Alejandro Cazares : I can’t really get a handle on Alejandro’s logic. He wants to start a revolution in the world to make it so that Lady Gaga can be a succesful recording artist and Obama can be President? Isn’t that…this universe? Is he being ironic? How is he going to further this dream by being crap on American Idol? How does this further the Underdog? How many times was he expecting them to put him through based on his erm…”voice”? Why did all the good looking and talented people in the holding bay join in yelling “REVOLUTION!” along with him when it could only be to their detriment? Why was his tongue blue? Why any of this? Weren’t we doing better at not showing nut-nuts this season? When are auditions over?

Baylie Brown: It’s so often the way with this show that a former auditionee returns for a second (/third/fourth) chance and I have absolutely no idea who they are, despite having been a viewer since season four. So it was quite a pleasant surprise when Baylie turned up and I thought “hmm, I know her”. It took a bit of a while to place her, but as soon as they gave me some context, it all came flooding back – season six, paired with Antonella Barba in the group round in Hollywood, forgot her words and sent packing. Sent packing in favour of Antonella Barba, just in case you ever needed a clue towards how the evaluation system on the show needs a bit of a kick up the arse. (Although I feel sorry for Antonella Barba, a little bit. Five years since she was on the show and still used as a human punchline, and I bet she hasn’t flashed a statue in months or anything.) Anyway, it was good to see her back, having taken a bit of time to gain some experience and maturity, and actually sounding pretty good. I don’t know if she’ll fare any better this time around, but I hope so.

Julie Schuman: There’s not an awful lot to say about this lady, other than the fact that she was wearing shiny silver trousers and running around the room screeching like a banshee. She was, however, described in the caption as a “dancer/nutritionist”, which amused me immensely. I’m generally a bit wary of nutritionists as a species ever since reading Bad Science/being exposed to Gillian McKeith at any point, but I love the idea that this is how she earns her money when she’s not dancing/auditioning for this show. Frankly, if more nutritionists spent more time dancing, the world might be a better place. But let’s just hope that doesn’t give McKeith any funny ideas.

Linda Williams: One of my chief annoyances on this show of late is the general rudeness of the judges – the way they frequently chat amongst themselves while the contestants are singing, without bothering to lower their voices, and often openly mocking the people in front of them. I’m still not saying it’s excusable, but after tonight I did find myself wondering what the wider context for some of those moments might have been. Because J-Lo’s “SERIOUSLY? You’re putting HER through?!?!” reaction was phenomenally rude, but having come after we’d just seen Steven and Randy repeatedly turning away people who seemed perfectly decent, only for them to develop an unexpected love for Linda’s wheezy-ass performance. I feel bad for Linda, of course, because I doubt she realised quite what she’d done to earn the sheer HATRED simmering out of J-Lo in her general direction, but she seemed relatively unfazed by it. So if she can just sort out her singing before the next round, there might be hope for this one yet.

Phong Vu: Have we got to the point where we can definitively say that every East Asian nation has its own William Hung now? I think we have.

Skylar Laine: One of the things I like about So You Think You Can Dance USA is that at some point in Series 5, Nigel was mildly homophobic (the usual “you’re too feminine, you scare straight men away from dance BLAH BLAH BLAH” nonsense) and the audience called him out on it and he apologised. This show on the other hand still feels comfortable doing things like a lengthy “TEXAS! LAND OF REAL MEN!” promo followed by a HILARIOUS fag-montage. Sadly. All culminating in this, Skylar Laine, more man than they’ll ever be with their mohawks and flouncing. She SHOOTS THINGS! She SLEEPS INSIDE A DEAR CORPSE! SHE VOTED FOR MCCAIN! TWICE! Heaven knows how well this will go down if she makes the live shows. Well, probably. Still her voice was nice, which is more than you can say about most of the other 7000 people who have been put through to Hollywood so far. So, like I said, when are auditions over again?

Ali Shields: I mostly love Ali Shields because she’s the sort of amazing fake-dork girl you get on US teen shows, who is clearly FAR too attractive ever to be that socially awkward, but the needs of tv must, so here we are, with a girl throwing bashful eyes over whether her first ever kiss was with Mike Posner or Usher. As part of a gig she accidentally landed on The Ellen Show (My own personal choice of the two would be Usher, although I would establish first that Death was definitely not an option). And then she was on American Idol, DOING A RAP AND A WANNABE GHETTO DANCE. You can keep your Magic Cyclops and your Norman Gentles, this is the only flavour of acted-out nonsense I need on American Idol in my life.

Angie Ziederman: Ra-ra-ah-ah-ah. Ra-ma-ah-ah-ah. Ga-ga-ooh-la-la-la. Want your guaranteed Idol screen time. I know that watered-down versions of already famous people has been Idol’s stock-in-trade for quite some time now, but is some overdone eye make-up and a zany print on your dress enough to pass yourself off as the next Lady Gaga? Apparently, yes. Perhaps the most surprising note in all of this was that despite her clear intention to be as ZANY as possible, there was the hint of a good voice underneath all the schtick. One that needs controlling, but it’s there. So yeah, I’m glad she got through, but girlfriend is going to need to CALM THE FUCK DOWN.

Ashley Robles: I know that I’m not a regular poster on Monkseal, but I believe that even having temporary posting privileges here allows me to invoke BABY WARS! It’s an impressive early strike from single mum Ashley, whose daughter was positively adorable – just the right amount of precociousness to be cute without being irritating. I kind of hope Seacrest was babysitting while Ashley was auditioning, because that’s a spinoff waiting to happen. Ashley herself? Was all right, decent-voice, sang Whitney with all the Whitney affectations of the original. She’s going to need to learn some tricks of her own.

Aubree Dieckmeyer: I’m so pleased to be writing about Aubree Dickmuncher on The Bitch Factor. [Pause.] WHOOPS I MEAN MONKSEAL, HA HA HA HA HA. There are probably varied responses to Aubree and whether you thought her accidentally saying “America’s Next Top Model” instead of “American Idol” (REPEATEDLY) was amusing or contrived, but I have to say, I really warmed to her. I liked her voice too – she has the potential to be tweeriffic, but then I rooted for Brooke White in season seven so twee is not necessarily a problem for me.

Haley Smith: The girl next door. I mean, the ACTUAL girl next door, not the sort of girl next door you might get in a Hollywood movie. The girl who’s kind of socially awkward, hides behind her hair, and was notorious for about five weeks at school when she accidentally called her English teacher “Daddy”. Anyway, this one’s a meat packer (lolz) and has a nice, sort of quirky voice, if a bit spitty. She also needs an Idol stylist makeover more than anyone else has ever needed one.

Jane Carrey: So yeah, Jane Carrey is the daughter of Jim Carrey. She may have mentioned this/flashed up a video of it/played his voice directly to camera over the phone once or twice. Or possibly more, I lost count after the first time. I guess, what with the rise of Zelda Williams, being the daughter of an 80s/90s comedy superstar is very in now, but it might be best for her to carve out a personality of her own, at some point. Especially as all Jim really has to offer culture at this point is Mr Popper’s Penguins and rambling on about vaccinations. That phone message sounded disconcertingly…Hasselhoffy. Like it was being dictated face-down in a cheesburger. Basically I’m saying that Jane Carrey should flee her father’s legend, not embrace it, because she will almost certainly end up subsumed. More hilarious “I was TWO YEARS OLD, J-LO, why the fuck are you expecting me to remember you, you narcisstic basket-case” dissing please, less riding off of dad’s name and face and voice.

