stevens and Lisa Snowdon, with the professional dancers. Oh this, should be gooooooooood. In both senses that I use that word.

They’re dancing a tango-cha to “Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves”, although mercifully the pros take up a good minute or so warming up the floor for them. But then, after a lot of combinations and faffing about, ISSS MAGIC TIME :

She’s sloppy, she’s out of time, she keeps messing with her belt, she’s heavy on her feet, she can’t control her spins, and she ends by just shaking her tits at the camera and stumbling off. IT’S AMAZING! I could watch those 10-15 seconds forever. God bless you Lisa Snowdon, for your complete lack of shame. Can she do this every series?

Of course Rachel then makes it even better by coming out and being sharp and commanding and totally on-point. If anything, better than she was at the tango in her actual series. Way to show her up with your scary clinical awesomeness RACHBOT! Then they dance at the same time and :

I don’t think even LEN would take more than 1 second performing the ancient art of comparison on these two.

They finish, and then Lisa gets even better, hurtling over to Bruce screeching “WE MISSED YOU BRUCIE!” and doing random shit like :

this. I love it when Lisa’s drunk. Or just sober and weird. Oh and the

height contrast makes up for me never seeing Jade and Ronnie Corbett in the same shot. Bruce interviews them for a bit, with Rachel being normal (although there is an amazing moment when she says that watching Vincent dancing with Natalie was a bit like watching him cheating on her, and Bruce says “I always thought he was a bit of a cheat” and the ENTIRE AUDIENCE PULLS THE SAME FACE AT THE SAME TIME) , and Lisa screeching about how much she’s missed it AND PLEASE DON’T MAKE HER GO BACK INTO THE VOID WHY HAVE YOU NOT INVITED HER BACK FOR THE CHRISTMAS SPECIAL, SHE DID A PERFECT CHA CHA!” Oh and then she waggles her fingers at all the judges and yells “MISSED YOU!” and Alesha just looks at her like “whatever drunky”.

Back to Tess in the audience, and another highlight as she goes “Oooh look, it’s last series champion Tom Chambers” and he totally expects her to talk to him, but she turns her back on him IMMEDIATELY in favour of some boxer, who is rooting for Ricky, because he liked his no arms lift. Then she talks to Chris Moyles, who is rooting for Chris Hollins, because he is the Everyman. Whatever Moyles, you’re rooting for him because you’re a shameless populist and we all know he’s winning. FINALLY Tess talks to Tom, who clearly has been bursting to speak this whole time, only for him to make the lame “Oooh I don’t know, but Cola has the magic ingredient” bollocks that Austin came out with last week. JUST SAY WHO YOU WANT TO WIN!

Finally ANOTHER SODDING JOURNEY VT! Does anybody care? No. Good. To the RESULTSMOBILE ROBIN!

And the Winners are  (sorry just thought I’d cut the rebop) :

Do we think they cottoned on about the sex faces? And who’s on first to pull camera time during the victory? Sprinting at the same speed asLisa is currently pursuing Brendan acorss the car-park screeching “BRENDAN, COME BACK! I WANT TO CHARLESTON! WE NEVER GOT TO CHARLESTON! OR LINDY HOP! I WANNA LINDY BRENDY, I WANT TO LINDY”? Why its Ravioli.

It’s alright Aliona, they’re clearly going to bring you back next year. I’ve given up on expecting better from Rav. Everyone else crowds on in their wake, whilst Ola just clutches her face and cries with joy. Bless her. Ricky thanks everyone, Natalie looks serene in defeat, and we move on to Chris & Ola’s victory speech. Thankfully he does not scream “YOU’RE POLISH! I LIKE YOUR SAUSAGE!” as he does so. Chris thanks everyone involved, his family and friends, and in particular Ricky & Natalie for making it an amazing final, at which Ola says “YOU WERE AMAZING! YOU AMAZING!” at them, in a manner that would make even Brian go “wow, that girl’s earnest”. I love how winning always, ALWAYS breaks the pro’s brain, and the celebrity never really seems that fussed :

Finally, Chris thanks Ola for always believing in him, and she gazes intensely into his eyes and tells him that that was a fantastic experience. Aw, anyway, money shot?

Money shot.

So…Chris Hollins then. Our oldest winner, probably our shortest, and even after that final, the one with the lowest average score (if we ignore Darcey, and I’ve a feeling the show is going to try to). Bit of a rum old deal, and if I’m honest there are a good 4 or 5 people I would have seen win over him, which is more than ever before (even with Gough the series wasn’t exactly swimming with other options). Still, after the Sergeant business last series, this sort of “pure public” winner was always on the cards, and the show seemed fine with it, so I can only be a little bit disappointed. And Ola was in rare form this evening, so good for her.

Until next year then or The Apprentice, or So You Think You Can Dance (no, I could never stay away from recapping Arlene, not ever) or probably that Find Me A Dorothy show, or even the little bits and pieces I do for Big Brother and American Idol and Dancing With The Stars (should you be so inclined), goodbye, thank you for reading, and please stick around for the Christmas Special recap and the Fictional Awards Ceremony. And remember – BENNETT DOMINATION IN 2010! Make it happen people. YES WE CAN!

So here we are – the final of Strictly Come Dancing 7. And in case you’d forgotten just how much everybody wants to win, and that Chris is less technically adept than Ricky but he engages the general public more, don’t worry, you’re going to hear it over and over and over and over and over and over again throughout the evening. Somewhere amongst the VTs though, they just about manage to find room for some dancing.

For the ballroom reprise, Ricky & Natalie take up their Quickstep again, and get the 50/50 you know they were heading towards from the moment they announced they were doing it, and Chris & Ola reprise their foxtrot and end up getting a 10 from Alesha, meaning all those Cola fans who have spent the last 3 months claiming that Alesha should have her 10 paddle sawn off and inserted into her (*deleted*) suddenly felt very silly.

The Lindy Hop then occured, which was stupid and awkward and instead of featuring both couples dancing together at the same time doing exactly the same choreography (as claimed in the VT) actually mostly consists of one couple standing around whilst the other couple mess up lifts all over the place/play patty-cake and pull faces. THRILLING. Somehow Chris & Ola manage to eke out an extra point over Ricky as it turns out that, just like the Jive, the Lindy Hop is not a good dance for TALL PEOPLE.

The Latin round sees Ricky reprise his cha cha, but over-selling it in a slightly terrifying “WE MUST OUTGURN CHRIS! THEN WE WILL WIN!” fashion that’s a bit off-putting, and Chris pulling out his Charleston that I still don’t get, not even in the slightest, and somehow pulls out a  frankly bizarre 50/50, meaning he’s scored more 10s overall than Jill Halfpenny, Colin Jackson, Tom Chambers, Denise Lewis and Austin Healey and the same amount as Gethin Jones, Mark Ramprakash and Zoe Ball. Mmm hmm.

Finally we get the showdances, and after the horrors of last year and series 4 (my god series 4) it’s nice to see two strong efforts put out. Lifts abound in both, but Ricky’s are more spetacular and just about better performed, so he takes the round for me, especially as he’s dancing to “Last Dance” which is both appropriate (BECAUSE IT IS THEIR LAST DANCE!) and amazing (BECAUSE IT’S AMAZING!) whereas Cola are dancing to “Do You Love Me?” which just reminds me of Chris Parker. And who needs that at Christmas really?

Meanwhile tucked in away amidst the dancing they’ve managed to tuck in some filler as well, with the return of the justified and ancient eliminees (Martina and Richard stand out as being particularly awful. All the people who whitter on about her having so much untapped potential still bemuse me. SHE WUZ SHIT.), JADE’S TANGO which turns out to be somewhat less amazing than everyone had hoped, but then again I think the Second Coming of Jesus Christ himself from out of the womb of Darcey Bussell would fail to meet up with how much Jade’s Tango has been hyped up.

Also in filler land, Alesha and Bruce “duet”, and Brian and Kristina whirl around a bit to Lady Gaga. Most excitingly of all, Rachel and Lisa return with Rachel being just as tiny and perfect as ever and Lisa…sorry, I can’t, I’m still giggling. Oh Lisa. What IS IT with you and finals? It’s like me and Singstar – you can’t help but embarass yourself.

In the end, after two hours, the glitterball falls into the waiting hands of Chris & Ola, and she loses her mind on a degree similar to Camilla last year, whilst Chris looks contented but a bit subdued, whilst Ricky & Natalie clap gracefully at the side, as they got over losing about 3 weeks ago. And so another series of Strictly comes to a close. Maybe a girl will win next year. Or the person I’m rooting for. I think I got spoiled by Mark & Alesha in a row…

To another sausage-fest final 2! *clink*

LAST WEEK :

No. A DANCER EMERGED OUT OF CHRIS AND BECAME THE NEW 5TH JUDGE DARCEY BUSSELL! LAILA GOT ON ALESHA’S WICK! DIRTY! BRUNO NEVER SAW SUCH A MESS IN A QUARTER FINAL! (No really, I made the Matt di Angelo joke in the summary for last week didn’t I?) AND THEN LAILA WENT HOME AND DIDN’T REALLY CARE TO BE HONEST!

THIS WEEK : THERE’S NO ROOM FOR ERRORS! CHRIS IS GOING TO GO FOR IT! BRIAN HAS BROKEN ALI! (I told them they weren’t ready for Flavia’s special Showmance Sex Harness but did they listen? Did they buffalo.) RICKY HAS TAUGHT NATALIE ABOUT HOLLYOAKS TOUCHING THE WALL ACTING!

(ok, for people coming here from Strictly Come Bitching – Hollyoaks Touching The Wall Acting is a term my friend and I invented in our teens. In Hollyoaks, whenever there’s a big emotional scene, 9 times out of 10 someone will end up touching a wall. Pounding it in frustration, slumping against in tears, sliding down it in agony, even occasionally wistfully stroking it with sexual frustration. In the dramatic stressful moments in my life, I have never ONCE felt any urge to start frotting a wall. Hence – Hollyoaks Touching The Wall Acting. We even had a little game where we’d text each other whenever it happened, and scored a point if we were first to notice it)

AHEM! CHRIS IS GOING TO GO FOR FIRST! (…………)LIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!

Oh God these two. Remember them? Everybody loved them, but then totally spontaneously everybody forgot to vote for them because they thought they were safe. AND THEN THEY DID IT AGAIN TWO WEEKS LATER! Thanks for reminding me James!

Bruce and Tess start off as usual except that :

she’s back to doing the full leg extension. Good girl. Keep it professional. Although that dress has either been draped by someone with lobster claws for hands, or she’s just pulled it right off the clothes-horse without ironing it. Swings and roundabouts really.

Whilst we go through the usual rigmarole and discover that Laila is here watching :

looking very pretty. No really that’s it, she’s looking lovely. I can be nice sometimes. Actually that’s against the whole spirit of the Strictly Semi-Final isn’t it? YOU HAVE RUINED THIS WHOLE SHOW WITH YOUR FAKE WHORE SMILE! YOUR SHOWMANCE WITH ANTON WAS FOOLING NOBODY! Much better.

Bruce’s opening joke is about how he really enjoyed last week’s show, not for Vincent & Flavia’s Argentine Tango, not for the American Smooth pro-dance, but in fact the look on Anton’s face when he got voted out. Go sign up for an Internet message-board they’ll be glad to have you. They rush through the actual show in 10 minutes using their Sky+ (making sure to double extra super-plus fast-forward dumb ol’ Alesha) and then fill the other 90 minutes with painstaking frame-by frame analysis of everyone’s faces when someone gets eliminated. Zapruder would think these people were over-analytical.

Anyway, Bruce went to sleep with a smile on his face because Anton was out, and that’s it, that’s the joke, he’s just a wanker. At least I try and slip a pun or two in there. Tess reminds us at this point that there’s no dance-off tonight, so basically it’s just a public vote. There’s one combination where the person with the lowest public vote doesn’t leave, but it happening would involve Chris either finishing anywhere other than bottom with the judges, or someone beating him the public vote, and let’s face it neither of those is happening any time soon. (3-2-1, 1-3-2 for those playing along at home)

Anyway, just like last week, because we apparently can’t go a whole show without filler, here are our “professional dancers”, including Darren & Lilia who weren’t in last week’s opening number, a fact I completely missed, and which doesn’t really bode well for them future wise. BENNETT DOMINATION 2010! START A PETITION!

Too right Dazza! Anywhere, they’re dancing to “Red Light Spells Danger” by Billy Ocean which is one of those songs I always love in spite of itself. All it really needs is to be played semi-ironically over some scene of the heroine breaking down in a quirky indie rom-com and I’d be there. The pro-dance itself is one of those frustrating buggers where those of us not totally versed in the PURITY OF DAHNCE even after 7 series of watching celebrities titting about go “it’s a jive isn’t it?

oh no hang on wait, this bit looks a bit salsambcha,

oh no wait, it’s definitely jive, no it’s mostly been jive, it’s a weird jive, a modern twist jive, but why are they do…oh sod it let’s just call it a Latin showcase and have done”. Anyway it’s not terribly memorable, and also it finishes with James & Kristina looking like this :

I’ve not been so perturbed in a very long while. The pros all toddle off at this point, and Vincent makes a

“call me” sign to a person of unspecified gender in the audience. Oh Vincent. You’ve had problems like this before, calm it. Once they’re out of the way, Bruce informs us that we’re about to see the celebs do a new version of their favourite dance of the series so far and then a “sultry Argentine Tango”. Personally, as we’re at the churlishness peak of the year I think they should all do a new version of MY favourite dance of the series. Yes they should all be doing Jade’s samba routine to Survivor. All wearing that dress. At the same time. They’d all fit.

The “stars of our show” take their places at this point, but in the new and special “everybody centre-stage” format.

If you look closely you can see Natalie Lowe complaining that as Class President she really should be stood in the middle, no disrespect to anyone else, but she was voted into that position for a reason, and as junior milk monitors Chris & Ola really should be off the side somewhere. Bruce says that “Hollins, Whittle & Bastian” sounds like a form of solicitors. In that it’s 3 surnames together in a row yes it does, although I think Lowe, Jordan & Fortuna sounds infinitely more bad-ass. Just the thought of Ola shouting “OBJECTION!” already has me confessing to the Moors Murders and the Lockerbie Bombings.

Oh and Bruce says they might need a lawyer because it’s semi-finals week. I think when people say a couple were robbed Bruce, they mean it metaphorically. Or at least, most of them do.

Team Collar dancing the rumba :

Oh good, he’s doing the face already. Bruce starts by pointing out that Ola is wearing one of her skimpier costumes this evening, and Ola full on rolls her eyes

at the fact that her pro hook is “gets her tits out, gets her tits out, GETS HER TITS OUT FOR THE LADS!”. Never mind Ola, it could be worse, you could be THRITY FOUR YEARS OLD like Erin, and therefore an old banger. Bruce then makes a joke about how he sexually harassed Ola in the camera-rehearsal. LAUGHS ALL ROUND!

Their VT starts with Chris marvelling that he’s somehow made the semi-finals and saying that he’s now realised that when he’s trying to look romantic he instead looks constipated

 and this must be why he was never a big hit with girls whilst growing up (the world’s tiniest violin was created by Eric Meissner and was 1.625 inches in length). I had the same problem. Someone told me that men dig it when you look complicated and I misheard (*does vague wobbly eyebrowed exasperated comedy look to camera a la Miranda*).

Ola tells us that Chris might not be the best dancer, but he really puts everything in, and it means a lot to her to get this far. Cue :

GIANT CLOSE-UP OF CRYING! Why not just have one giant eye in the middle of the screen and have done? I swear, I’ve seen episodes of Dawson’s Creek that were more subtle with their portrayal of emotion than this show.

We’re then reminded that these two

ARE SPEWING OUT THEIR VILE PROPAGANDA OF LIES ABOUT CHRIS HOLLINS DIRECTLY INTO OUR LIVING ROOMS EVERY MORNING LIKE THE MINISTRY OF TRUTH! Personally I think whatever advantage he has is more than outbalanced by how Bill Turnbull just seems like he’s being sarcastic all the time, about everything, but whatever. Everyone on the Breakfast News loves him like he was their annoying little brother and Bill Turnbull says “Yeah Baby” and looks incredibly uncomfortable, like your uncle singing along to Rihanna.

In training Chris talks a lot about how everyone expects him to be the worst and wouldn’t it be nice to surprise them and really nail the two dances they have before them and finish somewhere other than last with the judges? Finally he says he really wants to keep on dancing with “Olachops” and I will say that, as much as I don’t want to beat this horse to death because they barely do any gimmick stuff any more, but he really does sound like he just wants to call her Ola. Sometimes we give people nicknames that don’t work out. Friend of mine started calling her boyfriend “Puppy-Eyes” and we all had to tell her to stop it because it was making everyone (including him, and if she was honest her) lose the will to breathe.

Long story short – “Olachops” is as bad as “Gyllenspoon”. Stick to the Yeah Babys.

Out they come now, with Chris resplendent in regal purple – official colour of the rumba.

And the music starts up, and they’re dancing to Total Eclipse Of The Heart and this is immediately where I lose all dignity and start screeching “TEN! GIVE IT A TEN! IT’S TO TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE HEART! GIVE IT A TEN!” Seriously, doing contemporary dance to this and performing the entire routine from the video of “Wuthering Heights” in my friend’s back-garden are my fondest memories of getting drunk as a teenager. This routine could be the worst thing ever- his hands could be like frog-feet, his face could be him licking his own nostril, I do not care, it’s a rumba to Total Eclipse Of The Heart – it’s a 10.

I must admit, we never did this move though. I think that made our performances only a 9. The only way this could be better is if they actually projected a giant spooky house onto the dancefloor like they did when Aggie skated to it on Dancing On Ice. TEN TEN TEN TEN TEN!

Oh alright, objectively, his hands are still like this :

the second half is basically him stood stock still whilst Ola molests both him and the oxygen around him, and if anything, his lack of real progression from week 1 makes me a bit sad about the prospect of him winning, but whatever, TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE HEART!

I love how the ending is simultaneously pure filth and a bit like he’s checking for an ear infection. SEXY OTOLOGIST!

Over to the judges, and Bruce informs Chris that every man in the audience is jealous of him this evening, before fingering his lining :

and complimenting him on his shirt. I know I say “Bruce is weird this week” every week but… Bruce is weird this week.

Craig starts for the judges, saying that he showed no real improvement from week 1 and that it was a nice routine, but totally spoiled by :

these hands. By which he means Chris’ hands. Not his own hands. Unless he’s claiming to have sabotaged it or something. Darcey follows up by basically back-handing him, saying that he was being a really good partner letting Ola show off, but he wasn’t really doing any moves himself at all. In fact she asks him where his rumba actually was, because she was looking forward to seeing it. Oooh, Mean Girl burn.

Len next, and he says that Total Eclipse Of The Heart was very appropriate because…Chris is living in a powder keg and giving off sparks? Because he doesn’t know what to do and he’s always in the dark? Because once upon a time he was falling in love, BUT NOW HE’S ONLY FALLING APART?! Oh no wait, it’s because Chris put his heart into it. Boo. You know Arlene would have made more of it than that (Satanic Arlene : Damn bippy I would). He then says that if this were all down to entertainment, hard work and dedication, Chris would be top of the leaderboard every week, because we all know that the less good couples are all trying so much harder than the good couples, who spend most of their training hours lying flat on their back feeding each other grapes on couches, giggling about how they’re going to pour pigs blood over Chris at the end of prom.

And then they train for like 5 minutes. Probably.

Alesha

who has apparently forgotten to remove her glittery eye-mask this week, says that she really loved the intent and emotion, but it didn’t show off Chris as a dancer, and exposed his lack of hip action and weak arms. But he does put in 110% every week, and that “never goes amiss”. Unlike the end of Alesha’s sentences half the time. Bruno finishes by saying that Chris went at it like :

a sex-starved fiend. And not to get into a pot-kettle situation, but isn’t Bruno acting like a rampaging sex fiend a bit like his acting like Chris being constipated? A bit. Shrug. Anyway, technical issues blah blah, 5 judges is at least 1 too many, hurry up.

In the Tesspit, Chris clues us all in on the fact that he performed that rumba as a joke, although not in the way you might have thought. Apparently he really loved it in week 1, and Ola told him that he could dance it again if they reached the semis. And now they’re in the semis so… he just did. Tess praises him for dancing the rumba, because it’s a “brave choice” doing a Latin dance because they’re historically lower scores. A man doing a rumba is also historically quite good for a hefty sympathy vote, although I do give Chris credit for trying to get rid of all that “men hate the rumba, poor woobie men” bollocks. Scores are in, and let’s ignore…. Len this week shall we? – 38 (/30)

Count Fortuna and his drug-taking, soul-singing, fan-punching ward Amy Winehouse dancing the Argentine Tango :

*squints*

Count Fortuna and I think Ali Bastian dancing the Argentine Tango :

Really I think hair just wanted to do a bee-hive once this series, and didn’t give a damn as to its appropriateness for the person or the dance. It’s up there with the BOW MADE OUT OF HAIR quite frankly. Anyway, because Argentine Tango is a SERIOUS dance full of PASSION AND PAIN, as Vincent so breathlessly explained to us last week, Bruce is instead going to make a joke about their American Smooth instead, lest he upset the balance of the sweaty gauchos. Apparently Ali & Brian’s American Smooth will be just like the BBC Christmas Party – full of romance in the lifts, and sadly not like my last Office Christmas Party – ending up with my boss and I both throwing giant connect 4 pieces at each other (in a friendly way)

We begin with a VT of her tango last week, and for a moment it’s unclear whether we’re supposed to believe she came out fighting or came out farting, but then Len calls her a :

one (/two) trick pony again, just to make us doubly aware. At this point she apparently made the decision to come out all boobs blazing in her samba :

*facepalm*, leading to Darcey praising the “sexy party going on” once again. I don’t know why you’d play her saying that again. Of all the things Darcey said last week, that is the one I’d bury under a crossroads at midnight to be honest. Ali giggles about how she’s the last girl standing, so she really needs the backing of the women at home.

It’s an interesting take on the gender politics of this show for sure.

We cut to their training this week, with a bit more tension than we’re really used to from this couple, with Ali barely grazing Brian’s face with her elbow and him going down like a cheating footballer/Ian Waite in a showdance and then her having a little mini-meltdown over not remembering her routine properly and STORMING OFF

/GOING FOR A PISS!

Anyway, she and Brian have a little moment together

and then carry on, whilst the rest of the nation look up from their buckets and wipe their mouths/rush to Twitter to tell the world about HOW THE ROMANCE IS STILL ON. How emotional is it?

BRIAN IS TOUCHING THE WALL! THAT IS HOW EMOTIONAL THIS IS! He’s also :

dressed a bit like he’s running a pyramid scheme, but let’s gloss over that.

They take to the floor and :

honestly, I think the dress department have something against the makers of nude effect dresses. Maybe they were the snobby ones at fashion school who gave themselves “designer names” by drawing the names of Greek Gods out of hats and pairing them with a random fruit (Aphrodite Plum anyone? Dionysus Blackberry?), but really… Also the fact that she’s accessorized with pretty little pink ear-rings and bracelets makes it look even worse. Use your Macy’s Accessory Wall thoughtfully designers.

As an Argentine Tango unfortunately it’s a bit of a lost cause, and kind of puts the last nail in the coffin of Ali’s “passion” dances. It’s all a bit awkward and wriggly and they’re neither tight or sharp enough, and they don’t really cover the floor with any sort of intensity. The lifts are alright, and there’s an awesome moment at the beginning where she just :

CAM’S AHT AND COCKS HER LEG AP GO ON ALLI GIRL GURTCHA! But aside from that it’s all wooden and a bit dead, and when she growls, it looks like someone saying “sod it” and just cracking out their chapped lips for the satisfaction.

Bruce apparently thinks THIS is the right point to introduce Dave Arch and His Magic Band, meaning that Total Eclipse Of The Heart is officially SO AMAZING that it negated the need to thank them then.

I think I see a glimpse of hat there, so I am reassured. When they introduced them on the show live, I swear I was on the verge of calling the police and telling them that TESS HAD MURDERED THE MAN IN THE HAT, JUST LIKE SHE MURDERED ERIC! Or OFCOM, one or t’other.

Darcey starts by saying that Ali did a lot of really difficult technical steps, but she could have made the dance sharper and cleaner, and then Len tells her that if she wants to be back next week kissing that mirrorball trophy, she really needs to… murder Chris Hollins with a tyre-iron? Oh no wait, she needs to lose her nerves. Again, I do think that at least 50% of the wobbling is because she’s not terribly strong physically, but that’s just my crack-pot theory. Anyway, he tells Ali that she just needs to relax, and honestly I can’t see any reason at all why that might difficult for her :

staring over her shoulder like Professor Moriarty.

Alesha tells her that she could tell she was really trying to sell the passion but she could see the nerves. On the other hand, she liked the intricate footwork, so all in all it was a job well done. Bruno finishes by saying pretty much the same thing as everyone else – it was nice that she tried to sell it, but her nerves dragged her into silly mistakes and it kind of marred the whole performance. Because sometimes, even four judges is too many.

Into the Tesspit, and Tess sympathises over her nerves, because it’s the SEMI-FINAL. Ali wibbles some more about how she feels obliged to represent as the Last Girl standing (joining an elite club of Rachel, Alesha, Emma, Zoe, Jill and Kerplunk) and then Brian thanks her for “putting up with him all week” leading everyone into cooing at the young couple, apart from Kristina,

who looks murderous as ever. I swear, they should just sit her and Katya together backstage and hook them up to the red button. Sod expert commentary, I want to see those two rolling their eyes and looking hateful at everything. Scores are in – 42 (/33)

Ricky Nipple & Natalie Lowe dancing the waltz :

Well at least she looks like a HAPPY mountain lion this week, although that is the sort of smile you usually only see plastered awkwardly onto the faces of minor royalty being told about how little Jenny swam 15 lengths for muscular dystrophy. Bruce starts with a really weak “pigeon toes-pigeon fanciers” joke and then an awful awkward “keep your pecker up” joke about Craig, for no real reason whatsoever. EXCEPT BECAUSE HE IS GAY AND THEREFORE LIKES COCK AND PECKER IS ANOTHER WORD FOR COCK. Brilliant.

Their VT reminds us that last week they were recovering from the shuddering horror of finding themselves in the dance-off and came out fighting, only to find themselves in the dance-off again. This has apparently led Natalie to abandon the tenet of her faith in humanity that was the Fierce Scarves :

and emerge reborn in some sort of hinky cult. Ricky for his part is really nervous about what he has to do to get through this week, because people are clearly completely disinterested. Well I think we’re about to find out.

Indeed, it appears that the answer is “borrow Camilla Dallerup 10 Step Guide to How To Crazy Yourself  To Strictly Victory”, beginning with step 1 :

screaming obscenities at inanimate objects. Ricky says that he’s wanted to do the Argentine Tango since week 1 and Natalie then talks about how Ricky is an absolute machine and that she loves him to bits. She very sweetly tells him not to let his worries about the public vote get him down and beat him, and then not so sweetly says that if they don’t get to the final it’d be a travesty. Way to express things Natalie, ways to express things… Anyway, he’d be devastated to leave at this stage blah blah, let’s waltz.

As they come out she totally

winks at the crowd as they applaud. Honestly, I think that’s just how she says “thank you”. I think if you gave her right of way at a crossroads she’d wink at you. If you gave her a good quote for her car insurance over the phone, she’d wink at you. If you sent her a really nice birthday card with a fiver in it that sang “She’s Like The Wind” she’d wink out into the ether. And she’d expect you to get it, every single time.

They’re waltzing to that song from Romeo & Juliet that isn’t Lovefool and therefore isn’t quite as amazing. As a waltz, it’s really really good – nice and light, but also with a decent amount of force behind it. It’s a really nice companion piece to his foxtrot of last week – lovely elegant ballroom, but more romantic and less razz-a-matazz. It is always easier to go into the final round with the two ballroom big-hitters on your side but this rises above the form a little to be a really memorable performance. It’s a little less than perfectly vertical at times, but apart from that I can’t really fault it on my, admittedly not terribly knowledgable standards.

They finish on the one really crowd-pleasing move I’ve seen ever choreographed into a waltz on Strictly -

the floaty splits, and there’s a little awkwardness going in, but they’re a dream to watch right up until the end position.

Anyway, blah blah the dance, the really important thing here is that

Natalie is crying like a mental and never, ever stops. Possibly ever again. I think the UK broke her guys, well done. Aussies are quite tough to beat. Alesha starts by saying that FINALLY the semi-final has begun. And only half an hour in as well! Anyway, we are all to remember that Ricky has not been doing this as long as the professionals, and that we’re not to overlook him, after 11 weeks of the judges basically telling us to, because he’s like, too good and will definitely get complacent and ting.

Bruno next and he calls it a waltz of timeless elegance and then he’s

wagging his finger at the audience and lecturing them to not think that was EASY, BECAUSE IT WAS NOT BECAUSE IT WAS NOT TO A TRADITIONAL BEAT. Because that’s always a good way to get people on side. Finger-wagging. The best part is

Chris Parker nodding along very seriously all “yes yes, purity of dahnce” when his understanding of musicality was so poor I think he was actually dancing to the Batman theme in his head every single week. Craig then praises his phrasing and says it was “Simple. Elegant. Gorgeous

Mental.” Darcey finishes up by praising Natalie for her choreography, Ricky for dancing like a “real man” and even lobs Alesha a little side-support by backing her up about Ricky’s posture. I knew she’d be useful for something. And at that they scurry off to the Tesspit where :

oh good God, even KRISTINA AND KATYA liked it. Ricky thanks everyone in the midst of the standing O for giving them such support throughout the series which makes him appear a) generous and b) less isolated then perhaps he’d seemed up to this point. Good job Ricky Whittle. Although yeah :

Kristina’s back on the bitch-face. They both talk nervously about how Natalie was crying and how beautiful that felt, and then Tess grabs that salt, tears open the wound and starts playing by talking about how they were really good last week and still in the dance-off, so what was the point of that eh? Anyway, she tells Ricky to beg and of course beg he does, with Natalie squeaking out a “please”, and Ricky talking about how he used to watch this show (well, not this show, Come Dancing, but you know, A show, definitely, about the dancing, honest) with his gran, and it’d amazing to be in the final of the celebrity version. It’s sad that that’s only the second most awkward nan related moment of the evening. Scores are in – 47 (/37)

Chris Hollins & Ola Jordan dancing the Argentine Tango :

Seriously, if they win, I want Ola to pick up that glitterball and twat Bruce with it screaming “IT’S OLLA NOT OHLA YOU OLD GIT!” Anyway, it’s the semi-finals so, as is traditional, instead of a proper VT, we get the couple in questions “Strictly Story So Far”. And, as is tradition, I write a load of fairy tale nonsense at this point to rival anything on the show :

Once upon a time in Bag End, there lived a little hobbit called Chris. Whilst all the other hobbits went on adventures, slayed dragons, and tried to avoid the rampaging homosexual attentions of Sir Ian McKellan, Chris lived with his mum and dad and got up very early to be sent on errands by a cantankerous old man, usually to the Gimplympics. Said cantankerous old man would often regale him of stories of how he competed in the Strictly Tournament with Lady Karen of Gurnington, and Chris would spend many hours, polishing the old man’s shoes and dreaming.

Meanwhile in the next kingdom over, the impoverished Lady Ola wondered who her partner would be this year. Her husband Baron James had squandered the family fortune, squiring other young women round in relationships that lasted only a month at best, and she was reduced to wearing clothes in which her modesty was barely concealed. Unlike her husband, Ola was always happy to partner the dregs of the tournament, well aware she’d never get above a modest return. The trolls, the ogres, the GMTV presenters, without a complaint, except for all the times she screamed at them about it not being a rocket science.

One day, Chris sneaked away from the shire, crossed the fields of Didnee-doowell, through the forest of Goodgaem, the dread mountains of Nisetu Seeyu and Doddery - Amnot to the court of King Bruce, who was reputed to grant favours if you kissed his ring, like Mistress Cassidey was said to do regularly. After such an epic quest the king could hardly turn his request to be on the show down, even though no-one had a clue who he was. But he was only getting the Lady Ola, not the popular partners, like Lilia or Erin or that Russian one. No the OTHER Russian one. No, the OTHER OTHER Russian one. And so it was that the forgetful little hobbit Chris, and the Lady Ola (under her new hobbit name of Olachops) set out on an epic quest to find the one glitterball and unite all the warring factions under its glittery glow.

Ahem. Out come the little people now :

I like that Ola’s dress appears to have go-faster vents built into it. More Strictly dresses should be designed for greater aerodynamism. And let’s face it, she’s going to need all the uplifts into these lifts that she can get. They’re dancing to “Breaking Windows” which apparently was used in “Glee”, although isn’t everything these days? Anyway, speaking of lifts :

I think Chris choreographed that one himself. It’s actually really good, given what I was expecting. His kicks are a little awkward, and it sometimes has that effect where it doesn’t look like the partners in the dance are nuzzling through passion but because their heads are stuck together,  but there’s undeniably an atmosphere, and he moves about the floor well. It has to be said, that was probably better than Ali’s, because at least he hit what he was swinging for, whereas she aimed higher and flailed about wildly. And the end-pose is

appealingly balletic as well, which I’m taking as a double slap in the face to her. It’s so odd, because his rumba showed absolutely no improvement whatsoever, but I also can’t imagine him doing this routine this well in week 1. Maybe he can transfer what he’s learnt into new dances, but if he tries to advance in one he’s already done he struggles? Or maybe Ola just recognised the “rechoreographed round” for the gubbins that it is?

Basically for me, this is what his Charleston was to everyone else.