Jayrah Gibson: There was something simultaneously very 80s and very 90s about Jayrah Gibson. In style he was really the same old same old speak-singing soulful crooner 90s vibe, crawling all over J-Lo and her (*ugh*) “moneymaker” like a rash and playing up his back-burner singer-songwriter abilities. But jeez, that coke-ramble about plan As and plan Bs and there being no fall back if you want to be a star and mediocrity is for LOSERS and he will be the American Idol or he will kill all his family to hide the shame, or whatever the fudge he was rambling on about was American Psycho writ large. I don’t know how much further he’ll get, because his already under-nourished Idol niche has apparently been undercut by LA Reid on X Factor USA, but I’m sure it’ll be enjoyable.

Jenni Schick: I love how she approached her audition like she was gearing up to take a run at a game on Takeshi’s Castle, all breathless excitement and jogging on the spot and shout-out gestures to camera. Other than that she was moslty notable for her list. Her list of all the people she’s allowed to kiss (LOL, so tame) without it being considered cheating. This list mostly told me that her boyfriend is no-fooling gay (two men and Lady Gaga?!) and also that Seacrest’s gay-panic is so over-developed at this point that he refuses to even kiss the girlfriend of a (presumed) gay lest it somehow reach the tabloids via some sort of daisy chain effect. Oh Seacrest, you just get wierder and wierder.

Shelby Tweten: She has a very tragic backstory of some sort, but I couldn’t really be arsed to pay attention. Sorry. She sang a song by Carrie Dunderhead that I didn’t really know, but recognised as a Dunderhead song instantly because it just had those sort of homespun, trite, simplistic, incredibly on-the-nose lyrics that all of her songs have. I didn’t think Shelby was that great, to be honest, but I also don’t think we’re losing her any time soon.

Wolf: I guess the recession hit American Gladiators hard. Who would have thought one of their mighty number would wind up working on a golf course and trying to make it on American Idol singing Johnny Cash? To be fair, we only have his world for it that his friends call him “Wolf”. It seems equally likely that they might call him “Elvis Gnome” given his physical appearance, but I guess he seems like an honest enough sort. And he managed to break through Ryan’s gay panic and sneak a kiss. Maybe Ryan was over-excited at the thought of a git-fiddle, who can say? That’s probably how he got the job with Sim…[JOKE REDACTED FOR LEGAL REASONS]

a) If someone wins The Apprentice because they’ve got a magic nail file again, I will KICK OFF.
b) I can’t help but feeling that a large part of what made Andrew Lord Eyebags shows endearing is going to be lost in the translation to ITV (by which I mostly mean “Graham Norton”)
c) The Voice looks like it could be the most boring and self-righteous reality show of all time.
d) That could count either way in how much fun it’d be to recap to be honest.
e) I would rather slice open my eyeballs with lemon-drenched razors than try to get screencaps off ITV Player, so the Lord Eyebags Show MAY end up being text-only if I recap it.

Chico & Jodeyne Higgins : And so, the Chico Silmani Self-Help bandwagon rolls on for another week. Fresh from the giddy high of receiving the first praise he’s ever got for anything ever in his entire life ever last week, he’s already come on leaps and bounds, and now is ready to show the world that’s there’s more to him than just “Chico Time”. I mean I knew that already, because I remember this, and how all eating disorders IMMEDIATELY DISAPPEARED afterwards but, you know, the public are fickle and have probably even forgotten how Chico is only bettered globally in the field of celebrity air-hostessing by Lisa Maffia and Amy Lame. As such he’ll just have to show us all his multi-faceted personality via the medium of ice-dance on ice. This week? LIP-SYNCING TO A POP CLASSIC WHILST DRESSED IN OUTLANDISH COSTUMES. Now let’s face it, this is a side of him we never got to see on X Factor ever. In other news, forcing Jodeyne into a US army uniform to perform Top Gun only makes the fact that this show is her ‘Nam more apparent. Next series, when she’s partnered with Arg from TOWIE and starts shivering and muttering about Charlie, don’t say I didn’t warn you. In further news…”Chicotito” *shakes head*

Rosemary Conley & Mark Hanretty: Only on this show would “going up a gear” be best achieved by skating to “Wind Beneath My Wings”. What fucking gear was she in before? Because it can’t have been reverse, because that would be…well impressive, because most of these people can’t skate forwards, let alone backwards. But still, the lie was committed to, and Rosemary BUSTED OUT ALL OVER (in Gubba’s dreams, the weird old perv) to Bette Midler. I like to think that in her head she was singing it to Mr Motivator. Or Fred The Weatherman. Or…I dunno, Denise. All her This Morning family who have definitely shown up to support her thus far because she was SO WELL LOVED. Anyway, Rosemary skated to the theme tune to Beaches, and didn’t die of viral cardiomyopathy on the way round, although there were points, especially in the lifts, where it looked like she was giving it a damn good go. And in the end, it was not enough for the judges, who commanded her to, no, really, LET GO AND GO WILD next week. I wonder which song will accompany this BURST OF ENERGY? Video Games? No Surprises? Last Night I Dreamed That Somebody Loved Me? In other news : she did a woopsie in training. That’s age for you. In other news : Chris and Jayne still hate her.

SAMANDMARK & Alexandra Schulman: To be honest I don’t really want to watch this routine again, or even think about it. I just want to watch Katarina pretending to be a cuddly kung-fu panda, wafting around vaguely and hypnotically, forever. This isn’t JUST because I was hoping the costumes that he and Alexandra were wearing made me hope for The Karate Kid, and hence Joe Esposito. There’s not enough Joe Esposito on these shows, that’s what I’ve always thought. You’d think he’d be a natural fit for the ITV1 audience. I could just about have accepted a routine to Kung Fu Panda if he had in fact been dressed as an actual panda but as it was, even with Alexandra over-acting the BEJESUS out of it, I was left unmoved. I don’t know why nobody noticed that, bad-ass backflip aside he looked like he fully expected to fall over the entire way round is beyond me, but I guess Louie was too busy demonstrating his preferred fisting technique to us all to bring it up. (What? Fisting is another word for punching!)

Chemmy Allcott & Sean Rice: I really have held off from whinging about the film-choices for as long as I can, but who the wiggins associates Rescue Me with Sister Act? My Guy, yes. I Will Follow Him, yes. Maybe even Heat Wave. But Rescue Me? Eh. I mean, I appreciate the effort to get Chemmy to perform as a stripping ice-skating nun (and yes, she was right, it was better in the habit) but…no. Anyway, the story of Chemmy this week was her over-reaching herself utterly, committing herself to a lift that there was no way on Earth she could do, then awkwardly flopping around on Sean’s shoulder like a cross between Big-Mouth Billy Bass and someone awkwardly failing at planking. Then getting weirdly defensive and “WELL AT LEAST I TRIED! AT LEAST I WAS BRAVE AND PUSHED MYSELF!” about it. Yes you did Chemmy, and it sucked. The lesson here being “never try”. Fortunately for Chemmy, it sounded a bit like Katarina called her fat, or something, or at least you could interpret it that way if you wanted to be outraged, so she escaped the bottom two. Hopefully next week she gets choreography without quite so many things she can’t actually do in it. In other news : I’ve never seen anyone trolling harder to be on TV Burp than Phillip when he said “DID YOU HAVE TROUBLE GETTING IT UP?!?!??!” or whatever to Sean Rice. Such a try-hard and the show’s not even airing currently.