Bruce welcomes them to Mount Judgey by saying that “even Bill liked it” which I think is some sort of red rag to all the haters. It’s like saying “Even Johnny Vaughan liked it (and then started whingeing that everyone who didn’t was just a woman jealous of your boobs)!” to Lisa Snowdon. Bruno starts for the judges, by saying that Chris tried his hardest but “looked like an Argentine who had just lost the Falklands”. Honestly, as a professional disliker of clenched dance faces, I didn’t mind it. Better a bit clenched than… whatever Ali was doing.

Bizarrely given that Len is about to gear up for a rant :

he’s eerily calm. Maybe he knows we’re onto him. Ola squeaks that he’s just letting the emotion out, and Bruno bats back with “no emotion was coming out – he just looked grumpy” causing Ola to rally with “It’s sensual!”. Figures the woman married to James would think grumpiness was sensual. Chris responds by getting all “you won’t like me when I’m angry” and

yeah that’s pretty terrifying.

Craig next, and he starts pretending that he finds the trout mouth endearing. Operation Redeem is in full effect then. WE WANTED HIM TO WIN IN THE END! HE BECAME ENDEARING! Whatever Craig you’re fooling nobody. Len tried that with John Sergeant and he still started effing and jeffing like a trooper when Cherie had to be eliminated. He also congratulates Ola for the choreography that she didn’t even do, and she adorably takes the credit, with Chris doing a little bow to her.

I always love how little the judges pay attention to ANYTHING in the Argentine Tango round.

Darcey tells them that moulded into one person and that’s so important, because if they did that they’d be about normal height. Len of course finishes by admonishing the other judges for going on about Chris’ face too much, and then he exclaims that Chris is WHAT STRICTLY IS ALL ABOUT. Somewhere Ricky Groves cries into his Pot Noodle whilst Erin sharpens her hair-pins for next year. It had lovely lifts, fire, passion, and was excellent. Oh and he didn’t look at Chris face once because he was MESMERISED BY THE CHEMISTRY.

Quite.

In the Tesspit, Tess tells us that everyone was yelling “Yeah Baby” very loudly, and whilst Chris & Ola may like it now, in 3 months time they are going to be Richard Wilson and that is going to be “I Don’t Believe It!” so I hope they’re HAPPY WITH THE MONSTER THEY’VE CREATED (/NOW CRAIG!) Chris eulogizes Ola a bit, saying that they may fight in training sometimes, but they always have a good time, and he can’t wait to get into the training room on Monday. Poor Very Serious Girlfriend. Anyway Tess points out that they’ve not received a 10 throughout the entire competition so far (and unlike CERTAIN PEOPLE WHO I WILL NOT MENTION. FROM LAST YEAR. TOM CHAMBERS) have not yet complained about it once. Scores are in – 42 (/33)

Should He Stay ?  : As I said last week, he needed to do something special for me to put him in my ideal final, and whilst the Argentine Tango was, the rumba wasn’t, even with Bonnie Tyler’s help so it’s a no from me. With regret though, like what Siralan gives to those black single mothers he fires.

Ali Bastian & Brian Fortuna dancing the American Smooth :

Bruce reminds us that Ali is the only celebrity so far to have received “the full marks” from the judges and also that saying “40″ will never be the same again. Not that it was after the judges got their paws all over it last year anyway. Anyway, their Strictly story follows :

Ms Ali Bastian had just finished her finishing school assignment of a year in the company of the particulars of Master Robert Peel, and was looking for an adventure such as would suit a spirited young girl as herself. She was considering entering the annual Strictly Dance and Tea Society Ballroom Dancing & Deportment Invitational and Social, especially as the fabled glitterball had been discovered amongst the effects of the Lady Camilla, after she disappeared after an ill-advised restitutional into the darkest wiles of the jungle on the whim of a particularly lack-witted doctor at her sanitorium.

But a woman to enter such a situation unaccompanied? Unfeasible! And a blonde lady at that. The only lady with butterscotch tresses ever to reach the cusp of victory was Mistress Zoe Ball and she was acknowledged to be a notorious carouser, and therefore half a man anyway. So how fortunate that on her doorstep at midnight should arrive a young man from colonies, by the rather peculiar name of Fortuna, accompanied by his maid-servant from the tropics Heather, to offer her her hand. In fact Heather was the first sign to Ms Bastian that something was awry. Heather would say nothing, but offer a deep, growling, most ungodly laugh at the slightest provocation. She laughed when Mistress Ravens flashed her drawers at the parson and screeched “hope you’re happy” before the men of the parish returned her to the care of her brother. She laughed when Ms Bastian confided in her her dreams of acting in Hollywood. She even laughed at BBC3 comedies.

But enough of such nonsense, Ms Bastian entered the competition with her charming continental companion (who she thought was quite a dish, even if he refused to accompany her to church every Sunday) and was quite the talk of the boulevard. Ms Dixon (a disreputable chanteuse but one who had attained some position of influence) proclaimed her to be her natural successor. But with every dance Ms Bastian was becoming weaker. Her limbs turned to spaghetti, or whatever spaghetti would be called if it had reached England yet, which it had not. Strange marks appeared on her neck fresh every morn, and the very whiff of a spice from the Latin Americas sent her into a dead faint. Still, the trophy would be hers, if only she could quell the fear she felt every time she gazed into that mirrored ball on the ceiling, and saw her own face reflected, and yet not that of her partner.

God, it’s worse than slash-fic isn’t it? although notice how it allowed me to sidestep the whole “my dead gran wants me to be in the final” issue which… a kind editor would probably have cut that off so it sounded like Ali’s dead gran would be proud of her, outside of any specific achievement that Ali might be asking for the viewers to vote for her to achieve. A kind editor would have done that.

Oh Brian, don’t try and carry off louche. It makes you look like a comic foil from an Ealing comedy. Although Ali doing :

the “after” pose from a Weight Watchers advert is little better. They’re smoothing their Americans to “Come Dance With Me” and it’s quite sweet, but I’m not sure I entirely get it. It’s not a very exciting song choice to be honest and as a routine it lacks the piznazzpowwow of their earlier American Smooth performance. Also, if I were Brian, I would be avoiding if at all possible :

any moves that bring ballet to mind, and the routine is chock full of them. At points there are so many spins it gets positively Snowdon-esque and I know it’s become de rigeur to say so, but really this is the first time I’ve really noticed a lack of strong connection between her and Brian on the dance-floor. It feels more like two solo pieces that have accidentally made it out onto the floor at the same time and they’re just trying to make the best of it. On the other hand I do notice that it is somehow managing to get Chris Parker in the audience to clap IN TIME, so there has to be a little bit of magic in there somewhere. So…close, but no floating Shiitake.

Oh yeah, and this

happens at the end. Real, contrived, a bit of both? I don’t care it mind my toes curl fair up into my feet. Ali basically looks at him as if to say “I SAID A KISS, BUT NO TONGUE YOU PERVERT!”, and then Bruce crawls up in a little ball of happiness and warmth, but mostly because Brian is wearing tails (*roll eyes*). Can you imagine if Davina presented this show? We’d be picking bits of brain out of the extractor fan.

Len starts for the judges by saying that he liked Ali’s first American Smooth but that was even better! If only he had his 11 paddle that he keeps on asking for. Alesha follows up by saying this was her favourite dance from Ali so far – elegant and classy, although you can tell her brain’s more invested in wondering what she’s going to wear when she totally upstages the wedding than actually commenting. Bruno tragically does not go into a total “ISS DIVA TIME!” fit, and just says it was full of musicality and loveliness.

If we’re going to give 50/50 to a dance that doesn’t necessarily deserve it, can we at least get an “ISS DIVA TIME!!!” fit? HE DIDN’T EVEN LEAVE HIS SEAT! At least Craig gives it a “FAB-U-LOUS!” to close. oH And he’s still doing that face he does :

when he wants to try to convince people he’s about to ruin it AND THEN HE DOESN’T BECAUSE HE LOVED IT!

Craig, nobody’s buying that any more. Bruce is fairly even pretending.

In the Tesspit it all basically falls to pieces from the off, with Ali fanning herself and Aliona making “naughty!” eyes at the pair of them,

 and then just the whole of the body of pros in the background just making kissy kissy noises. So dignified this show sometimes. Tess tries to ask some question but… whatever, scores are in -

So you know, for those of you who were waiting for it, there it is. I’d expect another one in the final. Although I said that about Alesha and look what happened there (CRAIG).

Should She Stay ? : From my point of view tonight was a bit of a mare for her but, just like when Tom had an (even bigger) mare against Lisa in the semi last year, I think she’s done enough to distinguish herself from Chris over the course of the series that I’d put her through over him. Didn’t think it’d be this close a decision though.

Ricky Whittle & Natalie Lowe dancing the Argentine Tango :

Oh my goodness woman, STOP WINKING.

Ahem. Once upon a time there lived in the kingdom of Hollyoaks, where everyone is under the age of 30, and every other Sunday someone turns lesbian and tries to murder someone, a handsome young man by the name of Prince Ricky. Or as his father called him “Prince Richard”, because as far as his father was concerned “Ricky” was a name for gigolos and base tricksters. In fact Ricky’s father was becoming increasingly worried about his son. He was showing signs of wanting to stay in Hollyoaks for all his life, rather than leaving the kingdom for a disastrous attempt at a proper acting career, as was traditional amongst men of the Nipple lineage. And Richard was not one to toil – if even a single bead of sweat formed on his brow, he would spend the next 10 minutes wiping it clean with his shirt, making sure the nearest maiden got a goodly view of his abdominals.

So unbeknownst to Prince Ricky, his father signed him up for the annual Strictly Jousting tourney and partnered with a strange new girl from a land far, far away, who had impressed the king, with her strong work ethic, powerful eyelid muscles, and ability to down a whole six pack of XXXX, crush all the tinnies on her forehead, and still be able to see sing the entirety of Waltzing Matilda whilst stood on one leg without falling over. These were the sort of qualities the king looked for in a tutor for his son.

Oh and faces like this :

And so Ricky & Natalie paired off, and were the immediate favourites, although they were constantly warned by the judges of the cautionary tale of Sir Austin the year before, who was of a similar build and courtly bearing but who had fallen afoul of the Lady Lisa’s cunning ruse in treating Lady Erin’s courtly wig with acid before the crucial match. And he also got complacent and had a bad dance and blah blah load of nonsense nobody really believes. Still, Prince Ricky and Natalie marched every onwards to the final, with only a minor scuffle between him and a bystanding guttersnipe, wherein Prince Ricky tried to run him over with his…chariot?

Is chariot period appropriate? Anyway they was doing dead good up until that.

Let’s get on with it.

They’re dancing to traditional music, which we have been reassured all week is conducive to good Argentine Tangos (Like Mark & Karen’s…to a Bond theme. And Rachel & Vincent’s…to a Prince song. And Alesha & Matthew’s…to an Andrew Lloyd Webber number) and…it’s pretty filthy gorgeous, and I love how Natalie :

has apparently decided she’s just going to do the splits as many times as possible just like she’s on an episode of Record Breakers or something. There’s a couple of semi-obvious mistakes, but it’s just really good, strong, and atmospheric. And if he’s not leading the dance it certainly LOOKS like he is. Overall it combined the atmosphere (if not quite as atmospheric) of Mark & Karen’s with the technical intricacy and sharpness of Rachel & Vincent’s (if not quite as sharp and intricate) and damnit now I’m going to have to rejigger my spreadsheet of best Argentine Tangos ever.

DAMN YOU STRICTLY!

Anyway, the crowd goes schiz and gives them a standing ovation, whilst Ricky looks over-awed and Natalie effing

bows at them like a weirdo and then

Ricky’s dad is on his feet and applauding and my goodness I’m glad I don’t have ovaries because I’m sure they’d be all of a quivver in a most unpleasant fashion. Natalie says over and over again “this means so much” whilst Ricky just looks in shock. This is honestly up there for me with Jade & Ian’s reaction after being saved after their jive in terms of “OH MY GOD, WE THOUGHT EVERYBODY HATED US!” niceness.

Craig starts for the judges with a great big pin to ram in the balloon when he says that they came down the stairs out of time at the beginning. Of the mistakes I think I saw I would have gone with her piercing his foot with her massive heel, but that might have prompted another round “THIS WAS MOI FAULT!” and we wouldn’t want that tedium again now would we? But you know, overall it was amazing and stuff. Natalie & Ricky give this fol-de-rol and mummery the exact response it deserves :

Darcey next, and she praises Ricky’s musicality and sense of timing, and says at times she could convince herself he was was a professional dancer. Ricky seems humbled, but then breaks into mild cheeky-chappery by asking Darcey if she fancies partnering him. Yes, Natalie would love that, and not drive over Darcey with a lawnmower in the car-park after the show AT ALL. Alesha calls it “Sexy, Hot, Intense, Passionate” which is one initial away from being a back-handed compliment and then Bruno starts…

blowing on her? Does Bruno normally start blowing on people when they become ar…never mind I just answered my own question. Anyway she then refers to the hairs on the back of her arm standing on end, which has apparently ruined Bruce’s illusions of femininity forever. Yes Bruce. Women also occasionally poo as well. Shrug.

Len of course (OF COURSE) has to ruin things by going on a rant about how British people love an UNDERDOG but most of all they LOVE JUSTICE! COLD HARD JUSTICE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT DELIVERED BY PHONE-VOTE! (*Land Of Hope And Glory starts playing in the background*). For God’s sake Len, can something nice not happen ONCE without you using it to bait people?

In the Tesspit, everyone’s on their feet, and Tess and Ricky wax lyrical about how nice it is in particular to have the backing of the “Argentine Kings” (which frankly sounds like a WWF tag-team) – Vincent & Flavia, and then Ricky does a surprisingly good impression of Vincent. Maybe it’s just that I remember Natalie Cassidy’s “impressions (/”impression”) in comparison but I think I’d prefer Ricky as Vincent on Hollyoaks over Calvin Flipping Boringtine. From there Tess prompts another spiel from Ricky about how much he’s loving it and how much he doesn’t want to go home, and then Natalie says the standing ovation meant so much to her, and in particular that comment from Len.

Because as much as Natalie is learning how to win friends and not make people hate her guts, she’s not quite there yet. The correct answer there was “Darcey’s comment” Natalie. Darcey’s comment, as a professional dancer herself, as to how Ricky also looked like a professional dancer. Not Len screaming about justice like he’s just seen that Michael Caine film where he garottes hoodies and then pisses on their corpses or whatever happens. Scores are in – 49 (/39) and everyone starts wafting their 10s at Craig (who gave it its solitary 9)

except Darcey who’s clearly going “If (if) I come back next year, we’re swapping seats”.

Should He Stay ? : Two weeks in a row and he’s nailed it. Yes. IT WOULD BE AN ACT OF TREASON AKIN TO DIGGING UP THE QUEEN MOTHER AND WEARING HER SKELETON AS AN AVANT GARDE CLOAK IF HE WERE NOT TO BE IN THE FINAL!

The final leaderboard is revealed and,

frankly it’d be nice if they grouped them as “Rechoreography Round” and “The Only Round That People Give A Shit About”. Just as an aide-memoire. PHONE LINES ARE OPEN!

With James Jordan joining in on the bizarre tickling thing going on. Poor Flavia. I do very much enjoy just how SERIOUS Darren and Katya look. You were eliminated AGES AGO guys.

RECAP TIME! TRYING TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO WORK THAT AUTO-DIALLER YOU USED TO POWER-VOTE FOR CHRISTINE BLEAKLEY LAST YEAR TIME! (there was no point when the voting window was only a paltry 15 minutes)

Whilst everyone works their fingers to the bone frantically mashing at their hand-set keys, it’s apparently time for Darcey Bussell to have a go at a routine with Ian. Is she dying of something? This is all a bit Noel’s Christmas Presents. Although trust me, you do not want to know the diseases I’d fake to dance with Ian. If it was with Erin, I would be actively infecting myself/hacking off limbs.

We get a little bit of cutesy VT stuff with her and Ian, with Ian saying that when he was a child he used to be nicknamed “Frank Spencer” (can’t think why) so he’s a bit cautious about carrying Darcey around because she’s like bone china. Also, he’s not used to being in this position :

Well, not with a woman anyway.

Anyway, they’re doing their routine to “Stuff Like That There” and it starts off very balletic as you’d expect but then, to her credit (because it would have been very easy to just do a nice American Smooth or Foxtrot, she actually

breaks into a jive. Not that I think either discipline would be more difficult for her, but it does lay her open to criticism, especially as it’s a less frenetic, more rhythmic and bouncy routine than this show has weened its viewers on. Basically it’s all so much showing off, but far more enjoyable than her frilling around in a tutu in the final. Unless Brendan were to join her obviously.

JUST KIDDING! HE’S STRAIGHT AND PROUD! HE’D NEVER WEAR PINK!

I do like to think that Ian and Jade would have ended up in that position eventually. Afterwards they wander over to Bruce, and for one glorious moment I think they’re

 actually going to be scored. Please let Alesha score Darcey, please please please…

Anyway, Darcey is pleased to dance on Strictly, Ian is pleased to dance with Darcey, it’s all very pally.