Corey Feldman & THE THING & Brooke Castille: Does anyone have a clue what’s going on with Corey and this show? To summarise, he did a routine themed around Stand By Me, a film he was in so…should theoretically have somewhat accurate memories of, talked a lot about dead people he knew, then spent the whole routine doing Michael Jackson dance moves, with giant train-tracks in the background, suggesting some sort of weird time travel revisionist version of the film wherein the corpse by the tracks is in fact the King Of Pop. “Why?” is a question you would ask yourself, unless you were Corey, who clearly has never asked “why?” in his life, the primary evidence for which fact being THAT THING sat on his forehead. I feel sorry for Brooke, genuinely and sincerely, because the level of high-maintenance queenery displayed by Corey in that TITANIC STROP he threw after the judges scores came in is not anything any human being should deal with, especially with Brooke’s high levels of natural positivity. And in fairness, she didn’t – she just dumped him on Pixie-Witch Frankie to deal with. Attagirl. I like to think Frankie One-Name was dripping poison in his ear, making him one of her flying monkeys.

Jennifer Ellison & Daniel Whiston: I have to give props to Jennifer Ellison, because it takes balls to try to steal the limelight with THAT LEVEL of injury porn going on. I half expected her to skate out in a full body cast. That’ll teach Daniel Whiston to ever think HE was the star of this partnership. I kind of wish Daniel had insisted on a last-minute lyric change so they would be skating to the song “WHISTON!” from the movie Dreamgirls. And then dressed Fred Haversack up in a fat suit as Effie White for a ONE NIGHT ONLY (LOL, DO YOU SEE?) cameo. The routine? Was fine, and made good use of quite elegant skating and emotive choreography to hide the fact that she was in near-crippling tear-inducing pain throughout. And quite right too. As Chris and Jayne pointed out, if they didn’t puncture a lung on a fractured rib, then they just weren’t SKATING HARD ENOUGH.

MARKANDSAM & Frankie: Oh good, a Blues Brothers routine. I haven’t seen enough of these from inept male contestants on reality shows in my life time. John Belushi would be turning in his grave if he could build up the friction. I do like that Frankie decided to try to avert the Belushi-Wrath by turning up as an anorexic Roy Orbison. I love that there was so little to this routine (although…it’s hardly alone in being content light this week let’s face it…) that Katarina decided to take offence ON BEHALF OF ICE for how little was going on. I guess they feel they’ve got to take cues from Strictly given that it is now a RATINGS JUGGERNAUT THAT DESTROYED X FACTOR (/beat it by a bit, like, twice?) but at least when they faff around at the beginning of routines on that show they are notionally on the same type of surface that they’re supposed to be performing on throughout. This week was just a bit like Strictly decided to start a routine with one of the contestants splashing around in a kid’s paddling pool. (And who knows, maybe Russell would have done that, given another week?). Anyway, this routine, in the best tradition of all rubbish contrived reality tv feuds, saw the end of the BATTLE OF SAMANDMARK VS MARKANDSAM, as MARKANDSAM went home. Sigh. I’ll remember them…well, mostly like this, but also a bit from this show. Maybe? (LOL at Caroline Flack getting RIGHT in there, the demented pervert).

Jorgie Porter & Matt Evers’ Arse: Hands up everyone who had “with a sexy secretary” as Matt Evers’ Ultimate Dancing On Ice Fantasy Routine? Yeah, hands down, you’re lying. For the record, I’m sort of a secretary, in that I work in administration in my very real life outside of this blog which definitely exists, so I would just like to have on record that I am free for any and all future routine with Matt Evers ON ICE, performing his fantasies. AHEM. That said, Jorgie continued her glorious reign as undisputed “Best Girl At Skating And Thing” this week, although let’s be honest, it’d be really hard to find more than about 5 words to say about any of the actual routines this week. I’ll defer to Gubba for this one : “Jorgie has unusually long fingers. Casanova had long fingers as well. Maybe it’s no coincidence as well that her soap character is always chasing the opposite sex”. (DOES THIS MAN REALISE THAT HIS MICROPHONE IS ON? EVER? AT ALL?) Personally I enjoyed the part of 9 To 5 where Dolly Parton did the doggy paddle at a typewriter, I definitely did. Well done on recreating it, Jorgie.

Matthew Wolfenden & Nina Ulanova: Dear Robin : if you’re having trouble telling who is the celebrity and who is the professional (and with the calibre of participants…you could forgive him), I’d suggest that the pro ice-skater is probably the one shouting “I AM MORE AFRAID OF MICROPHONE THAN OF ICE SKATE YES? *wink wink*”. I mean I wish I lived in a world where celebrities communicated like that, but we’re not quite there yet. Sadly, this is still Earth. Anyway, Movies Week rattled on through its leading male contender with an obligatory routine based on the disco end of John Travolta’s career. Hence a lot of sexy disco moves and an ill-fitting white suit and lots of pointing. And the odd SIDEWALK SLAM in training. Poor Nina. If she could communicate more accurately in English then maybe she could have had a lengthy VT full of tears and soulful gazing and…I dunno…a single wilted rose in a backlit vase or something. As it was we just got to watch her hip-bone hammered like a gong repeatedly. Poor Nina. In other news : HD is not kind to the whole nest of crows feet that live under Matthew’s eyes. I know he’s dedicated to the show, but SLEEP IS NECESSARY, no matter what Dean says.

Charlene Tilton & BEAVER TEETH And there you were thinking that Alexandra was going to be the most offensive pantomime of Oriental womanhood this evening. Although to fair them pulling at the sides of Charlene’s face til the Hollywood legend she resembled wasn’t so much Marilyn Monroe as Mickey Rooney in Breakfast At Tiffany’s was probably accidental. Still, it was all another excuse for Beaver Teeth to play Big Gay Hollywood Dress-Up, and really, isn’t that what every week in their JOURNEY ON ICE is going to be about? To think that she almost got away with that almost utterly content-free skate as well, but bless Charlene if the first words out of her mouth once she was off the ice weren’t something like “LOL, THANKS JAYNE FOR TAKING OUT ALL THE ACTUAL CHOREOGRAPHY LIKE I ASKED YOU TO!”. Such a lack of artifice. I feel a bit sorry for her that she was in the Bottom Two, but soap blondes have trouble enough getting votes on these shows when the soap they’re in aired this millennium so…it’s hardly a surprise.

Sebastien Foucault & Brioche Delcourt: I remember spending most of last series thinking that Sam and Brioche hated one another, and…it’s kind of hard to escape that impression again this year. Maybe it’s just Brioche. Maybe that’s how she relates to other human beings. Whatever it is, the lovely frostiness between the pair of them, combined with Christopher Dean’s “avant-garde” choreography and their EVIL FOREIGN-NESS are turning the pair of them into the perfect series villains for me at this point. But I swear, have you seen anything more pretentious than this routine EVER on this show? And this is a show about ICE-DANCE I’ll remind you. The wibbly-wobbly music, the “cult classic” film, those tits running around in the background with masks on. All it needed was a giant projection of a crying clown shone out onto the ice and it would have been perfection. I think my favourite part of the whole awkwardness of this segment was Louie blatantly not realising that Sebastien is a proper actor nowadays, or at least considers himself one, and giving him the full “I KNOW YOU’RE NOT AN ACTOR BUT…” patronising treatment. Marvellous.

Andy Whyment & Vicky Ogden: Fucking hell, I hate Grease.