One last visit to the Tesspit for the first half, but only for Tess to introduce us to our “Please Put Me In The Final” for this evening. I think Natalie’s started crying again in the background. Rather than actually listening to anything any of them have to say in the VT, I sit there and count the amount of times each celebrity appears in the VT. Needless to say ALI & BRAIN WERE TOTALLY THROWN UNDER THE BUS! SHE ONLY SAID TWO THINGS BUT THE BOYS SAID THREE EACH! BOOO! FIX!

*time passes*

Ahem. Several hours later, and in a bitter mood if you’re a Stacey Solomon fan, we return. Straight into a recap of the show before. You’ve just read it, but 8000 words of it, so suffice it to say :

THEY ALL GET ON, SO WHY OH WHY CAN’T WE? (*sings We Are The World and links arms with nobody in particular*) Oh yeah and

TOUCHING THE WALL!

Once that’s over with, they show us the leader-board again, with the barely concealed subtext of “LOOK! NO TIES! NO TIES AT ALL! EVERYTHING’S FINE! WE MADE IT PEOPLE, WE MADE IT!” and we’re told that the lines are now closed. And now, to soothe everyone’s fraught nerves… Natalie’s going to dance with Ian. Because when I think soothing, subtle, and delicate, I know my mind goes RIGHT to these two.

They’re doing their foxtrot to “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers” and it starts with Natalie titting around whilst Ian realises that :

after the two glamorous models and the Olympic athlete, it’s probably comedy contestants Miranda Hart next year for him. Once they take hold it’s incredibly lovely, in a quite fist-clenchy melodramatic way, and there’s an amazing moment half way through :

where I start to imagine Natalie and Ian as incredible genteel bank-robbers. Even with a face full of arm-hankie you can tell she’s gurning to championship standards. Oh and it’s alright Natalie

you can stop now. You passed the record half an hour ago. There’s a lot of reversing tentatively and wounded looks, some nice lifts, but all that is surpassed by another Epic Moment In Strictly Dance Endings History :

Please let her come back next year. Please? For me. Once that’s over with… oh God. It’s time for the Showdance Showcase. Does anybody enjoy this? Anybody? Because people actively mark the actual showdances on how far away they are from this routine that they’re about to do now. The further the better. The only excitement I got was from the fact that I was told Craig & Natalie were dancing it, and I briefly came up with all sorts of combinations of Kelly, Revel-Horwood, Cassidy and Lowe but no, it’s just two actual showdancers called Craig and Natalie.

 In their VT he talks a lot about “wow factor” (NO! NO BLOODY “WOW FACTOR!” NO NO NO!) and she says she hopes the dance has the effect of getting people on the edge of their seats. It worked so well I was off the edge of mine. And in another room.

Anyway, they’re dancing to “Uninvited” by Alanis Morisette :

That’s about the size of it. Knock yourselves out if you like that sort of thing. (Apologies to anyone who likes this sort of thing. Whoever you are.) Down to the Tesspit now, where everyone’s giggling about how they now have to attempt that next week. Please someone clue in Natalie that you’re not supposed to do that. It’d just be a repeat of the Lisa & Brendan one from last year (albeit probably moderately better performed), and I want my comedy to come in new and exciting directions, not just the same old jokes week after week (*makes that waggly eyebrowed Miranda face again*)

It is at this point we learn that the traditional duelling Viennese Waltz in the final will be replaced by a duelling Lindy Hop. I hope somebody has an eye out. Although obviously this is a totally biased travesty in favour of Chris because he’s full of energy and personality/Ricky because he was much better at Jive than Chris. CALL OFCOM! Natalie breaks in to say that Lindy Hop is her FAVOURITE DANCE and… given her Jive/Rock N Roll skills you have to wonder.

 Anyway, Ali’s then asked how she feels to get 50/50 – quite pleased, and Ricky is asked how he feels about Craig not giving him a 10 – a it sad. Although he does break down in pretend soap opera tears crying “I’M SO BANDY!”, which made me laugh if nobody else. Finally Chris,

with his feet up on the furniture (see how they slip into bad habits once they move out of home mum? I’d be getting on that Very Serious Girlfriend about her standards very soon. Give her a few recipes as well, HE’S WASTING AWAY) is asked how it feels to be told that HE IS WHAT STRICTLY IS ALL ABOUT and he says – quite pleased.

After a brief plug for It Takes Two (no dance machine = no interest) we move on to a performance from the hit musical Hairspray, with the help of the show’s cast, and the professional dancers. They’re performing “You Can’t Stop The Beat”. And it’s…

a bit ropey? The lead can sing alright, but there’s quite an unpleasant tone to her voice, and she can’t move at all. Of course such criticisms seem churlish (WORD OF THE SERIES!) compared to :

Phill Jupitus, in drag barely performing and with his costume constantly on the verge of falling off. Mercifully then Austin & Erin come out, flanked by Motormouth Maybelle, being played by Her Off Casualty

but her mic’s too low so she sounds woefully underpowered and she’s dressed like a bog-brush, and also Austin & Erin seem a tad? Under-rehearsed? I dunno, it’s still Austin & Erin’s jive, but part of me thinks I’d prefer it if my last memory of it was it being performed in the final and blowing everybody away, rather than in the middle of this mess. Love Erin’s styling though. Very period.

Finally Belinda Carlisle comes out (at the end, for very good reason as anybody who saw her on Dancing With The Stars will tell you) and adds a bit of oomph to the vocals (bizarrely) and we end. Mercifully. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a performance on this show that made me LESS likely to see a show as much as that one just did.

Once it’s over with Tess beckons “Orstin” Healey over and their interview basically goes :

Austin : Ha ha, that was a bit gay wasn’t it?
Tess : Get The Guns out!
Austin : No
Tess : Go on
Austin : No
Tess : Get THE GUNS OUT!
Austin : God you’re a hag
Tess : Who are you supporting?
Austin : Chris & Ola, but I’m going to say it in a really lame clever-clever way which I know that you’ll appreciate Tess
Tess : Oh I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE HOW FUNNY
Austin : Can I go now? (*wanders off muttering about how Daws got to talk to Claudia on It Takes Two and he has to put up with this every time he comes back*)

Next up :

It’s that nice young Lily Allen. Singing a song that was a hit (*checks watch*) in April. Which means it is officially viable to be this year’s winner’s single on The X Factor. That’s right it top 5 Hit “Not Fair”, also known as “that rude cowboy one”. Although she does omit the lines about lying in the wet patch and spending ages giving head. So that’s nice. Anyway, who is coming out to perform a dance during a song about how a man is unwilling to satisfy a woman sexually?

Write your own jokes. (Ego Clock measured 1 minute 30 seconds by the way). Anyway, Matthew and Aliona fart around whilst Lily sings about dirty things and it is in tune, so automatically in the top 25% of all guest performances this year.

RESULTS TIME! And no dance-off, so it’s a straight knock out. Tess recaps again, some more, again what happened earlier this evening (bringing this episode to approximately 0.6% of the recapping that goes on in a standard X Factor results show) before we get our first reprieve :

Well, they’re mildly pleased. Either that or he just broke something on her/in her. Anyway they scream and hug like gang-busters and so I think we all know what’s coming next :

Pure filth in that left box. Pure filth. So yes, it’s Ali & Brian who are eliminated, meaning that Ricky & Natalie have managed to buck the trend of the last 2 weeks through one night of excellent dancing and salesmanship. It’s kind of heartening that even at this late stage the game can change somewhat, even if I didn’t quite get the result I would have prefered tonight. Oh yeah and Chris dared to smile at some point, whatever. I’m more amused by this show of both Brian and Natalie :

looking equally insane in their own unique ways.

Ali’s very gracious in her exit speech, saying she’s glad she went out on a high and she wants to thank everybody involved in the show etc etc. Bruce starts quacking on and getting over-involved saying that so far as he’s concerned there are 3 finalists (so far as he’s concerned he’s wrong, just as he will be when he claims that really everyone is a winner next week) and then he hectors Brian into saying something to Ali, and then Brian gushes a bit in that earnest way he has of speaking about everything. Tess honks “YOU GOT YOUR AMERICAN BOY ALI!” and then ushers them into the middle of the floor, and that? Is it.

The Cheryl Cole juggernaut rolls on.

Stacey Solomon : Poor Dagenham Stace. In the end I think it’s that she didn’t really differentiate herself from Leona – Queen Of All ballads that did for her. Alexandra had to go hell for leather last year to escape the stigma of “ballad singer”. Hoardes of dancers, songs that were more performance art pieces than songs, and actual human emotion (although in the end it was still a big ballad what won it for her). Stacey just couldn’t really do anything other than wedding singer, as her endearing, but ultimately a bit ropey performance with the hat and the chairs proved last week. Michael Buble didn’t exactly help matters either. Where the other two guest duettists gushed fulsome about their partners talents, Mickey Bubbles preferred to quack on about how the Queen loves him.

Still, I’ll remember her forever for basically sexually assaulting him at the end of the performance (to his clear terror) and also for that ridiculous dress that she came out in for the Queen reprise. That fabric alone was more memorable than 50% of the final performances.

Olly Murs : This final for Olly Murs wasn’t so much about winning the show – the voting figures showed that maw liddle Joe had that in the bag from George Michael week onwards – but about avoiding the awful fate of becoming the 21st century Jonathan Wilkes. Outcome Robbie Williams, with the promise of friendship. A duet of Angels, a swearing of support, maybe even an offer of…friendship? And he’s clean now. He’s sober. The interest in aliens is really a serious and rigorous interest in UFOlogy. It’s alright Olly, he’s not going to leave you stranded in a bedsit in 5 years time looking back on a career highlight of wearing stockings and suspenders in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, HONEST HE’S CHANGED.

The only other thing I remember from his final performances was that “BADUM BAH BAH!” from the end of Sueprstition. I think I’ll remember that forever. Until intensive therapy removes it.

Joe McElderry : It’s kind of hard to find anything new to say abuot any of these people to be honest. Apologies to those of you expecting a grand slam of a final X Factor post. But really that was the point of Joe McElderry wasn’t it? Consistancy. His voice always held up, until the final song when it was more due to bemusement than anything else, but above everyone else, he always came out and performed and performed well, and that really fits with how I choose to view this show, which is to pick the person who most entertains you personally, rather than how everyone else seems to view it, which is a load of hand-wringing about CAREERS and not being the new Leon Jackson and so on. Let the rest of the general public sort that out, including those that don’t actually watch the show (yes, these creatures do exist).

Still, has there ever been a winner who looked less impressed. Even Leona had a look of intense confusion headache on her face. You could buy that she really couldn’t believe that this was happening to her. Joe seemed like the model of someone who went through intense coaching in coping with this sort of moment. Hey, maybe the show actually started some up whe it became clear that he was unstoppable.

Given the show is basically playing the role of that student with the shopping bag to the tank that was the X Factor finale this week, let’s try to remember what happened. First of all there was some sort of pro-dance and it was a bit…Latiny? I think. Erin & Anton weren’t in it, and that’s always a sign.

Oh and the celebs did a dance they’d already done, but, like, it was a bit different, with different music and choreography and stuff. I know Chris & Ola did there’s to “Total Eclipse Of The Heart”, but that’s all I really remember, because I was too busy squealing with delight that someone was actually dancing to “Total Eclipse Of The Heart”. I’ll just remember the standard of his week 1 routine and overlay the music. I think it’ll come out about right. Ricky & Natalie did a waltz, I think, but all my brain’s coming up with is her crying like a loon afterwards and never ever stopping all night. Ali & Brian…no nothing. I think it got 50/50 though so it must have been good right? At least that’s what the judges say.

What else was there? Oh right. Argentine Tangos. These are coming through the haze a bit more clearly. Ganchos, pampas, all that business. Chris & Ola did well didn’t they? I think? Considering the natural raw materials. Ali & Brian less so, although really who was expecting anything more at this point? There’s open-mindedness and then there’s delusion. Ricky & Natalie though, I remember that, that was good. She impaled his feet a couple of times, but really the Argentine Tango is all about the hard sell, and this sell was so hard it’d put Len at the Sports Personality Of The Year to shame.

The filler’s mostly all gone from my byain now. I think they might have tried to sell a West-End musical by demonstrating that most of the cast can’t sing and none of them can dance and with Phill Jupitus in ugly drag and a crap fat suit and it was so bad it even made me hate Austin & Erin a little bit. But that’s just unfeasible. Darcey Bussell might have done a jive? I dunno, you presume they’d save that for the final, so that probably never happened. Oh and Lily Allen sang about giving head and premature ejaculation whilst Matthew Cutler & Aliona had sex, but that was definitely a cheese dream I had.

There might have been an amazing foxtrot with Ian & Natalie as well, but I probably did that with Playmobil figures myself when I got bored. The show would never be that kind. I would think I’m probably imagining the tribute to Lisa’s Showdance as well, because who would want to remember that?

Anyway, the way I REALLY know that my memory of last night’s show is inaccurate is that somehow Ricky & Natalie didn’t go home. Now I really have to be making that up mustn’t I? Something tells me that it was Ali & Brian but somehow I can’t believe it. And neither could Natalie by the looks of it

So now we know all the runners and riders, what are their chances?

Ali Bastian & Brian Fortuna :

Pros :

1. Brian has good form for Christmas Specials. In his one previous appearance he managed to drag perennial audience whipping girl Kelly Brook up into 2nd place via the virtue of jiving around like Animal from The Muppets.
2. Who doesn’t love a good Christmas romance? Given the BBC schedule for the day over the past few years it’ll be murder and death in Eastenders, murder and death in Dr Who, murder & death in a second episode of Eastenders, murder and death in a Wallace & Gromit special, people wishing murder and death on Fearne Cotton presenting Xmas TOTP and the Queen’s blahdy speech. What better way to cap off the day on a heartwarming note than two young lovers triumphing over adversity?
3. The past 4 Christmas Specials have all been won by ballroom dances. Sound up anyone’s erm…avenue?

Cons :

1. The Christmas Special is never, ever won by a celeb from the current series, ever. EVER. Unless the competition is, well, Evander Holyfield or Chris Parker. It’s almost certainly not going to be won by someone who’s not even going to win their current series.
2. Whilst some might find their romance endearing, watching it after a full day of rich food and alcohol might be a little bit too much for delicate stomachs.
3. Brian has officially run out of muppets who can dance. Who’s he going to be this year? Gonzo?!

Official made-up odds : 25-1

Austin Healey & Erin Boag :

Pros :

1. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but some people think Austin Healey was a little tiny bit very robbed of the title in his series. Or at least of that dance-off with Lisa Snowdon. As the theme this year seems to one of “most robbed previous contestants” rather than “let’s all gather round and adore Darren Gough”, it’s easy to see how he could be considered the most robbed of all.
2. Erin is the only one of the field of pros to have won a Christmas Special before. In fact she’s the only competing professional to have won any Strictly trophy. She’s got form. And it’s ERIN. Give her a whiff of a trophy and she’ll go all out.
3. They’re doing a paso. Nobody’s ever done a Christmas paso doble before. Given the amount that people respond to people doing well in a new discipline (Mark’s Argentine Tango, Chris’ Charleston) it might be a bit of a crowd-pleaser

Cons :

1. They finished 4th in their series. The worst out of all participants. The judges might be a little reluctant to award the festive ball to the “worst” couple participating. Basically if your teeth have just regrown after you ground them down when they got eliminated, prepare to wear them down again.
2. They’re doing a paso. At Christmas. Len hated it the first time round. And as much as I love Erin, funny things happen to her when she gets the whiff of victory. Dummy shaped things. Bench-press American Smooth things. Hold it together Erin, for me? I’d hate for this to be a car-crash
3. I still don’t trust them not to switch him out for Lisa Snowdon at the last minute

Official made-up odds : Evens

Chris & Ola :

1. With the nation in the full grip of Cola-fever, who would bet against the studio audience screaming their heads off, booing everything less than a 10, giving them a standing ovation, and lynching Darcey Bussell from the Christmas Tree unless they’re at least top 3?
2. They’re tiny little adorable pokcet people. Dress her up as an elf, and him as Santa, and surely people will have to vote for them?
3. One of the primary factors in the Christmas Special is ability to dance whilst drunk and hold your liquor. Brendan failed. Tom failed. I’ve got a feeling that Ola might be more than up to it. Never mind that she’s never done one of these before, her constiution is IRON.

Cons :

1. Again, with a diet of turkey, stuffing, roasties, parsnips, brussells, Christmas pudding, mince pies and mulled wine, the sheer volume of PIVOTS going into the dance may cause problems with viewers digestive systems.
2. Given the theme of this year’s show appears to be “X WUZ ROBBED!” are the audience really going to grant (what’s likely to be) another trophy to these two when there are deserving causes with none? Again, nostalgia trumps current form.
3. Let’s face it, barring Len screaming about cocktail waitresses again, they’re going to be at the bottom with the judges.