Heidi Range & Andrei Lipanov: And so we closed with the obligatory James Bond themed routine. It wouldn’t be “Movie Night” without one. Well, it would on Strictly, but they’re generally much better at doing interesting movie picks rather than the same old shit over and over and OVER again. This is why Movie Week is always the best week in Strictly nowadays, whereas this was…not the best week of this series. And there’s only been three of them. One of which had Laila Morse in. All I really remember of this routine other than it was…you know BETTER, and also for how amazing she looked in that gold, and also how I’d like to be able to blame Amelle for the death of the Sugababes in PEACE TWITTER, I DON’T CARE IF SHE SEEMS LIKE A NICE ENOUGH GIRL, is, of course, the attendant hilarity of when Heidi said that Andrei made her give him a blowy or something giggle giggle. Oh Dancing On Ice. Stay classy. Forever classy.

Creighton Fraker: I’ve made some poor first impressions in my time – I’ve been late for job interviews, I’ve referred to myself by the wrong name by accident, I’ve even annoyed a friend of a friend in a pub so much that he set me a secret “are you a wanker” test, which I failed – and yet even with all that behind me, I think I’d struggle to make such a poor impression as a person who turns up to an American Idol audition with a song he wrote on the way. About American Idol. In which he refers to Steven Tyler and Jennifer Lopez as “the new two”. He would have been dismissed on the spot for that, if it were down to me. Just to make things even worse, we were subjected to a VT in which he talked about how hard it was to be a starving artist in New York, while wearing a bunny-ears headband. And then he sang another song in the manner of a man desperate to urinate. Seriously, I do not need any of this in my life. So of course the damn judges put him through.

Eben Franckewitz: The desire of reality shows to find the “new Bieber” is growing ever more desperate isn’t it? If Eben Franckewitz resembles any celebrity child-star it’s the kid from Two And A Half Men, but NO. How many records could the kid from Two And A Half Men shift? NONE. Let’s pretend this male child resembles Justin Bieber, simply because he’s a male child. Let’s pretend that everyone walking down the street stops him and comments on his resemblance to Bieber. Let’s have all the judges go on about it. Let’s play “Baby” as loud as we can, over the top of EVERYTHING. God willing, Bieber won’t be famous by the time the live shows come around (because let’s face it…his time is coming) and they’ll have to phase-shift into whoever the new big Disney kid is to style him after. Hopefully it’ll be a girl. I’m sure his very supportive mum would still be very supportive then.

Erika Van Pelt: Erika is a mobile DJ. A mobile DJ is a DJ that plays at many different venues and travels around in a van. You might think this was fairly self-explanatory, but apparently Erika did not, for she explained her profession in minute detail just to clear up any confusion. Oh, and she’s also a wedding singer. Which I guess is how we’re officially marking the Idol era of After Simon now, where a wedding singer can come in and audition and not have her entire existence questioned. Anyway, Erika came and sang for us, and was charming but a bit obvious. She oversang her way through ‘Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?’, but she got through, because the bar has been set very low indeed in Pittsburgh.

Hallie Day: What an inspiring story. Of all the things a man can give a woman, truly Hallie Day’s husband gave her the greatest of all. The ability to call herself “Hallie Day”. Second being “mental stability”. Third being pancakes. As is usually the case with these expansive back-stories it probably would have turned out better if her singing at the end wasn’t kind of…shouty. Also, not take away anything from her right to tell her life story how she chooses but “I Will Survive”? Really? Still, good for her for pulling her life together, and I hope she doesn’t take her coming Vegas Week rejection too hard.

Heejun Han: Given the amount of my life that’s been spent on watching reality shows, you’d think I’d be better at doing it by now. But when this guy came on and was really socially awkward and talked about how generally average he thought he was, I just assumed: trainwreck. Then his family came in and talked about how they’d never heard him sing, and I thought: trainwreck, with a slim possibility that he might be all right. Then he opened his mouth and sang, and turned out to be…really surprisingly good. He sang a bit like he was passing a kidney stone, but then it was Michael Bolton – is there really any other way to sing him? And then he went off to be super-weird again outside. I like him. He’s endearing weird rather than weird-weird. For now, anyway.

Reed Grimm: I have to say, if we’re still going to do the whole “let’s redeem popular culture by making a white man sing it slowly with a guitar” thing, I’m much happier with contestants raiding tv theme tunes than pop music. Who knows where he could go next? I’m hoping maybe for Friends, Frasier, or maybe The Muppet Babies.

Travis Oliver: If you’re going to sing ‘Isn’t She Lovely’ as your audition piece, you really need to be prepared to do something AMAZING with it, because it’s kind of an overdone song at this point. Travis didn’t do that – he just sang a very generic version, in a very generic nice-guy sort of way. I was prepared to write him off entirely at that point, but then he had an epic meltdown about how he DROPPED OUT OF SCHOOL FOR THIS (oh child, no. That sort of thing is not to be encouraged) and then – amazingly – his sob story evolved into “my mother – what a bitch, eh?”, which sort of won me over. I don’t care about him as a performer at all, but I would welcome further development on his tragic childhood.

Samantha Novacek: This edition of American Idol really was basically a Hipster Special wasn’t it? To be fair, most of them seem to have oozed sideways out of New York, but the home grown WACKY FUNSTERS still provided some reliable work-out of the eyeballs (THROUGH ROLLING THEM, AM I RITE?) with an accolyte of planking, who lay motionless, rigid and insensate on the floor whilst her sister performed. To be fair, that was my response to more or less every Andrew Garcia performance as well.

Amy Brumfield: Hello, I’m Chris, aka Monkseal. I write this blog on a regular basis and as usual I will be joined on my ever-lengthening voyage into American Idol by Idol expert and blog-boyfriend Steven. Expert in that he’s watched two seasons more than me and knows where to find Camille Valasco butchering “Goodbye Hello Brick Road” on youtube and everything. Me? I just date back to the heady days of Blake Lewis going BEEP BEEP BOOP and crushing my beloved Moomin Mindy Doo and leaving me in no doubt what this show was about. Which I’m pretty is not a woman living in a tent in the woods and calling herself a Mipsy or whatever cutesy sub New Girl designation she wanted to give herself. Mostly I’m amused by the use of Angeles to soundtrack her American Idol journey. It being a song about abandoning your sense of self to make it in Hollywood. More specifically the lyric comparing wannabe stars to slaughtered kills dragged in from the hunt. I hope this is Nigel having a sense of humour about himself, but also I kind of equally hope it isn’t.

David Leathers Jr: First audition of the series! Which in any series of So You Think You Can Dance (Nigel’s other baby) would mean something, but the first audition last series was Rachel Zevita, so I think we can officially say that it means nothing. David Leathers Jr is a 17 year old that…would actually look like a 17 year old if he didn’t spend most of his time acting like a 12 year old. I guess Justin Bieber fans would call it good old fashioned manners or something, and Jedward fans would probably mark it as disturbing maturity, but this was such a pitch-perfect impersonation of a 12 year old kid acting adorably like a “playah” I wonder if David Leathers Jr should just try to stump up the cash for “Smart Guy : The Next Generation” rather than trying much further with this singing lark. On the other hand he did beat Scotty McCreary in some sort of competition (a door locking and turning dem lights down low competition?) so maybe there’s hope for him yet….

THE DIXONS: Was there anyone alive watching this NOT feeling second-hand embarrassment for Schyler Dixon? She turned up, ostensibly to audition on behalf of her own dreams, only to find herself brutally cut down, in a way that wasn’t even subtle, to act as fuel for her brother’s journey, now stretching into its second season of vaguely effeminate religious fundementalism. The haste with which J-Lo effing YELLED “OK NOW COLTON SINGS!” before her audition had even finished was frankly unseemly. Then she was left, booted to the sidelines, to twist in the wind looking malevolant, as the show welcomes her to the world of being Shyamali Malakar. How much is Colton going to cry when she gets cut? A LOT, I’m guessing.