Official made-up odds : 16-1

Gethin Jones & Flavia Cacace :

Pros :

1. OK, so his robbage was a little longer ago than Austin’s, and so the wound will have healed over a little bit better but… don’t underestimate the memory of Gethin fans. Especially as the “brand new three person dance-off rule” will have riven those old wounds open with the dangling carrot of what could have been
2. Talking of dangling carrots…Gethin’s quite a good looking young man. Most of the audience will be drunken ladies of a certain age and gay men. He’s doing his tit-shaking salsa again. You make your mind up what I’m talking about.
3. He’s done well in this before, finishing a close second to the immovable object Darren Gough a couple of series back. Without him in the way, who can say what he can achieve? And Flavia surely deserves SOMETHING after half a series of Craig Kelly.

Cons :

1. This is not a slur on Flavia in any way but… she’s not his original partner. The audience may miss the patented Gethzilla magic, or in their drunken haze get him confused with one of Flavia’s other partners. Let’s just hope it’s not Jimmy Tarbuck
2. Two of the Strictly robot Series in the same room at the same time may lead to an epic Giant Shark vs Mega Octopus style conflict that rampages across the studio, leaving the competition as but an afterthought in the smoking wreckage.
3. Whilst I wouldn’t suggest that any of the judges would be biased in any way, it’s possible that one of the judging panel might want to stay the only cast member from her year to win a trophy. If you know what I mean…

Official Made-Up Odds : 5-2

Rachel Stevens & Vincent Simone :

Pros :

1. Officially recognised in the Monkseal poll as the greatest woman in Strictly history never to have won, and by some margin, whilst the Rachbot wasn’t robbed by the judges (indeed, they’re very likely to be towards the top of the leaderboard on the night), there’s a good argument that she was by the public.
2. Her total and utter dominance of the last tour, over even St Jill of Halfpenny suggests that no, really, there are actually some of out here who quite liked the old rag-tag bunch of nuts and bolts.
3. Once again Vincent was part of one of the most well-liked couples this year. Even if you found Nat Cass slightly…irksome, his personality shone through, especially towards the end. Maybe the audience will fall a bit more in love with the Latin Loathario?

Cons :

1. There’s a fairly large chance that, unless she’s doing a rumba or an Argentine Tango nobody will care. There’s an even better chance that if she is doing a rumba, people will go “oh my God, not another SODDING rumba”
2. Erin’s competing and she’s been bested by this one before. She’s definitely not above sewing magnets into Rachel’s costume.
3. Let’s face it, it’s not as though she’s grown a personality in her year off…

Official Made-Up Odds : 7-1

Ricky Whittle & Natalie Lowe :

1. There are growing subtle signs that Ricky Whittle may live in infamy as this year’s “wuz robbed” contestant. Given that that’s the whole theme of this year’s Christmas show, of all the non-nostalgia contestants, he may play into it best.
2. On past form, the Christmas show is won by a glamorous Hollywood style show-stopper. Even if Natalie Lowe’s Latin choreography would sometimes given even Anton pause, she knows how to do Hollywood
3. Ricky’s father is right out of Dickens. What better way to cap off a Christmas show with him in Victorian garb, beaming over his son and feeling truly proud of him for the first time in his life? Merry CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY!

Cons

1. Said subtle signs of him being this year’s “wuz robbed” candidate appear to be limited to the Internet, rather than actual real people. His journey in popularity terms seems less likely than anyone’s.
2. Unless Ian & Erin take her out behind the Strictly bike-sheds and have a word with her about her role on the show (hint : it’s never ever to win, and always, always to be loved by me) it seems possible that Natalie Lowe might actually want to win. Eep.
3. It’s going to be the middle of December. Either he keeps his nipples in and they lose votes, or they take the eyes of an audience member out. Either way, it’s not good.

Official Made-Up Odds : 20-1

FIVE JUDGE! FOUR COUPLE! THREE SHOW TO GO! TWO DANCE! ONE LOSER! ZERO POINT!

LAST WEEK : PEOPLES DONE THE CHAR CHAR CHARLESTON AND IT WAS AMAZING AND OTHER PEOPLES DID THE ROCKUNROLL AND IT WAS PANTS! CRAIG WAS BEMUSED WHEN LEN PRETENDED TO BE A FORK-LIFT TRUCK!

THAT’S NICE LEONARD, NOW GO AND PRETEND TO BE A DUMPER TRUCK IN THE SANDPIT AND LEAVE THE GROWN-UPS TO THEIR BOOZE! ALI GOT A WHOLE BUNCH OF 10S UNDER THE GRAND THEFT AUTO SYSTEM OF SCORING WHERE YOU GET A BONUS FOR RUNNING OVER PEDESTRIANS JUST AS LEN REALISED

THAT ARLENE HAS BEEN SAT UNDER THERE ALL SERIES, WAITING FOR AN OPPORTUNE MOMENT. LAILA WENT TO MOROCCO, RICKY WISHED HE’D STAYED AT HOME (AND NOT GONE OUT CLUBBING), CHRIS HAD ROAST BEEF (EVERY MORNING AS IS HIS SUPERSTITION), BRIAN CONTINUED TO GET NONE, AND NATALIE CASSIDY WENT

WHEE WHEE WHEE ALL THE WAY HOME!

TONIGHT : LAILA THINKS THE TROPHY IS WITHIN ARM’S REACH (YEAH, IF ANTON’S SUDDENLY TURNED INTO MR TICKLE!) RICKY THINKS THE BEST OF THE BEST ARE REMAINING (…) ALI THINKS THIS IS ANYBODY’S GAME (SADLY SHE IS TALKING ABOUT A GAME OF HUNGRY HUNGRY HIPPOS GOING ON JUST OUTSIDE OF SHOT) NOBODY WANTS TO GO HOME NOW (want to take a bet on that? Involving Laila?)

NOW! LIVE! FOR 90 MINUTES! AND THEN AGAIN! NOT LIVE! PROBABLY! A BIT LATER!

Which one was this one again? Oh wait, SHE’S STILL HERE!

Do you know I realised this week that, for the 5th series in a row, all of the finalists will have scored at least 30 in one of their first 2 dances? Journey my arse (as the men down Newcastle docks will no doubt be saying to Joe McElderry in 3 years time).

I have nothing really negative to say about Tess’ dress this week (too much booby on display, but then I would say that) but she appears to be auditioning to be a cat-nun on the next series of Doctor Who. Oh and she’s still kneeing Bruce vaguely in the groin, rather than going for a full leg-extension.

No wonder the levels of PURITY OF DAHNCE are way down this series. In the audience this week are Ricky Groves (again) and

Richard Dunwoody, who completely ignores the opportunity of gurning Bruce Forsythe’s catchphrases back at him like a simpleton. Oh Richard, it’s no wonder you went out week 1. Although to be fair, it didn’t do Rav a huge amount of good. We then get a joke about how Bruce had a round of golf and his shot bounced off a tree into a fire hydrant and this means he can now “drive like Tiger Woods”. This causes Nicholas Owen (and what is it with all the first outs being in this week? Are they setting up a UK branch of Dancing With The Stars Losers Club, headed up by Stephanie Beacham? (Please say yes…))

to react either as though he’s in physical pain, or as if Arlene has somehow found her way into the audience (that’s it, that’s your quotient of accidental sex faces for the week, not even one for Cola now I swear).

Of course you know this means that Bruce is so senile he’s just started playing golf in Sainsbury’s car-park until the nice men guide him back to his car. Anyway, he follows up with a joke about how this means he’s “Pussy Forsythe” and there’s some targets so low-hanging even I have to pass them up.

Unlike Arlene.

This week, instead of getting right on with meeting “the stars of our show”, we’re going to see a cha-cha done by the pro dancers (minus those still in the competition), and this was choreographed by Ian apparently, so obviously I can’t find a bad word to say about it.

Apart from how everyone’s dressed like they’re in the video for a Kelly Osbourne Christmas Single. They’re all dancing to a (barely) Latinfied version of “Satisfaction”, and Aliona’s all :

“wait a minute, you aren’t Matthew, where the fuck’s Matthew?” and Erin all “wait a minute, this isn’t ballroom, where the fuck’s ballroom?”. Then the boys come out, except without Anton, we officially have a Monkseal Mega-Pairing of :

IAN AND ERIN! So I can’t watch anything else for the rest of this portion of the dance, even though they’re stuck at the back doing bugger all. I’m sure everyone else was amazing. STILL, IAN AND ERIN! (*dies and goes to heaven*). It’s like Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage teamed up. Natalie Lowe can be Miss Elizabeth and Anton can be Sensational Sherri (no, wait, come back…).

Anyway, after a bit the boys separate from the girls and dance on their lonesome to “Get Ready” and it all goes a bit

BARCLAYS BANK CHRISTMAS PARTY GONE WILD! for a bit, and then the girls come back, and Katya and Brendan lurch around like broken Epcot Centre animatronics, then James & Kristina do a bit which thankfully doesn’t involve him DISPLAYING HER VAGINA TO THE WORLD LIKE A TROPHY and that’s all I ask of those two, then Matthew & Aliona come back and obviously everyone dances around them because they are the bestest obviously :

whilst Erin whispers in Ian’s ear “where’s the ballroom Waitey? I was told there’d be boardroom. There’d better be some ballroom soon or I WILL DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE RIGHT UP!”

I don’t even know if that was any good, but I know I enjoyed it.

Ok, so NOW it’s time to meet the stars of our show. Can we have another Ian showdance first please? I will settle for a Natalie one. Out they all come, with no noticable absolute howlers from the wardrobe department this week, although everything is now on a sliding scale with Erin’s tango outfit at the top, on which even that time Gwyneth Paltrow turned up to the Oscars as a goth 13 year old only merits about a 0.4.

Count Fortuna and his terrified, angry, sad, passionate, happy, weepy, bipolar, schizophrenic ward Ali Bastian dancing the tango :

I know it’s the tango, but if your beard ends up like somebody drew it with an Etch-a-Sketch, it might behoove you to go clean-shaven Brian.

DON’T LOOK AT ME!

Anyway, Bruce starts with a joke about how Brian accidentally said that Ali has a big fat arse. Truly domestic comedy worthy of “King Of Queens” right there. Apparently this has got her “moody and aggressive” for the tango, as you apparently need to be. Do you have to be moody and aggressive in a tango? I know Flavia doesn’t really do emotion on the dance floor, except the occasional white-hot laser beam of lust, but I’ve never seen her particularly aggressive. Anyway…

In their VT we learn that the UK version was going to try to recreate the futuristic paso from Dancing With The Stars but :

on a slightly more limited costume budget. Oh alright, Ali was injured last week, but still came AHT and done betterer than everyone else in the Charleston and then she also got a 10 in her Viennese Waltz despite flattening Laila & Anton :

Claire King (playing the Rani, with her Auton sidekick Ricky Groves) was not amused. Ali giggles about how all of this was the greatest pain-killer for her injury she could have received. Hmm… I’ll set up a medical trial on that one and let you know the answer in 5 years time Ali.

In training this week, she and Brian talk to each other in dopey mafia voices and do kung-fung (/posture practice)

and Ali worries a little about how she’s going to memorize two dances in one week before Brian yells down the camera at me :

like he’s Donald F’ing Trump (Alla wuz robbed! Rebecca SUCKZ!) about how tango is a very PASSIONATE dance and the story of LOVE and HATE between a MAN and a WOMAN and he and ALI definitely have the HATE PART down but they’re going to have to work on the LOVE this week (I am so very sure…). Ali and he then cute around all pretendy domestic violencey and she says whilst looking like this :

(and seriously girly, if you’re going to raid Jade’s make-up kit make sure you know what you’re doing) that she can’t quite decide on a consistent mood for the dance, because the tango is so “temperamental”. It might have been an idea to at least TRY before the show is all I’m saying. Just one emotion, whatever it is.

They come out, in RED, because RED is the colour of the tango, just like PURPLE is the colour of the paso and UGLY PASTEL SHADES is the colour of every other dance if you’re Ali and

oh my God it’s Beaker Honeydew. I swear, I gave her acres of benefit of the doubt after the paso that her performance issues were related to her toe but…she can’t do firey and passionate at all. Needless to say there about 7 other inappropriate faces in here as well including this :

which I think must be the most inappropriate dance-face OF ALL TIME. They’re dancing to “Born To Be Wild”, which if anything is even worse than “Rebel Rebel” (his choice for his tango last year with Heather and another of the acts of Bowiecide this show specialises in) as a tango choice and… it’s not very good outside of the face either. Far too soft, not dramatic enough, and there’s a bit where she twirls across the floor doing spins where she might as well be yelling “WHEEEEE!”. There’s also a very obvious stumble at the beginning but… that’s the least of her worries to be honest.

Everyone cheers, and then we cut back to the Tesspit and are reminded unfortunately that :

both Katya and Natalie are more terrifying looking AT REST than Ali was in the middle of a tango. Over to Bruce Brian & Ali trudge, and we are obviously introduced at this point to Dave Arch, his wonderful singers, the fabulous orchestra, their lady what does, Patrick Moore on xylophone, Burt Raccoon on saxophone, Rolf Harris on stylophone and of course The Man In The H…

WHAT?! WHERE IS THE MAN IN THE HAT? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH THE MAN IN THE HAT, MAN IN THE GLASSES?!

Next up the judges, including this week’s new addition :

Darcey Bussell. Now I’ll cop at this point to not being a huge fan of Darcey Bussell. I’ve heard vague rumours from people who know people who’ve dealt with her, I’ve heard vague things about how she’s mucked the show around this year regarding this position, that whole Viva La Diva thing got right up my nose, an I’ll be honest, I just plain don’t like her. Having said that, she’s not really responsible for being 5th wheel on a car that only takes 4. And I’d still rather Len was the one stuffed in the boot to be honest. Anyway, everyone applauds,

except Alesha who hates Darcey/is still busy writing out “you was fierce” on her note-pad, depending on which trainee Internet trick-cyclist you want to listen to.

In her honour, according to Bruce, Len is wearing a pink tutu and tights. And so is Craig, but then “he does every week”. HA HA HA BECAUSE HE IS GAY! Darcey says she’s very glad to be here as part of the 17th annual Double Glazing Sales Norwich Awards (/this exciting dance-show) and then tells us she’s not here to play the punching-bag between Len and Craig. Except when she says “Len” she points at Craig and…yeah, at least WATCH the show. Anyway Bruce tells her that every time she makes a comment he will be “in third position” :

and Darcey basically looks at him as if to say “why are you still talking?” and Alesha quacks like a dyspeptic duck and there’s your difference between the two of them right there. Oh alright, another difference is that Alesha thinks it’s a good idea to do her hair like this :

She thinks that Ali was never going to be “Born To Be Wild” but Alesha loved it anyway, because she came out and “attacked the dance”. Whatever that means. I think like so many words, “attacked” on this show means “attempted to do”. She then commits a grammar fail that not even I can pass up when she says “occasionally with you , I always see little moments of insecurity”( NO NO NO NO NO!) but she shouldn’t have them because she’s worked so hard to get here, and deserves to be in the quarter finals.

Bruno says it’s the quarter-final so he’s going to be picky – she makes mistakes, and when she does, she loses the character of the dance. I don’t think she loses it Bruno, she changes it into something else entirely. It’s like if every time Dot Cotton turns around in Eastenders she suddenly became Al Pacino in Scarface. Anyway, he wishes she could come back and do the entire dance again, in an alias, as “Anastasia Beaverhausen”. Is he suggesting she go be a contestant on RuPaul’s Drag Race? I think there might be…barriers, although you know Brian would kill it.

Craig reels off a laundry list of faults (balance issues, falling out of turns) but says he liked that her hands were Spanish this week, not ballet. And you can tell Darcey’s not cut out for the show because she doesn’t sit there yelling “TOO BALLET? YOU’RE GETTING ON MY WICK YOU DONUT? WHAT’S WRONG WITH BALLET?! GURCHA!” For her part she says that she loved the performance and the tension between Ali & Brain, but she wobbled too much every time she flicked. I hear Brian has that problem too.

Hem-hem.

Len finishes by saying that she’s an accomplished dancer but, apart from her Charleston, she’s a bit of a one-trick-pony. So…a  two-trick pony then? Anyway, that was no evidence otherwise, when she comes back next week and does the Argentine (pronounced “AR-GEN-TYNE”) Tango she has to “WORR GIVE IT SOME WELLY COME ON ALI GIRW!” Indeed.

To the Tesspit, where Tess asks her how she feels about Len calling her a one trick (/two-trick) pony and Ali says that obviously she’s going to have to come back wearing boxing gloves next week and really show him some :

fight. Or an approximation thereof. You know that if this were Dancing With The Stars she would actually come out and do that. With the actual boxing gloves. To “Eye Of The Tiger”. With Brian dressed as Apollo Creed. Oh and I love how it was :

last week that Natalie Lowe was worried about flashing her boobies. Scores are in : 42, or 33 on the scale of “Let’s Pretend Darcey Bussell Isn’t Here, Because Let’s Face It, She Certainly Seems To Be Most Doing That Most Of The Time”

Poor Laila & Anton du Beke dancing the American Smooth :

SO MUCH LOVE IN THE ROOM! Bruce makes a joke about how the only time Anton has done 2 dances on one night before has been when he’s in the dance-off. Would you like to venture a guess as to how many pros have reached the two dance stage more times than Anton? Did you say “only 2″? If so, well done.