Erica Nowak: Hello. I’m Steve, I’m the one who writes in italics. I really liked this girl, actually. I mean, she was never going to get through, but there was something very endearing about her – she set out to get on camera by being trashy in an inoffensive sort of way (and declaring your plan to divorce Steven Tyler later in life is about the best possible way to do that). Since the voices are mostly kind of blah at this stage, personality is pretty much all I have to go on, and I liked hers. Regrettably, she wasn’t up to the singing side of things, and her strangely cod-attempt at Joss Stone (wimping out on any difficult notes) was unmoving. I mean, find someone better to impersonate, if that’s the road you want to go down. I find the idea of someone wanting to be a bargain-basement version of Joss Stone even weirder than someone wanting to be a bargain-basement version of Ryan Seacrest.

Gabi Carruba: I try not to form attachments so early in the season, since it’s usually a fair assumption that most of the people who get a lot of screentime at this point will be dispatched fairly quickly in the Hollywood round. Having said that, I love this girl. I love that her first instinct on entering the audition room was to basically ignore the panel and ask if she could hug Nigel. I’d totally want to hug Nigel in that situation, and you would too, admit it. Not only that, but she has kind of a creepy and weird obsession with Ryan Seacrest. Gabi Carruba is basically me, if I were a teenage girl with a moderate level of singing ability. I know even without looking for spoilers that she’s going to get lost in the shuffle somewhere between now and Top 24 (or whatever number it is this year), but I’m glad I got to see her all the same.

Mauwena Kodjo: Sigh. Neither Chris nor I really wanted to write this one, but both of us felt we couldn’t really ignore it either, so in the end I volunteered to take the bullet. This was definitely a lowpoint in the long, long opening show, in which American Idol decided that FOREIGNERS ARE FUNNY once again and demonstrated this by subtitling a man who spoke perfectly good English and paraded him around Savannah going “LOOK! LOOK AT THE FUNNY MAN! HE IS NOT LIKE US, IS THAT NOT HILARIOUS?” Gross gross gross. Stop that, American Idol. Stop it right now.

Phillip Phillips: Hurr hurr hurr. He’s pretty. I can’t work out if he’s our Heir Apparant White Guy With Guitar, or just there to prove that it’s not an automatic win, but for now, I’m just going to enjoy looking at him. Listening to him? Not so much. Superstition was written with a melody for a REASON, yes it was.

Shannon Magrane: In many ways this was a very, very, very bog-standard American Idol audition. Daughter of a minor sports star, very pretty, decent voice, strong family presence, mildly embarrassing mother, will probably disappear without trace somewhere around Groups Night in Hollywood Week. But what was notably about it is it marks the point where Steven Tyler lept the fence and became the wacky foreign neighbour in a 1980s US sitcom. Who on earth tells a man that his daughter is “humid”? As a compliment. Oh Steven Tyler. May the auditions provide many more moments of exciting madness before the Live Shows render you useless again.

Shaun Kraisman: Okay, so you know how earlier I mentioned it would be weird for someone to want to be a bargain-basement Ryan Seacrest? Well, that’s the sole purpose of this guy. He was on the show solely to demonstrate that he did a moderately-good Ryan Seacrest impression and to tell us that people think he looks like Ryan, largely due to his haircut – a haircut that Seacrest hasn’t had for about four years because he’s far too old for it these days, but it’s not like that stopped everyone being all “OH MY GOD IT’S LIKE THERE’S TWO OF YOU!” Obviously he went through with the rigmarole of singing for the judges and got rejected by them, having served his purpose. Still, he was cute (for a cheap knockoff of Ryan Seacrest), and given the rumours about Ryan possibly not coming back next season, it’s nice to know we’ve got a spare lying around for emergencies. Also, his very existence gave Chris the wiggins, and that’s always fun.

Stephanie Renae: It bodes poorly that she’s the only real “singer” of the group of auditionees that I chose to write about, and yet I can barely remember anything about her. She’s pretty, in a bland sort of way (a bit like a less impressive version of Haley from One Tree Hill), and has been watching this show since she was a foetus and basically dreams of being Carrie Underwood, as I imagine young wholesome blonde girls across America do on a daily basis. Vocally, she needs a bit of tuning training and was kind of nasally up in her nasal, but it’s nothing that can’t be knocked out of her by the vocal coaches in a couple of weeks of intensive training, I would’ve thought. Wouldn’t be surprised to see her on the live shows at all, and probably getting quite far before getting booted midway for being a bit dull, bless her.

Jennifer Ellison & Daniel Whiston : I know people claim that Dancing On Ice foregrounds the professional partners to a much lesser degree than Strictly Come Dancing, but seriously, did any celebrity on either show feel quite so much like a spare part to their entire segment than Jennifer Ellison this week? You could barely see her around British Gold Medallist Daniel Whiston. I mean what was there? The generic “West End Star” intro (ie “she was in Chicago for a bit”) and a fleeting reference to how she won Hell’s Kitchen (what an achievement, given that half the cast quit. Sodding Eggwina made fourth place), but otherwise? All Whiston, all the time. How he was going to be the first pro to win the show three times, his vague giggly embarrassment over that gynecological lift, and most important of all, INJURY PORN. And not classy softcare Injury Porn like Artem crying softly over a discarded shoe whilst clutching his shoulder. Oh no, this was full on, hard-core, legs in the air, bottom deftly probed by a skilled professional Injury Porn. I have no idea how this aired before the watershed any more than Lara Pulver skitting around naked on Sherlock Holmes whilst buggering Lastrade with a deodorant can did (or whatever happened in that episode of Sherlock, I don’t even know any more, I just know that it killed feminism). Anyway, Jennifer is here, she’s…alright I suppose, she’ll be around for a while, and about all the enjoyment I got out of this was Gubba mangling the name of an Andrews Sisters song worse than he mangles even everything ice-skating related. If you slow down the tape, you can hear he actually does say “dancing to By Meer Blah de Blah Foreign”.

SAMANDMARK & Alexandra Schulman : Speaking of footage manipulation, if you play SAMANDMARK’S section from this week’s show backwards, you will both hear and see MARKANDSAM’s section from last week. I don’t think two contestants on anything have been more joined at the hip than these two, not even any of the sets of twins that have done Big Brother. Given that next week is Movie Week, I hope that they both dedicate their skates to Rashomon and perform on the ice at the same time. Then we get to see the routine twice, each from a different perspective. Because their personalities are distinct enough to warrant it. I’d speculate as to which of them was supposed to be “the straight man”, but then SAMANDMARK announced that the forfeit for the loser of the two in the overall competition was that the winner got to “rub it in their faces” and it’s fairly obvious that the answer is “neither of them” (and nobody who watched TMI will be surprised by this turn of events). Anyway, at least we now know that SAMANDMARK is the one who is better at skating, but given that Mark is a) the one partnered with the pro that I actually care about, b) representing MIDLANDS PRIDE and c) fitter, it’s fairly obvious where my vote is going. You know. Of the two. If I was forced to. Mostly I spent their routine remembering Jade Johnson & Ian Waite, but that’s true of every routine on this and any other series, even the ones before Jade Johnson & Ian Waite existed.

Rosemary Conley & Mark Hanretty : The thing I liked most about Rosemary Conley’s segment is just how obvious it was that she’d presented herself to the show as some sort of WRINKLY RINGER and just how catty and pissy the show was prepared to be about her when she turned out…not to be. You can just hear them now reading her CV listing her credentials as a super-supple fitness expert with two whole years of ice-skating lessons behind her, then finding out to their dismay that at least one year and eleven months of those lessons were spent shuffling along at two miles per hour waving at her grand-kids who were wondering when they were going to get to do something fun when she baby-sat. The other month was spent drinking mojitos obviously. Cue an AVALANCHE of eye-rolls and catty comments from Torville & Dean, who appeared to spend most of this week’s Rosemary segment playing the Nancy Allen & John Travolta roles from Carrie. Things got even MORE vexatious for the show (and me) when she skated out and promptly stole the role of “Token Older Inspiration Couple” from my beloved Beaver Teeth & Charlene Tilton by being adequate and also more ITV-friendly during her skate. DAMN HER. Reserve me a seat with Torville & Dean by the lockers blowing spit-wads and mocking her thighs. It’ll still be less offensive than Gubba openly perving on her and reading out her vital statistics. Next week we’re going to find out her bra-size, I just KNOW IT.

Big Mo & Lukasz Rozycki : I’ll miss Big Mo. Not for her ice-skating, which was to be honest awful (although quite enjoyably surreal, in a sub-Lynchean lip-sync sort of way), and was only going to get worse once her shoulder eventually gave up and just fell out, but for the stink-waves of bad attitude she put out everywhere. Obviously there was the fact of the generally furious atmosphere surrounding her elimination, but how many surly eliminations have we had on this show before? BARROWMAN, Davies, probably Kay Burley I don’t know. But has there ever been a more appropriate Face Of Thunder deployed than when Blankley started whittering on to her about how she was trending globally on twitter (this show’s whole obsession with twitter is SO DEPRESSING, but we’ll get to that later). It read “I’m Big Mo bitch, why should I give a flying Pam St Clement about FAHCKIN TWITTAH?”. I guess once they got the fact that she’s Gary Oldman’s sister/cousin/wife/sister-wife out of their over-eager mouths there was nothing really left for her, although I feel Lucasz deserved better. After the Netto Nancy Dell’Olio that was Elen Rivas, this showing officially makes him the Anton of the show. Except nobody knows who he is. And he’s not unattractive, in a red-faced awkward sort of way. Now that Fred’s gone, it’ll have to do. Along with Robin talking about how she shone once “Dr Footlights” took over, which I guess is as good a euphemism for cocaine as any other.

Sebastien Foucan & Brioche Delcourt : Brioche continues her rise to “Almost As Amazing As Frankie One-Name” DOI LadyPro Boss Bitch-ness by opening their segment by proclaiming herself “the” champion of the last series of Dancing On Ice. Sam Attwater who now? Maybe he really pissed her off by botching a lift during all that sex they definitely had? Anyway, this year she has moved on to a new hunk, this time “the cofounder of free-running”. Personally I refuse to believe there are not at least 6 other people all claiming the same thing and having vicious and protracted arguments about it, because that’s just how these things work. Anyway, he is French and officially Not Bad To Look At, and also his free-running abilities have broken Christopher Dean’s brain. Have we ever had a routine quite this…conceptual in Week One before? Sebastien was asked to portray about fifteen different parts of the mechanism of a watch, and also do three forward rolls on the ice for absolutely no reason other than that he can. At one point he swung Brioche around like a pendulum (which, incidentally, if she was doing that with Sam you KNOW her free arm would have been trailing around on the ice as a safety the entire time) and I almost wondered why nobody made a Foucan’s Pendulum pun and then I remembered that THIS IS DANCING ON ICE ON ITV. Anyway, I would get invested in his chances, but they’ve already showcased why he’s going to lose (all that balls about him being a “bad partner”, so why bother? Oh also he’s French and with Brioche and, I dunno, black or something, let’s throw that in there as well. As long as he stays riskful (thanks Katarina), I’ll be happy.

Chico & Jodeyne Higgins : Remember how last year Jodeyne was partnered with WAR-HERO Johnson Beharry? Well after a month with Chico she frankly looks like she’s been through whatever war it was he took part in. Seriously, she looks TRAUMATISED. I’ve seen hostage videos that looked more upbeat and happy. Faces Of Death looks like an edition of Holiday compared to how Jodeyne appears to be holding together mentally this year. And who can blame her, given that Chico’s entire personality is yelling “CHICO TIME!” repeatedly and spewing self-help positivity aphorisms whenever he isn’t. You have to think that being partnered with Timmy Mallett would probably have been better for her sanity, and I can see her shoving Chico into the void along with Schlongchambon, Cheggers and Chesney Hawkes. Possibly by trying to persuade him that it is CHICO TIME for the show’s first Gender-Reversed Headbanger. No really Chico, just hold still and FEEL THE GS. The worst part for her? He actually seemed to be…quite good? I quite enjoyed the near-hysterical snow-blindness of people who refused to admit it to themselves because, well…it’s CHICO for God’s sake, but I actually probably enjoyed his performance the most of all the ones on this second Performance Show. Poor Jodeyne. If we all chip in the money we’d normally spend voting, I bet we’d be able to get her the therapy she need….well we’ll get her a Big Brother psychologist at least.

Corey Feldman & Brooke Castile : Oy. First of all, obviously the THING needs to be addressed. By which I mean that thing emanating from his forehead. Both in it being a thing in and as of itself, as a reality tv phenomenon, and also as a victim of the show’s obsession with WHAT’S HAPPENING ON TWITTER. Because Phillip pimping out one of those awful “parody accounts” that lose their initial concept and just devolve into generic bitchy comments within two episodes (where some of us have the good sense to just start off there and plough that furrow/rut for the entire run) killed stone-dead my interest in making fun of it in 5 seconds flat. Poor Corey as well. BixMix won an entire reality show on the back of “mean people are being mean about your appearance on the mean Internets”, but apparently it’s not traumatic when you’re Corey Feldman and the entire show can jump in and pile on as well. So what else is there to make fun of? His deathly immobile face? The fact that his super-peppy skating partner appears to have escaped from an audition for All-New American Gladiators? His almost endearing revelation that he might want to be able to stand up on the ice in time to be broadcast live to the nation? I don’t know, but I’ll find something for the…two weeks or so he’s got left on the show, I SWEAR IT.

Matthew Wolfenden & Nina Ulanova : I have a long and storied history with this show in either finding the “good skaters” either tedious (Jessica Taylor/Suzanne Bore/Clangford/Kyran/Claire) or insanely annoying (Ray Quinn, Hayley Tampon-Condom, BARROWMAN) to the point that I actively disengage and just start rooting for Stefan Booth because he’s fit or Gay-Faced Vulcan because he’s a Gay-Faced Vulcan, or the Sweet Sweet Embrace Of Death Because Series Four was just THAT BAD. My record for liking the “good skaters” on this show is basically Chris Fountain and the entirety of last series, which was like a glorious cosmic alignment between my soul and Dancing On Ice in that I quite enjoyed all three of the people who could actually remain upright for more than 6 seconds at a time. This is a very lengthy pre-amble to basically get to the point of the fact that I am never ever going to find Matthew Wolfenden interesting on this show, and no amount of screaming “ZOMG HE IS SO FIT AN A GYMNAST AND IN LEATHER AND HIS DICK IS TRENDING ON TWITTER, DID WE MENTION TWITTER ENOUGH TIMES YET? TWITTER TWITTER TWITTER TWITTER TWITTER TWITTER! HE’S IN LEATHER AND STUFF AND TWITTER!” is going to persuade me otherwise. Do. Not. Get. It.