We’re reminded in their VT from last week that Laila’s Charleston was a “show-stopper” of a performance (in that she was on last), but Craig didn’t liiiiiiiiiiike it. He then gave it a 6, whilst Len mugged away at his side to the extent that I started wondering if you’d all like to take part in a whip-round to ascertain why he is in fact Karen Hardy’s father. Anyway, both Laila and Anton thought Craig was dead mean and that she deserved higher than a 6 for sure, because she’d trained REALLY HARD in the toilets of Morocco. She & Anton got through anyway, and did a free preview of their performance Schools piece about racism :

The Toad and The Owl.

We start their training for this week with Laila telling us that Anton has “never danced into December” (PATSY BLOODY PALMER! AND INCIDENTALLY SERIES 3 WAS THE LAST TIME IAN DANCED INTO SODDING DECEMBER SO YOU CAN etc etc etc) and him giggling about how he feels like he’s sneaked into somebody else’s party. Yes, I would imagine that’s how Anton gets into most parties. I bet he sticks his head under a cloche and “surprises everyone” every time Darren & Lilia have an anniversary. At least, I hope it’s his head.

Anyway, we’re now at the quarter final stage, anybody can win, 12 couples have gone home, blah blah blah, who won Baby Wars, does anybody remember? Oh and they also showcase this lift :

which looks like it could be the best lift ever in Strictly history, it totally could. Or at least tied for 2nd. With every other lift ever done in first place. Laila smiles that she hopes that she can get Anton into the semi finals (LESLEY GARRETT), but she doesn’t even want to think about it. Well, it might help to at some point. Thinking about it that is. To avoid catastrofucks like this evening.

They start off like this :

and, from the first bar of “My Kind Of Girl” until they take some variety of hold, there is a full 20 seconds of absolutely nothing. Laila bobs her hips a little and taps Anton on the shoulder but that is it. For 20 seconds. Consider how watered down these routines are, and then consider just how awful she still is at them. They do some alright sways, then she does a spin in which she almost falls arse over tit,

then she just

sticks her hand out like she’s playing pat-a-cake with the Invisible Man, waiting for Anton to take it for a good second or so. Then he bloody well THROWS her into the corner and she almost falls over again. From there it kind of picks up a bit, through an alright lift, although I hope to God this routine puts an end once and for all to that talk about how Laila is some sort of Ballroom whizz because…no. Anyway, it finishes like so :

which is kind of a cheat, because no way does Laila manage to get out of that elegantly if it’s done mid routine, and of course she doesn’t, being dumped off Anton’s shoulders like a mattress into a delivery van.

Over to the judges, and Craig starts by eviscerating her for poor posture, unfinished lines, ugly lifts, and turns she stumbled out of. Clumsy and disappointing. Darcey follows, in the tone of the head of the Maths Department who just discovered her third best student torturing a first year gel by dangling a tampon in her face, that she really  expected so much better from Laila, as American Smooth should have been her dance. Oh and something to do with back muscles, but that’s far too technical, all this talk of “muscles” and how to use them and stuff. Tell her to come out and GIVE IT SOME WELLY WORRGH RABBIT RABBIT GURCHA SNOOKER LOOPY NUTS ARE WE!

Len’s next and says that it’s “tough to do two dances in one week” and that she didn’t meet his expectations, but she’s still got the salsa to come, so maybe she can come back, wiggle “that old bum of hers” and knock us all out.

Oh I’m so so very sure. Alesha finishes by saying that she thought that Laila would cope well with the American Smooth because it’s cheeky and loose (BACKHAND!) and that some of it was alright but she was far too unsteady. Apparently she needs to “fix up, look sharp” and come back in the salsa. Oh Alesha, judging from It Takes Two, Laila is stuck on “innit, doh?” in terms of street slang, so she’s at least 7 years off Dizzee Rascal yet.

In the Tesspit, Laila immediately cops to almost decapitating an audience member or two with a mistimed spin, but Tess and Anton are too busy flirting about how Laila’s last lift covered up Anton’s face for them to be paying any attention to her. I swear, the gross sexual tension between Anton & Tess has cast a pall over these past few weeks. Scores are in – 33 (/27)

Team Cola dancing the waltz :

It’s all just faces from here on out isn’t it? Anyway, when Bruce introduces them, everyone in the audience screams like Michael Jackson just rose from the dead, and they keep on screaming for 2 weeks until he wins the Glitterball Trophy, the end. Although sadly not, because even after the cockroaches are dead (never mind this series), Bruce will still have to churn out one more joke – in this case “Ola done not wear clothes that cover her thruppennies most of the time”. Hilarity indeed.

Last week, we are told, Chris  “owned” the Charleston via the medium of constantly sticking his tongue out, and then Ola jumped up and down squealing “Yeah Baby” at such a high pitch that I’m not sure she didn’t slip in an instruction to her Alsatian to make sure he puts in 17 votes for Olly Murs somewhere. Chris informs via the magic of VT that Ola has always told him that he could dance, and he’s only just beginning to believe her. Personally I’m going to give it another week or two myself.

There then follows a brief segment that basically tells us that Chris & Ola meet at the same time every day, sit at the same table, and have the exact same thing to eat before they start training – he has a ham, cheese and tomato sandwich, and she has a tuna Panini :

We are reassured that this is some sort of superstition between them that keeps them in the competition and not, say, because they’re both really, really dull.

Are the facial expressions some sort of superstition as well? Anyway, as we learnt on It Takes Two this week, Chris is having trouble keeping both routines in his head, especially given as how he’s struggled to keep one whole one in there before. Ola pushes him with broken English and catchphrases and funny faces

 as per, and slowly he starts to get it.

Out on the floor now and they’re dancing to “At This Moment”, and it’s alright. He’s still doing some sort of parody of what he thinks an elegant ballroom gentleman should look like

rather than just letting go (really his performances in the Ballroom are no less tense and awkward than Ali’s in the Latin (minus paso which is of course a very special case study all on its own) but as usual, nobody cares about ballroom) and it’s

chock-full of pivots, which I guess are just his signature move at this point but really… Maybe his showdance should just be a bunch of pivots one after the other, all the way around the floor for 90 seconds. They could play “You Spin Me Round” and it’d actually be a physical feat, and not the Tomzilla knock-off minus lifts we’re probably going to end up getting. Anyway, there’s lots of Sylvanian Families mini-people cutsiness,

and a nice twirly thing at the end,

only marginally spoiled by the fact that his face reads “13 year old reading his first copy of Razzle”.

Over to the judges, and Len says that “there’s signs of a dancer emerging” and I suddenly have an image of Erin emerging from out of Chris face like Sadako in The Ring and hissing “damn you Len, I thought with my new found powers of demonic possession I might have finally won!”. Anyway his hold is getting better, his posture is getting better, and it’s almost there. Alesha next, and she says that she could tell that he fell in love with that dance, and so did she, because he really managed to convey the emotion of the dance.

I feel bad for asking, but does anyone know if that’s his Very Serious Girlfriend or if it’s his sister?

Bruno next and he says he agreed with Len that it mostly went well, and he clearly put a lot of effort in, but at times “Chris went all constipated on him”.

In terms of visions I did not need, that is right up there I have to tell you. And then he spoils it even more by yelling “don’t go all tight on me” leading Alesha to have another fit of the ducks, whilst Darcey rolls her eyes off somewhere in irrelevance. Craig finishes by saying that it was danced well, but he wishes Chris would just smile occasionally, because it would release all the tension in his upper half and let everything flow much more easily. I kind of agree. So obviously Len starts quacking “NO NO NO, EE WAS SELLING VE ROMANCE WUNNEE?”. Colour me unsurprised that Len thinks smiling is unromantic. And then Alesha starts gabbling on all “he was smiling with his heart” and Darcy’s sniffing “it’s unpleasant” and Len saying “it was pleasant” and I can’t really hear anything and I am telling you, no concise, helpful, entertaining, or constructive crit is coming out of this :

In the Tesspit, Tess informs that she thought Chris was “doing a Brucie” :

Oh Tess, I don’t think it was quite that bad. She asks him how it feels never to have been in the dance-off and he mugs like it’s a really bad thing and not a total sign that he’s won this already and thanks everyone at home for voting for him (“who voted”, not “for voting” please. Subtle difference. Although my voting was so erratic until I became a Jade stan that I can’t remember if I voted for him at any stage or not. And I voted for Rav at one point, so anything’s possible). Tess asks if it’s twigged that he’s quite a good dancer, he’s all “hmm, maybe a bit” and then scores are in – 41 (/32)

Ricky Nipple & Natalie Lowe dancing the foxtrot :

As I stumble through the desert of trying to work out why people hate Natalie Lowe so, I have decided that this bit is at least 57% of the reason why every week.

For God’s sake Nat-Nat, have a fake conversation, rub noses, giggle like 3 year olds, give each other a good luck hug, ANYTHING other than staring down the camera like a mountain lion about to kill me. Bruce’s joke this week is about how Ricky “always makes mistakes” (so the jokes from Bruce this week are “Anton never makes it far – vote for Anton”, “If you vote for Ola you’ll get to see her fanjita”, “Ali’s got a fat arse and can’t act” and “Ricky’s a bit shit at dancing”. And yet people still think the show’s biased in the latter two’s favour, ho hum) and in particular last week their dance had “too many boobs”, a reference to when Ricky pretended that Natalie’s boobs had fallen out in a desperate attempt to make them interesting and memorable. The partnership, not her boobs. Natalie laughs all :

“IT’S FUNNOI CUZ OIVE GOT BOOBS!”

Their footage from last week reminds us that they were a bit pants at Rock’n'Roll, but then good at the Viennese Waltz, and then ended up in the dance-off, for the first time this series. Ricky talks a lot of benign waffle about the dance-off – you don’t want to be there, it might be your last dance, what doesn’t kill us only makes us stronger blah blah, and Natalie just lets her look of

“YOU UTTER, UTTER BASTARDS!” do the talking.

Oh, speaking of desperate attempts to make himself interesting :

he’s wearing Superman pants throughout training. Don’t ask why, it’s NEVER explained. Maybe the S is a message to someone. It’s your standard post bottom-two VT from these two, except Natalie totally misjudges just how weird you can be and have everyone still love you when she acts like this :

and starts growling “so hungrrrrrrrrry” like she’s in a J-horror. Still the,

Fierce Scarf is still there though so I’m happy. In these Man-In-The-Hat-less days of economic turmoil, it’s the little things that pull me through (*sniff*). Anyway, Ricky says there’s only four couples left and they’re “the best of the best” (of this series, except Jade, and possibly Zoe, and actually I still probably would have taken Tuffers over half this field) SO HE HAS TO TRY HIS HARDEST! Oh Ricky. The series is over. It was over when Chris did his foxtrot, and now it’s doubly over after the It Takes Two announcement yesterday. Just keep moving and try not to look too surprised when the inevitable happens. In 3 years time everyone will have decided this was “all Natalie’s fault” anyway. You’ll be the new Colin Jackson.

They’re dancing to “Too Marvellous For Words” and I absolutely adore Natalie’s Ballroom music choices. Down With Love, How Can I Be Sure?, Somewhere (UP SHE GOES!) Over The Rainbow -  they’re suitable, not hackneyed through overuse, and absolutely perfect for the dance. Of course in this case they’re also really good at making you look smug but…have you seen a Fred & Giiiiiiiiiiiiinge movie? They’re the smuggest people ever to have lived. If their characters actually existed you’d want to Tess them in the nuts. Oh, wait, sorry, SMUG is banned this year isn’t it? Just C&P and replace it with “quite annoying”.

It’s a really good  dance -  soft where before he’s been a bit too harsh and fast, really romantic where before he was before a bit cool and aloof, and with a relative absence of bandy legs and pigeon toes. And it ends with him plonking Natalie’s hand on his arse :

Too marvellous for words. Sadly, it’s still a foxtrot, so half the audience have slipped into a coma.

Bruno starts for the judging by saying that that was a foxtrot that hit ALL THE SPOTS, RIGHT ON IT and calls it “the dance of the night”. What, better than Ali’s acting masterclass? Better than Laila almost falling on her face? FAVOURITISM ABOUNDS. Craig next, and he says he’ll have to overlook Ricky’s natural “disability” of bandy legs and pigeon toes to say that that was “UH-MAY-ZING!”.

Darcey next, and she says it was “smooth, stylish, sincere…” (SATANIC ARLENE FROM UNDERNEATH THE FLOORBOARDS : DON’T YOU EVEN THINK ABOUT IT, BALLET BITCH!) “…and classy” and Len done what I done by simply saying that it was “too marvellous for words”. Oh God I made the same joke as Len. Hose me down with Cif, I feel dirty.

Back to the Tesspit and Natalie immediately starts gushing about how amazing that felt, how beautiful it was, and how it felt like she was “on Claud 9″ (oh how I wish Natalie, oh how I wish) whilst Ricky gushes about the band and how he couldn’t help singing along (note to other celebrities : IN HIS HEAD). Of course then Tess interrupts :

to remind them of how they were in the dance-off last week and asks if they want to make a little begging speech. Ricky’s all “um yeah, we’re sorry we let everyone down last week, we really want to come back strong and show everyone just how much we want to be here”. Oh Ricky, that’ll never do. Call Natalie “Natty-pants” and yoink her skirt down. THAT WOULD END WELL. Scores are in -

48(/39). You will notice that where Chris says “thank you” to the public every week when he’s saved, Natalie says “thank you” to the judges whenever they get good scores. They were both raised right, and also, they both know which side of their particular bread is buttered.

Ali Bastian & Brian Fortuna dancing the samba :

NO MORE PASTELS! NO MORE PASTELS EVER!

Bruce reminds us that Ali is the only dancer this year to have thus far obtained a perfect score and from there we move onto :

Oh God, it’s the Judges Holodeck again. Notice how Darcey has refused to take part in this segment. It’s called dignity/being boring (*delete where appropriate*). Alesha snerks about how Ali & Brian are “on their little love story together and people love that”. SOME people love that Alesha - some people find it kind of squicky. Bruno says that her ballroom is the best out of all the celebs and that “technically, no-one can touch her”. Apart from Brian. And if you try YOU WILL END UP IN A SHALLOW GRAVE SOMEWHERE OFF THE M6 MY FRIEND! There then follows a brief debate about whether Ali can do sexy well enough for the Latin dances – with Len and Craig saying no, Alesha saying that there’s potential, and Bruno wondering if he can make this holothingy pick up Living – America’s Next Top Model is on and he wants to see how Allison is doing.

Oh and then Alesha starts dancing like a moron, Bruno starts yelling “WE WANT BEYONCE!” down the camera (to be honest with the “star power” left in this series – two Hollyoaks actors, a third string actress from Primeval, and a guy who I’d never even heard of before this series started – I’d take Kelly Rowland. Heck I’d take one of the ones that Beyonce had murdered 8 years ago because they accidentally stood upstage of her once), and then Len starts throwing gang signs

and leading everyone in a chorus of “Sexyback”. Good grief Charlie Brown.

They’re dancing to “Change” by Daniel Merriweather and words cannot express how much I hate Daniel Merriweather. He looks like Limburger from Biker Mice From Mars, he hangs around with Mark “MOAR TRUMPETS!” Ronson,  he sings whiny cod-soulful pablum, and he ruined a Smiths song. So Brian is officially 0 for 2 with decent song choices this week. Although I do have a trick for getting through this one, which is to shout “SNAKES ON A PLANE! SNAKES ON A PLANE! OOH I’VE REALLY HAD IT WITH THESE MOTHERFUCKING SNAKES… ON THIS MOTHERFUCKING PLANE! THIS MOTHERFUCKING PLANE!” over the chorus. It’s fun, try it. (*sorry about the language mother. You know, in general*)

Their samba is quite good technically (although there are a couple of wobbly bits (*fnar fnar*) and a bit where she’s spinning on her own where she’s basically going “tiddle-de-diddle-de-dee where’s Brian, I can’t find Brian, WHERE’S BRI…oh wait there he is”), and bless her she’s trying to sell it but :

is that not the worst tit-shake you’ve ever seen in your life? Remember when Gethin came out and did the tit-shake and a nation’s ovaries exploded? Remember when Matt Di Angelo did it at Arlene and it scared the be-jesus out of her? Remember when Mark did it and it was the only part of the dance when you could totally tear yourself away from Karen’s face? Weren’t those all defining moments in Strictly history? Now go back a few sentences and look at Ali doing it.

*facepalm*

So translate all that out for the entire dance really. With a big pink feather on its bum.

Craig starts for the judges by saying Ali coped really well with a complicated routine with lots of changes of rhythm and other technical stuff that sends the audience to sleep and then pulls up on her “little girl lost” moment, but says that overall it was “magnificent”. Darcey says “yes Ali, there was a sexy party going on between you” and I’ve never seen someone so disgusted by the words coming out of their own mouth. It’s like tha advert where that guy spews up the rat. I don’t think Darcey Bussell has ever said the words “sexy party” in her entire life before. She then follows up by saying that Ali is very special indeed and that she “will make the final”. And obviously there’s been wank about how this means Darcey is fixing it for her Psychic Twin In Ballet, but…come on, like she gives a shit.

Len follows and then starts whining about how it was “too light and fluffy” and Ali starts playing with her tail feather and giggling because it is light and fluffy like what the man says. Then some poor fool in the audience makes the mistake of booing Len, so of course Len has to get all spit-fleckled and swivvel-eyed about it :

Calm down Len, it happens once a series. Anyway he starts yelling at her to “work down into the floor, WORK YOUR FEET REALLY HARD INTO THAT WOOD!” (Suddenly Brian perks up) and then starts mumbling on about how sitting between Darcey and Alesha has “got him sweating like a glassblowers bum” and please, please, please somebody else start speaking please.

Alesha takes up the mantle by saying that for her it was the best samba of the series by far.

That is all.

Down in the Tesspit, Ali is

still trying, but as soon as she finishes she kind of slumps as though laughing at herself and… the self-consciousness is ingrained like a birthmark at this point isn’t it? Tess asks how it felt doing the DREAD A-CURSED SAMBA and Ali says she was really nervous and found it really hard, but she’s just blown away by the comments from the judges. You really think she’d be used to them by now. Scores are in – 44 (/35)

Should She Stay ? : Like anyone’s going home other than Laila this week. Ahem, anyway, yes. The tango was a mess, but the samba was perfectly acceptable. She needs to really bring it next week though, and I just don’t think she’s capable.

Laila Roauss

OH MY GOD NOT ANTON’S CHEST AGAIN dancing the salsamba :

To the Judges Holodeck again, and Alesha says that Laila’s been on a rollercoaster journey with ups and downs and injuries, but the one thing she can’t believe “is that Anton is still here”. For the love of fudge I hope that if James makes it this far next year (hee hee hee hee hee) they give him the same amount of stick for never getting past halfway given that his finishing average is FAR worse than Anton’s. Anyway Bruno starts quacking on about how her ballroom is amazing (lies) but she’s still not delivered in Latin (except her paso). Blah blah blah Latin and then Alesha keeps on talking about how she’s beautiful and Bruno ripostes with “it doesn’t matter how gorgeous you are, you HAVE TO DELIVER! YOU DELIVERED!”

Oh, get a room. We revisit her quickstep and Len says it was amazing, but she has to deliver that standard every week, and then we revisit her rumba and Len saying he was surprised that Laila didn’t stick her foot in Craig’s mouth when he gave her a 3. I would imagine if Len thought a SPORTSMAN would let him tongue their feet if he gave them a 3, we’d never see any other paddle ever again.

We now move on to her salsa, and all the judges piss themselves laughing basically. Len says that “if she scores above a 6 I’ll PICKUW MY WAWNUTS!” and a lot of people have taken this as bias, but it’s just putting a number value on what Len says every week - ”I thought this dance was going to suit you/TALL PEOPLE CAN’T JIVE” etc etc. Also I’m sorry, but “Laila’s Latin + Anton’s Latin + Salsamba + Their Training Footage From This Week = a 6 is generous”. Although I am quite amused by the fact that her training footage basically shows her :

flicking the Vs at everyone. I would love it if she’d CAM AHT and done that instead. She seems like she wants to half the time. Len finishes by saying “they’ve got the will to win, but I don’t think they’ve got the skill to win”. I don’t really think they’ve got either to be honest Len.

Well I’ll give them this, they’re dancing to traditional salsa music. That is literally all I can say that’s good about it. Oh alright, she shakes her hips quite nicely at the opening, whilst Anton does some Anton Latin gurning.

Once they hit the floor however, it’s awful. She clearly goes wrong right from the off and, as most of the dance is out of hold, Anton can’t really do anything to help. She trips over her own feet right out of the first sequence of arm crossovers and basically the rest of the dance is just :

This. The bits that aren’t are mostly just her running around the floor and this move :

SEVEN TIMES IN A ROW WITH NO VARIATION, followed by an actual slap-fight because they can’t work out who is supposed to be taking whose hand at which point. It’s an abomination against God is what it is.

As soon as it finishes Anton starts spazzing around like Brian doing another Christmas Jive,

 and even Bruce (EVEN BRUCE!) has noticed that that went horribly horribly wrong. Anton hoots “SO CLOSE!” and then Bruno says “to what?” although it kind of sounds a bit like “tuh-wat”.

Alesha starts by saying “as Len would say, you’re GETTING ON MY WICK!”. Except Len normally says it to Craig Alesha, because when he says it to a celeb, it looks kind of…rude? Anyway Alesha though she’d be good at that (Scooby Doo : Ba-ruh?) but it was too clumsy and if she comes back next week, she’s going to have to work much harder. Or indeed, at all. Bruno compares her to a deflated balloon and says that he’s never seen such a mess in a quarter-final.

(I used up my Matt Di Angelo joke in the summary didn’t I? Damnit…)

Laila’s all “Yes Bruno it was a mess, DOES THIS MEAN I GET TO GO HOME NOW?!” Craig follows by saying the dance was clearly beyond her, and that some of her turns “rivalled Fiona Phillips”. OUCH. Given that Fiona Phillips turned like the clay pot in a community theatre production of Ghost, with Demi Moore being played by David Blunkett, that’s saying something. Bruce tells him he’s going too far, and even the Strictly audience is like “he’s really not Bruce” and then there’s a lot of awkward “sweetheart-darling” awkwardness.

Darcey tells her that the other judges are right – she shouldn’t be mucking up to that degree in the quarter finals, which is a shame, because she “has such the wow factor”. 59 minutes in. 59 minutes in, and Darcey is infected with “wow factor”. STOP SAYING WOW FACTOR!

To the Tesspit, where we can fully appreciate how Laila’s boobs have come dressed as a love-heart this week (and they say Ali’s the soppy one). Anyway, she constantly says how rubbish her salsa was, how she should be able to do better at this stage, and how she doesn’t deserve to be there. Anton is at least still trying, committing whole-heartedly to the lie that it was amazing in rehearsal (I am so, so sure) but the wheels are finally off, the radiator’s leaking smoke, and it turns out the child in the back really wasn’t lying when they said they needed to go to the toilet RIGHT NOW. Tess breaks in with a “Fun Fact Stat” – that Anton holds the record for the lowest score in the salsa – 18 with Kate Garraway. Anton snerks back “it might be fun for you love, but it’s a career for me” and Laila and the entire audience pretty much die laughing.

Watch out Vernon. It’s all I’m saying. Scores are in – 26 (/21) including a 5 from Alesha prompting the audience to boo and Alesha :

to mock them. Awesome.

Should She Stay ? : Could they not have got rid of Bottom Two a week earlier? When the time comes to say whose safe, can they not just say everyone else’s name and then turn all the lights off and slow-clap her out? NO.

Chris Hollins & Ola Jordan dancing the samba :

Bruce flags up that Chris & Ola are the only couple never to have been in the dance-off and yes, I don’t think we need the advanced notice of how this is going to end quite so heavy-handedly pointed out to us.

Back to Judges Holodeck, with everyone cooing about how cute he is, and how you could just put him in your pocket. Oh naff off. Short people are not your playthings. Anyway, Len says that of all the quarter-finallists they have the most chemistry (you know, apart from Anton with Tess). Craig reiterates their “journey” for us, which is “started off competently, then went to shit, then were competent again”. Hardly the Aenead is it? Len calls the paso a “breakthrough” but Bruno is still focused on how he acted it like a small child having a tantrum :

I bet Bruno’s boyfriend is so glad the Results portion is live this year. You just know he mimics everything he sees himself do. Anyway, they all agree that his Blackpool foxtrot and his Charleston were amazing  and then they all start dancing it :

albeit whilst singing “Yes Sir, That’s My Baby” which was… Laila & Anton’s song wasn’t it? OH MY GOD THEY HAVE BIASED THIS IN CHRIS’ FAVOUR VIA THEIR EVIL EDITING! THE SPONTANEOUS JOY OF DAHHHHHHHHNCE THAT ONLY LAILA CAN PROVIDE IS IN FACT BEING ATTRIBUTED TO CHRIS! VOTE RICKY AND STOP THIS FIX!

According to Len, if someone can do a foxtrot and Charleston, which are apparently “two ends of the dance-spectrum” (ie two ends of Len’s dance spectrum which goes “Foxtrot-Waltz-Viennese Waltz-American Smooth- SILLY BLAHDY LATIN DANCES WOT I DON’T GIVE A SHIT ABAHHHHHHHT- Gay Gordons- Charleston”) has the potential to win. Ahem. I see they’re ve begun “Operation Justify” already. Let’s hope they’re more convincingly happy when he wins than they were for Tom.

Anyway, he’s doing samba this week, Len thinks they shouldn’t bother with technique and just come out and shimmy around a bit and Craig says that he thinks Chris will probably get through the dance by virtue of personality alone.

Does anyone still have any of that Cif?

Once that business is over with, Chris actually manages to get all the way through a Party Latin routine. HUZZAH quite frankly. His mouth movements are appropriate to the dance, he’s still really good at working the crowd, and when he does moves, he mostly does them technically half-decently (although he is a little stumbly and behind the beat on occasion). On the downside…there’s quite a few times when he just stands there and Ola throws herself around him like a tetherball in a gale. Also :

that’s wrong

that’s wrong

and that’s VERY WRONG and went much better

in rehearsal. It also looks very much like a lift to me, although apparently because Ola scrapes her little pinky toe along the ground, it isn’t. Lift rules is retarded yo.

The crowd goes schiz, and once Bruce calms them down, Darcey starts for the judges by saying that of all the quarter-finallists he “comes out and sells it” but there wasn’t nearly enough content to that routine, there were a lot of repeats, and Ola is doing most of the work. But she knows he can do it, and she wants to see him in the final. So she wants an Ali vs Chris final right? Thanks Darcey. Len then references Bruno’s comment by saying that if Chris was constipated in the waltz then “he must have had a laxative – lovely and loose and soft”.

When I stop vomitting, he’s in the Tesspit (oh alright, blah blah not quality dancing, blah blah got over-excited in the running promenades, blah blah looking in good shape, blah blah needs more bounce action, blah blah crowd-pleasing, blah blah Phil Tuffnall special

whatever, Len should be fired for that. Fired from life) and he’s saying he did make quite a few mistakes, but Ola’s being all “You was hot out there!” and covering up for him. Bless her little cotton socks. Which are being used to cover her boobs. Scores are in – 39 (/31). Bruno gives it a 7, prompting a torrent of boos, although I think it’s more for breaking the sequence than anything else. Or the crowd are just that into Team Cola. Who can say?

Should He Stay ? : Yes. He’s really going to have to go some next week for me to say he should be in the final though.

Ricky Whittle & Natalie Lowe dancing the cha cha :

Bruce starts by wondering if Ricky might have peaked too soon. They have been saying this exact same thing, every single week, since week 1. They’ve told him he’s going to be Austin Healey, he now IS going to be Austin Healey (eliminated one week before the final, albeit for very different reasons), some hunk will be told next year the cautionary tale of Ricky & Austin and this cycle is going to continue FOERVER. Sigh.

Final visit to the blessed Holodeck now, and Len says that Ricky CAME AHT week 1, and showed he was the one to beat, but then Alesha’s all “oooh, he still hasn’t got a perfect 40 though” as though that’s some sort of thing that everyone should have and not, say, something that only 2 winners of this show have ever got. Bruno highlights his habit of making mistakes, but Len gushes about how “versatile” he is. Save it for your SPORTSMAN slash-fic Len.

As evidence for this, we revisit his Quickstep (amazing) and his salsa

(not amazing), giving Len an opportunity to complain about the backflip all over again and then to segue into more whinging about the lift in the American Smooth , giving Craig an opportunity to chide Len for being churlish (WORD OF THE SERIES!) about it. It’s like a domino effect of tedious hogwash.

Cha cha this week, and Craig says Ricky might struggle because ” as we all know” (conspicuously does not look at Alesha)  cha cha is a “turned out dance”. Len says that cha cha is more difficult than people might think (why would they think that Len? Is it because that, up until now, it’s been basically used a splish splash show for the week 1 celeb boys to make tits out of themselves? Or is it because Lisa Snowdon managed to score 40/40 in it perhaps?) and that you need to be sexy. This prompts a group wine n grine from Alesha and Bruno whilst Len & Craig talk like grown-ups about hip action.

If she comes back next year, can we separate these two please? It’ll have the added effect of rending Len & Craig apart as well. Everybody wins.

They’re dancing to “Sunshine Of Your Love” and there was a lot of speculation this week about how they were doing an Eric Clapton number for their cha cha, and I have to admit, I’m kind of disappointed it’s not “I Shot The Sheriff” with Natalie and Ricky both in costume. Ah well. Overall…it’s a cha cha, so I kind of hate it on principle, but it’s certainly got a high degree of raunch and sex, whilst keeping a reasonable degree of content (although I think it’s clear that far more effort went into the foxtrot, including the dress :

I have never seen such half-hearted fringing in my life. It’s like they spent 10 weeks on Erin’s tango abomination and then threw this together in 5 minutes). There’s a lot of vamping and sensuousness, including this moment were Natalie :

tries to work the audience, and Ricky basically eye-humps the camera, and neither one is particularly interested.

The end features Natalie shoving him away and storming off

which is always a crowd-pleasing move just as the lines are about to open, and then Ricky makes this gesture :

Oh Ricky, don’t be so insecure. I’m sure it’s got nothing to do with that.

Len starts for the judges, yelling “TRICKY RICKY – KING OF THE BALLROOM” and tells him that he’s CAM AHT tonight and produced two really good dances, so he deserves to be in the semi-final next week. Alesha follows up by quacking on about how sexy it was, and how she and Bruno got a bit excited, all whilst Darcey stares off into space wondering if they’ll let her replace Gregg Wallace on Masterchef instead. Tasty food, no end-of-the-pier rubbish, and let’s face it, any idiot can be an “ingredients expert”.

Bruno starts yelling about how SEXY it all was, and how all the ladies in the room are SWEATING (because they were worried Natalie was going to KNIFE-CRIME them (BECAUSE THEY DON’T LOVE HER LIKE I DO!)) and that’s what IS ALL ABOUT. Oh and technical blah blah and hip action. But mostly SEX. Craig finishes by saying it was sexy, masculine and most importantly of all TURNED OUT, causing Ricky & Natalie to leap around like they’ve just won the lottery. Seriously, they should just take that as their glitterball.

In the Tesspit, Natalie gushes that she doesn’t even care about the scores, she’s just glad that Craig commented on Ricky’s feet. Then Tess completely talks over her, so she turns direct to camera and says “we CAN do something about it”, slightly overeager for the public to share in the moment. Tess asks them how it feels to come back roaring after the bad night they had last Saturday, and Ricky repeats that he feels he let everyone down last weekend by not putting his all in, but he really hopes he showed what he can tonight. Bless him that he thinks it makes the tiniest bit of difference at this stage. Scores are in – 47 (/37)

Should He Stay ? : Absolutely, and I love how he overtook Ali to be my favourite the second it became clear how doomed he was.

Phone lines are now open, and everybody cheers, even Brendan who has no reason to care in particular, and Tess reminds us that we have a separate Results Show Tonight! Although I originally watched it without a gap, because I’d been out at the cinema so… doesn’t really do much for me Tess, much like most of what you say.

RECAP! LET’S ALL LAUGH SOME MORE AT LAILA’S SALSA!

We cut back to all the couples lined up in the middle of the floor, where Bruce tells us they’re all off to get drunk for 2 hours, but be sure to come back for the Results, and a very special performance from BETTE MIDLER!

Everyone claps EXCEPT FOR TEAM COLA, WHO ARE CLEARLY THREATENED BY HER PRESENCE ON THE JUDGES PAN…SHOW! HOW RUDE! (Vote Ricky!) and we then close on another “oh noes, what if I am eliminated montage?!”

Chris tells us that he doesn’t want to be eliminated  because when Bruce says his name in the results show Ola squeezes every last drop of air out of his body. Keep your auto-erotic asphyxiation fantasies to yourself pervert. Laila wants to stay in for Anton because “he hasn’t made it this far in a while” (makes sense she starts getting her facts straight just before elimination). Ali has “made an amazing friend in Brian” (a nation waggles its eyebrows) Ricky says this whole journey wouldn’t be the same with another partner (yeah, you might have won, although I wouldn’t have to to see that quickstep so…apples and oranges and Natalie BOOBS quite frankly).