Heidi Range & Andrei Lipanov : I’m so torn with regards to Heidi Range. On the one hand, she broke Schlongchambon (and not in the way that I’d break him) (no offence Mercedes McQueen), so she should be eliminated from…well, life, first of all and most importantly, but secondly the competition of Dancing On Ice. But on the other hand her continued existance in the show is the only way that we might get Schlongchambon back from the void, where he’s currently serving tea to Cheggers and Chesney dressed as a naked waiter. Frankly, if Joseph Heller had written Catch 22 about this scenario I would have got more than about 100 pages in. Anyway, after she broke Schlongchambon (just as he taught her to be lifted as well!), she got a new pro – Andrei, which apparently means something to you if you can remember more of Series 2 than that glorious crazy Russian Judge Lady bellowing “DUNCONN JAYMES! I LOBB YOU DUNCONN JAYMES!”. Which I don’t. So for me he just looks like the recipient of all the Skarsgard genes that didn’t go to Alexander. IE the unsexy ones. If I squint I can just about make out Julie Walters skating out onto the dancefloor dressed in dunagrees bellowing “Take A Chance On Me” at him. In my mind. Anyway, Heidi skated to “Bummed By A Martian” by which I mean she looked a bit like your mum dancing the robot for a laugh, and was crap, and should have gone home, and also she ruined the Sugababes did I mention that? Because that’s a factor. But then Head Judge Robin decided he liked a little sugar with his babe (which…WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN? PRACTICALLY? Pervert…) so she’ll stay around to turn into the show’s very own Lisa Snowdon probably. Ugh.

MARKANDSAM & Frankie! : I love that Frankie! ditched that surname that was holding her back like Strictly ditched Arlene, and now two years in a row she’s found herself partnered with men whose names have pointless appendages attached to them everywhere they appear. First of all “Comedy Dave”, and now MARKANDSAM of MARKANDSAMANDSAMANDMARK, who are apparently my children’s favourite Saturday Morning Kids TV presenters. Which, if “children” is a euphemism for anything genital, is probably right. T4 may have been perfect hangover tv for you, but for me nothing was better than blearily watching two grown men licking chilli sauce off one another’s naked bodies whilst periodically checking on Caroline Flack to make sure she wasn’t doing any grooming (THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED IN KIDS TV IN THE 00S, BECAUSE BBC KIDS TV IS RUN BY HOMOSEXUAL PERVERTS AND HAS BEEN SINCE THE DECISION WAS MADE TO HIRE SIMON THOMAS AND GETHIN JONES SIMULTANEOUSLY HOORAY). They were also both on Pop Idol 2 and both lost to That Fat One, although the show artfully skated around that better than even NEW ICE-PANEL GODDESS Katarina Witt could. They skated to “I’m Still Standing”, which was a tweak of the nose of irony that sadly went unfulfilled, and he was the worst thing on the show since Katona, but then Frankie!’s face SPLIT OPEN SO THAT YOU COULD SEE THROUGH TIME when he was saved, so it’s all worthwhile. Also, he’s from the Midlands, and I have to represent for my people.

Charlene Tilton & BEAVER TEETH Oh my God, BEAVER TEETH IS BACK! I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but the only things I care about on this show are the pros. Well, the male pros. And Frankie!. And Brioche a bit. And hoping Maria fails because she unaccountably annoys me. (And now ICE PANEL GODDESS Katarina Witt). But BEAVER TEETH’s failure to return last series was a dagger right to my heart after he out Robin Windsor’ed Robin Windsor by making Danniella Westbrook repeatedly play homosexual dress-up in the name of dance. Remember when she skated to “You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me?” Epicmazing. Anyway, now he, and his unnatural/amazing teeth are back to guide the Poison Dwarf from Dallas through the treacherous world of ice-skating and Louis Spence’s ever-flying spit, and how does he start? Barbra Streisand. Exactly. Hang up your dancing shoes Robin Windsor, you have been checkmate’d by a master. Anyway, Charlene was actually quite good for a 150 year old woman (TM ICE PANEL GODDESS Katarina Witt) in a “marginally less annoying Dr Hamela” sort of way. Hopefully she’ll be able to stand out more in this Z-List cast than she did on Series 2 of The Farm, where she had to compete with two actual porn stars, Keith Harris, Emmas B AND Noble, Jessie Wallace’s ex-lover, Mikey from Phixx, Orville The Duck and the combatants in my own personal favourite reality tv feud ever : Lionel Blair vs Flava Flav. This diversion from Dancing On Ice is only of course to talk about Series 2 of The Farm. So amazing.

Jorgie Porter & Matt Evers’ Arse : It would be the furthest thing from my mind to accuse Jorgie Porter of being a wannabe Chelsee Healey obviously. She definitely hasn’t seen the combination of a ditzy NORF’ern party girl and excellent skills work to near-victorious perfection on Strictly and decided she’s going to play into the same thing at all. It’s just a coincidence, like Antz and A Bug’s Life arriving at the same time or John Terry kissing a BRAHN BABY. Anyway, even if her presence as a contestant does feel a little contrived, she is clearly out for revenge for my own favourite DOI contestant of two years past : Keiron Richardson – The Gay-Faced Vulcan, and also she’s partnered with Matt Evers’ Arse, so bring on the contrviance says I. Clearly she gave the best performance of the week, by some distance, so hooray for her. The vomitous torrent of “BAWW, YOU LOOK JUST WIKE A WIDDLE PWINCESS IN YOUR PINK DWESS!” that followed on the other hand is something I can gladly blot out for the rest of my life. Especially as she was skating to a song that, even in its John Lewisised twee girly version is clearly about, you know, self-loathing and grue and the viscera of relationships and stuff. BUT SHE WAS IN PINK ZOMG, SO COOT!

Chemmy Allcott & Sean Rice I’m so glad that I finally get to find out what Chemmy Alcott actually looks like! She’s been rumoured for literally every single celeb based reality show for the last five years, if not more, and yet until now she’s never made an appearance. UNTIL NOW! Here she is, like Elijah finally arriving at the Seder and guess what? SHE’S DRUNK! Well, to be honest, she’s doing drunk acting, as per Christopher Dean’s school of Choreography (if Louis Spence did nothing else amazing all episode (and he didn’t) (because when he went “AND NOW I MUST HAVE TEA!” and z-snapped, that was on a separate show) it was constantly criticising Christopher Dean’s choreography without even realising. If he was a contestant he would SO be Sharron Davies’ed next week. DO NOT QUESTION CHRIS DEAN’S CHOREOGRAPHY AUTHORITAH!). To be honest, it was quite the most amusing part of the episode, because unlike other SPORTSPEOPLES on shows like this, Chemmy gave herself to the performance full-throttle from Week One. No acting coaches required for this one. My other favourite Chemmy moment this week was Phil Schofield (presenting the show alone wasn’t he? Nobody else there was there? Certainly nobody deserving of notice anyway.) boggling at the fact that she hadn’t EVER watched the footage of her limb shattering into a thousand pieces ever. Which is bizarre isn’t it? Because you think she’d be watching that every day, complete with viewing parties. Hiring out The Machine from Strictly and drawing big red rings around every individual fragment of bone as it shredded into her skin and muscle from the inside. Almost as amazing was Phil saying that that was doubly amazing, because literally everyone else in the world has seen said-same footage. Erm…the only footage of this woman doing ANYTHING that I have EVER seen Phillip, was her falling over to P!nk. And that’s because it was on this show. We don’t all spend all day trolling Youtube for Sports Greatest Fractures you big weirdo.