Ahem, time passes, governments fall, some nice young man sings to a polar bear on X Factor, and then we’re back, with Bruce & Tess up on the balcony of Eric Murder,

to introduce yet another recap. Basically it’s a lot of people running around screaming with glee, Laila talking some more about how she mucked up, Ali promising to give a performance she never ever will, and the judges walking around backstage

all X-Factor style, with Darcey wondering if she can just sneak out the back way. There’s no dance-off that wouldn’t be a foregone conclusion right? They don’t even need her. Oh and here’s the

leaderboard again, in case you needed reminding.

Into the next link now, and Bruce accidentally starts reading Tess’ autocue, causing him to say “well I’ll just read anything put in front of me”, at which point Darcey whispers something to Craig in the background. I hope it was something supremely catty. Anyway said next link is into Vincent & Flavia’s annual Argentine Tango demonstration :

prefaced by them dancing around the opening credits for The Apprentice. I so wish Flavia & Vincent were the new Nick & Margaret instead of Nick & Kaen. Vincent’s got form for eyebrow raising and Flavia showed with Craig that she’s got a talent for exasperated face-pulling. Anyway the Argentine Tango is the ULTIMATE DANCE, PEOPLE HAVE DIED etc etc. It’s so odd watching Dancing With The Stars, where it’s just another dance, and not the HOLY GRAIL that it is on this show. I feel like Vincent & Flavia have basically done the equivalent of someone selling passing tourists a time-share in Greenwich. Basically this whole clips package dissolves very quickly into pretty shots of Vincent & Flavia falling all over eachother whilst they whisper :

“Bordello! Passion! Dance of the night! Sweaty gauchos!” like they’re in a cologne commercial. It ends on the following, and I quote :

“To become a great Argentine Tango dancer, you need to know how to love, you need to know how to suffer, and most of anything, you need to know what passion is. THAT…is the Argentine Tango.”

WorraloadofolSHIT. I haven’t laughed that hard since Lisa’s Showdance.

What actually follows after all the dance-speak, is the usual really good Argentine Tango. For me it does start to push slightly too far into the realms of just doing tricks and business for the sake of it

(I mean really, what’s that?), but basically it’s just an excuse for Flavia to be a total :

freakazoid in a 90s music video sort of way, which I always adore. And this :

I always love that no matter how many times I see it.Lots of lifts, lots of violins, unfortunately, no little wooden table and locals drinking cheap plonk, which I think should always be a pre-requisite for Vincent & Flavia’s staging.

Straight to the Tesspit now, where

it’s actually starting to look quite empty, although that might just be because they’ve stopped stuffing it to the gills with evicted pros. Obviously, instead of revelling in the joy of the DAHHHHHHHNCE, Tess is making this all about how terrified the celebs are at having to do that next week. As well they might be, as I guarantee at least one of them is going to crash and burn and make Lisa & Brendan’s can-can of an Argentine Tango look like an all-time classic. Ricky is informed he is the “Comeback Kid” because he was in the dance-off last week and yet top of the leaderboard this week (and then…) and he waffles on some more about how he feels he let everyone down last week. Yawn.

Another pro dance now, and Bruce informs us all that the movies brought dancing to the masses, and MGM studios made its own stars, like Fred Astaire and Giiiiiiiiiiiiiiinge and…wait there’s an AND? THERE ARE OTHER STARS THEN FRED AND GIIIIIIIIINGE? Oh wait, it’s just Frank Sinatra and Judy Garland. So not dancers then really. Would it kill them to mention Cyd Charisse JUST ONCE? Anyway, apparently this leads into :

Erin & Anton’s 1920s fantasy. Maybe this is what Ian had to promise her to make her dance cha cha with him? And oh look it’s Derek Hough. Oh, have I not made enough Dancing With The Stars references already this week? Sorry.

Anyway, it’s an American Smooth, to “Get Happy” and it’s all quite lovverly. There’s kind of an awkward bit where everyone’s

jammed into a corner and I’d be very surprised if Katya didn’t accidentally stamp on an audience member at some point, but overall it’s cute, if a bit unmemorable 5 seconds after it’s finished.

Next Bruce says “next up, a lady who’s no stranger to Hollywood herself. I’m proud to introduce *clap* Bette Midler!” and for one glorious moment I think we might just segue into her performance without any of the silly vaudeville crap that was the hallmark of her visit last year, but no, we have to sit through talk of a new cd, a Royal Variety performance appearance, a “Bruce’s age” joke and then :

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO! I’ve already had to hear about Len’s loose and soft laxiturds, I don’t need Bruce pretending to be a stripper IN THE SAME SHOW.

Or Bette trying to act with what’s left of her original face. GET TO THE SINGING. And then she does. The Rose, for a whole two minutes (TWO MINUTES! Who would have known Bette Midler had the biggest ego of them all. Oh that’s right, everybody) before James & Ola run out and

have a cuddle. Oh and he also does the whole

“and here’s her vagina” thing he did with Kristina. I hope Ola wasn’t jealous.

Frankly The Rose is REALLY dull, and to be honest the only way I’d be interested in Bette Middler is if she was doing “I Put A Spell On You” dressed as my old German teacher, just like she did in Hocus Pocus. All the pro dancers could be dressed as witches – it’d be fun.

RESULTS TIME! And for some reason, Ola is crying :

Maybe someone told her the patent on the “Team Cola” Wii game was denied. First safe are Ali & Brian, leading me to briefly suspect that maybe something truly bizarre has happened, and Cola are dance-off bound, and that Ola has been tipped the wink but…

Oh yeah, sorry, I lied. *shrug*. Anyway, this means that is a Ricky & Natalie vs Laila & Anton showdown and therefore an even bigger foregone conclusion than any other other of all the foregone conclusion dance-offs we could have had this evening. Anton & Laila do their American Smooth a bit better, Ricky & Natalie do their foxtrot about the same, except Natalie gives Ricky’s arse a little squeeze the end, so obviously it’s 10 times better.

Craig first for the judges, and he saves “the most dynamic couple” (in that they moved occasionally) – Ricky & Natalie. Darcey saves Ricky & Natalie also, because they gave “the most perfect performance” and then Alesha finishes it off by saying that, although Laila came out and did better in the dance-off, Ricky gave the best performance of the night so he’s safe. At this point Natalie dares to actually BE HAPPY THAT SHE’S BEEN SAVED THE BITCH-MARE FROM HELL :

(Vote Ali!) I mean she then hugs Laila for so long she actually has to be shoo-ed off the dancefloor but WHATEVER SHE WAS HAPPY BOO!

Laila and Anton wander over to Bruce, and Anton mugs all “WHY COULDN’T THEY HAVE MADE A MISTAKE, THEY’RE JUST TOO GOOD?!” whilst Laila mumbles about what a lovely time she’s had. I can’t say I was ever her biggest fan, but she deserves super mega-bonus points for making it through almost 3 months without EVER bringing her daughter out. To be honest I think I appreciate that more than 70-80% of her dancing. Anyway, they then get onto the soppy bit with Anton saying she never whined or complained, and was always a joy to work with.

He will be making fun of her shit Latin skills the SECOND the next series starts. I guarantee.

Next week – ARGENTINE TANGO! And that other round…the rechoreographing one. Yeah I know.

GAGA!

(And some other people, at some other point, I think)

Olly Murs : There’s a certain syndrome that happens with these shows. You start off liking someone, the public like the same person. It’s sweet, because normally I’m quite at odds with the public vote. But then, either the public like different aspects of the performer than you do, or at least, the producers/performers think they do, because the little tics you don’t like (the god-awful dancing, the misguided belief you have “soul”) get focused on more and more, until the bits you did like are gone, and all you’re left with is a mediocre voice barely honking out “Can You Feel It?” (in this case basically an inuendo in search of a performance) and the (sorry Stevie) awful Stevie Wonder arrangement of “We Can Work It Out” which stomps all over the sweet spot in the song.

Still at least when he got through this week he had the appropriate nellie meltdown, and didn’t pump his fist and yell “CUM’ORRRRRRRRRN!” like a tit. At that moment last week I would have wished anything for one of the mentors to have been Margaret Mountford.

Joe McElderry : Ugh, God “With Open Arms”. The ugly dreadful yang to “Don’t Stop Believin’’s ying. Seriously could Simon be any more obviously in his corner? I can’t really decide if it’s because Simon thinks he’s the best prospect, or if it’s because he’s yomping home in the vote so handily that Simon just wants to look like he’s really smart, which really is the entire point of this show these days. Two more perfectly competent performances from Geordie Joe, although ladled on one after the other the two performances really were too much earnest angst for words. Really, if he wants that career in musical theatre he’s going to have to show a little bit more range and work out how to do a performance without a camera to latch onto like a lion onto a wounded gazelle.

Stacey Solomon : I was so close to getting my ideal reality tv show moment. I honestly thought (for the splittiest of seconds) that when she was put through and didn’t react at all, she might just shrug and go “eh”. And possibly then go on to reveal her “Sally Hawkings In Happy Go Lucky minus 10 IQ point” persona was all just an act.  But no, she was stunned into blankness or something. God bless Dannii for sticking her in a hat and making her do “The Way You Make Me Feel” with a silly dance routine. It was terrifying but at least some effort was made to crowbar out of her ballad box. Of course then she does the big ballad from the West End show like the whole previous performance never happened. And got the plaudits and the applause, even though the last glory note (of a few) was flat as hell. Oh X Factor, never change. Oh that’s right, you won’t. Ever.

Danyl Johnson : You can tell he’s been practicing that exit since he was in the bottom 2 the first time. Credit to him though, he actually came across as fairly humble and a good sport off his own bat, as opposed to every the show has ordered him to be humble and likable, when it’s died on its arse. What was up with that video screen though? If anything did for him, it was that. I can’t believe Simon didn’t want him in the final over Olly, so that seems like it might have been a genuine miscalculation on his part. Sometimes you see these little chinks in the Simon armour, where something he thinks the public will love goes down like a cold bucket of sick. I can’t quite decide if the Whitney performance was a case of the same thing. On the one hand he nailed it, on the other, it was WHITNEY.

Ah well, he’s gone now. Following Lloyd. Not literally, I hasten to add. Obviously.

ACTUAL TWO DANCE STAGE TIME! Well, more realistically, 1.76 dances stage, as the dancers water their routines the hell down in order to ensure that we don’t get a repeat of the Matt Di Angelos. Also, it’s DARCEY BUSSELL TIME, playing the role of “person who has turned up to the party really late, after most people have gone home and most of the people still there are drunk, tired and pissed off with everything and nothing, who doesn’t really know what’s going on, but who will make a perfunctory effort to talk to everyone anyway”.

So those two dances then? Ricky Whittle basically comes out and owns the floor, performing a peerless foxtrot (although the music choice of a song with lyrics that basically goes “we’re really amazing, and flawless and perfect” I’m going to take as self-parody on Natalie’s part) and a cha-cha that’s pretty low on content but high on utter ruddy filth, so I’ll take it, because I hate cha cha anyway. Chris too performs more or less to type, with an adequate waltz, and a mediocre samba dragged up via the medium of him selling it utterly, but then back down again by a finishing lift-come drag that involves him smearing Ola’s tits all over the floor.

Ali provides pretty much the only real surprise of the evening, with her Latin outperforming her Ballroom. And who would have thought that? Sadly it’s ecause her tango is a bit of a mess, with the same multiple personality disorder problem that afflicted her paso doble, but without the excuse of her stubbed toe. By contrast the samba is a display of glorious consistancy, if not sold particularly hard. Watching her do the patented Gethin-Mark “tit-shake” is actively painful, in a “rapping funky granny” sort of way.

Such criticism is churlish (WORD OF THE SERIES!) however in the face of Laila, who produces an underwhelming American Smooth, and then a truly horrific salsa that will live for the ages. It never seems to end, just her side by side with Anton, vaguely waggling her hips, in perpetuity, forever. I think if you pop into the Strictly studio she might still be going, like a hula dancer mid-stroke.

Filler is this week dotted all over the show like gun-shot from a shotgun. We open with a group cha-cha, Erin & Anton pretending they’re in the 1920s (so…no different to every other week then…), Vincent & Flavia doing an Argentine Tango showcase, just like they do every year, and everyone going bat-schiz over it, just like they do every year,  Bruce & Bette Midler bein disgusting all over eachother, and then Bette Midler singing whilst James & Ola have a special cuddle in the middle of the floor.

All that over with, it’s to the dance-off, which is Laila v Ricky, and Laila going home (probably, we never hear from Len or Bruno) unanimously. Rather thankfully, because I think she might actually have had someone’s eye out with her Argentine Tango.

Try to look at least a little bit surprised.

Kelly Osbourne & Louis van Amstel dancing the Argentine Tango, Megamix, Freestyle, and Viennese Waltz :

Good grief, so many dances. So much crying. Kind of an unseemly amount of schadenfreude from me looking at Sharon Osbourne when she didn’t win. What? I never claimed I was perfect. I kind of liked their Argentine Tango. Technically she was a little bit wobbly, but she brought the drama, and I’m so used to Kelly breaking character and beaming all over the shop for absolutely no reason, that I was really buying it towards the end. She was totally outclassed in the Megamix though. Just totally behind everybody else throughot, no matter how much Louis was trying to keep her on track.

But really we all know what we’re here in the final for. The showdance and the story piece. The former being an unholy wreck. I liked how she was styled, I liked that she was enjoying it, apart from that it was sloppy dinners all round. Particularly that finishing move of him basically wiping her boobs on the floor. There must have been more comfortable ways of cleaning up than that. Oh and when she just spilled through his legs. Still, her story dance showed why the American show is so much better than ours is at this sort of thing. Whilst I still don’t get her Viennese Waltz 100%, clearly the show had sold it succesfully as a fairly-tale transformation, which is better than we’ve ever done.

In the end, 3rd was fair enough, if not a mite generous in terms of pure dance skill. She seems to have genuinely enjoyed herself more than anybody else anyway, and in the end that has to count for something.

Mya & Dmitry Chaplin dancing the Paso Doble, Megamix, Freestyle & Jive :

I loved how completely her final contrasted with Kelly’s, and to a lesser extent Donny’s. No tears, no hugging or learning or growing, no eye contact with Dmitry, and willing to play the front-runner, to an almost villainous degree.  You have to admire her a certain extent for her unwillingness to play the game, or alternatively her willingness to play the second place game so on the money. I’m not quite sure about that 40/40 paso to be honest. Maybe it’s just because it was danced to Queen, or the weird wannabe So You Think You Can Dance styling, but it all felt a little flat for a perfect routine. Also I hear it’s a rip-off of Mel B’s. Obviously I cannot possibly comment.

The showdance is obviously where she lost it, in terms of a narrative where Donny didn’t just win for being Donny Osmond. In a way she’s totally right, because Hairspray is too nice, too twee, too slow for her talent. You shouldn’t be dancing to a song called “You Can’t Stop The Beat” at a speed where it looks like that, if you couldn’t stop the beat, you could probably run away from it fairly easily. But on the other hand she was so wrong, because let’s face it, “Vegas” wouldn’t have been much better, and her attempts to speak in the “language of the show” (“make history”) fell flat on their arse. Still I’ll love their jive forever, tramp stripping and all. She didn’t quite sell it as well as she could have, but it’s still one of the best jives I’ve seen on this show, and if the pronstache couldn’t come back, then this was all good with me.

So second then. Good for her. I’ve heard play that ringers like her have struggled to reach their due position before so a victory indeed(on the terms that a victory in this series would always be 2nd if your name wasn’t Donny Osmond) . Certainly satisfying to see her outlast Joanna Krupa, who had to scrape through a mambo marathon again a bunch of septagenarians to come out of this series with a title. 

Donny Osmond & Kym Johnson dancing the Cha Cha, the Megamix, the Freestyle, and the Argentine Tango :

All hail Donny Osmond. I must say it’s been fairly comfortable watching a reality show when you know who’s going to win from the outset. It’s like watching repeats in real time. No worrying, no sturm und drang, no angst. Unless you’re on an Internet messageboard that is, in which case you can pull a drama out of anything. The cha cha was fun for a cha cha actually. I know it wasn’t technically very good, but it’s so rare that I see a cha cha that doesn’t make me want to blow chunks, and this managed to not enrage my gag reflex, although that might just have been the song.

Where it really came together was the showdance though. Or at least the first 20 seconds or so. A gimmick opening like that will cover a multitude of sins and it did, although the sins it was covering (not really finishing moves completely) were fairly minor. So  When it comes to the Argentine Tango I have to admit I still don’t get the whole “OMG DONNY IS SUDDENLY THE SEX!” thing, which I guess mutes its appeal somewhat for me as an ending note. But whatever, 80s paso. If the judges had given that the marks it deserved her would have reprised that, and frankly that’s a great scandal than any overmarking bollocks people might want to brew up over here.

So yes, an Osmond victory, and also a victory for Kym Johnson and her wall-eyed weird amazingness. As an ending it’ll do. I’m still slightly disappointed we got through the whole thing without actually seeing this Dummy Dance of Marie’s that apparently appalled a nation. I WANT TO SEE IT! Ah well, maybe next series…