*sigh* I miss Holly *sigh*

Who is there now to yell “TORVILLE AND MOTHERFUCKING DEAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” like she did at the start of every show?

Andy Akinwolere & Maria Filipov : Poor Maria. I guess it was either her twice in a row, or Andrei three times in a row. Say what you will about Strictly, but they at least circulate people around the pros a bit better than this usually. I guess Maria has had to have a designated comedown from when she got the male ringers every single year but on the other hand, he looked good on paper. And then, to be fair, he looked good not on paper but, whatever, Robin Cousins’ boner and stuff. To be honest he did seem a bit ratty when he was criticised, and a tumble from 3rd out of 7 to the dance-off didn’t auger well for his vote holding up as the competition rolled on, but he deserved better than this. And by “this” I mean “having to dance on ice what Christopher Dean thinks Mick Jagger dances like on land”. There’s so many degrees of interpretation there that it generally came across with all the finesse and confidence of someone playing Blind Man’s Buff in a minefield. Still, Katarina Witt thought it was good enough, and if it’s good enough for ICE PANEL GODDESS Katarina Witt then it’s good enough for me. If she’s not Head Judge next series(/week) then something’s gone very wrong here indeed. Apart from Andy’s ridiculous elimination obviously. Order your “ANDY WUZZ ROBBED” samplers here today.

Andy Whyment & Vicky Ogden My favourite thing about this entire final segment, in the show’s latest leaden eternal clod-hop down the road of “LOL-COMEDY SOAP BLOKE IS A BIT SHIT!” is just how much of an afterthought Vicky Ogden was treated as. I can only hope she develops a personality as the series goes on, but as it stands Phil will be sat on her head with a cushion over her face to stop her speaking rather than letting her stand out and eclipse her COMEDY CELEB’S COMEDY PERSONALITY. At least so far they’re less annoying than Steven Arnold was, who I found genuinely a little depressing last year. I think it was that hat in House Of Fun.

I heard the new today, oh boy. Alesha Dixon’s decided to hop off to Britain’s Got Talent, leaving the BBC flailing around looking for a replacement (who will end up being Karen Hardy). But before they make the fateful announcement (that it’s Karen Hardy) let’s all take a moment out to remember the glory that was Alesha Dixon. Via the medium of all the fights she got into during her glorious three year stint on the show. Here, for your delectation, are Alesha’s Top Fifteen Strictly Feuds.

15. Alesha vs Laila Roauss

Who can forget Alesha telling Laila that she danced like a drunken rag doll during her AntonLatin? Well, most people. But in the heady days of Series 7, when everyone was all over Alesha every time she breathed, it was INCREDIBLY RUDE AND HURTFUL to point out that Laila had about as much facility for Latin dancing as a cat on a pogo stick. That’s right, for one brief…month or so, the masses of Britain became Brenda Cole when he stormed off at the use of ANIMAL IMAGERY to describe Jo Wood. WHATABITCH.

14. Alesha vs The Audience

Obviously Alesha’s role on the show was an unholy amalgam of audience and contestant avatar, so it was a very rare occasion indeed that she diverted significantly from the public view of a dance. She was instrumental in backing Kara and Harry to the title, and was more of a Chris booster than any of the other judges. In this sense Alesha was very much the “voice of the people”. Except that one time the audience booed her and she went “MUHHHHHHHH!” right back at them. Following that moment they never dared boo her again, so RIGHTEOUS was her vengeance.

13. Alesha vs Edwina Currie

Edwina’s stay on Strictly was short, so there was no chance for this to blossom into the EPIC FEUD that we all know it could have been, but really there was no coming back for Edwina from Alesha smiling and snarking “it’s alright Bruce, they’re just having a conversation amongst themselves” when she was wittering on to Vincent about sod all. TKO in Week 2, and that was it. Never has Alesha destroyed a foe so thoroughly.

12. Alesha vs Nibbles

People may complain about the Results Show, with good reason. It’s full of filler, the guest singers would be naff by Radio 2 standards, the pro-dances are memorable about one time in three, and Len’s Glans is an abomination against God. But in Series 8 there was truly one reliable source of entertainment. Watching Alesha hoover back twiglets, cheesy footballs, pretzels, sesame fish-crackers and miniature prawn toasts like a bottomless black-hole pit of party snacks in the recap section. That she was deprived in Series 9 is one of the many reasons why it never quite measured up to the heights of the series before.

11. Alesha vs Chris Hollins

Again, this was a feud in Series 7 that lasted all of about a week, but OH WHAT FIREWORKS. It began with Alesha saying that, after a foxtrot full of pivots, she was a bit fed up of Chris’ Viennese Waltz being made up of lots of pivots. This of course set the HOBBIT MAFIA OFF, only aided and abetted by Karen on It Takes Two saying she understood why Ola choreographed them in, which obviously meant ALESHA WUZZ RONG OMG WORST JUJ EVER DOESN’T KNOW WHAT SHE’S TALKING ABOUT. This led to all sorts of amazing “LET’S VOTE FOR CHRIS TO SPITE ALESHA” nonsense despite Alesha’s tendency towards doing things like giving his paso (where he pulled poo-face and stomped up and down on the spot) a 9. CLEARLY SHE HATED HIM.

10. Alesha vs Her Ovaries

Ricky Whittle. Harry Judd. Simon Webb. Enough said.

9. Alesha vs South Central

The whirlwind of controversy when Alesha Dixon started well before her first appearance on the show. Her arrival came on the backs of the departures Camilla and Karen, both of their own accord (although obviously everyone pretended otherwise because it was more fun that way), and erm…beloved St Arlene who everyone loved. People were ready to leap on her every word and cast her aside as knowing nothing – a pretty bauble on the show only to engage with the yoof, who would never talk beyond generic modern banalities. So how did Alesha endear herself to her detractors? By launching her judging career with the phrase “One Word – FIERCE”. To Lynda Bellingham (LYNDA BELLINGHAM). Hilariously, everyone seized on this as evidence that she was just trying to be “gangsta” (and not, say, incredibly drag queeny), which was definitely not because a lot of the objecters to Alesha were a bit prone to racial stereotyping in any way. Or classism. At all.

8. Alesha Dixon vs Felicity Kendall

Because even Alesha, as champion of Inspirational Older Women on the panel (this being in no way because she elbowed Beloved Holy Mother Arlene out of the judges panel) got bored with Felicity doing the splits every other routine. Her telling Felicity that this was a dance competition, not a yoga work-out DVD, was one of my personal favourite judging moments of Series 8

7. Alesha Dixon vs Chelsee’s Vocabulary

In many ways Chelsee Healey’s Strictly Contestant Journey mimicked that of Alesha herself. Both went onto the show from (per the show) uncouth backgrounds to learn how to become a truly elegant lady. Alesha of course being from the MEAN STREETS of Mis-Teeq, and Chelsee being Northern. So it was inspiring to see Alesha taking on a mentoring role from the panel, helping Chelsee with words and phrases such as “elope” and “vertically challenged” and reassuring her that nobody saw her tits in her tango. In a very real sense, Alesha provided that little bit of extra polish to Chelsee that she needed to reach her glorious silver medal position.

6. Alesha Dixon vs Sobriety

Because whenever Alesha got drunk, magic happened.

5. Alesha Dixon vs Confidence Issues

Contrary to what many would have you believe, Alesha did actually serve a very valuable role on the Strictly panel. You see, one thing that remains consistent in these turbulent days for Strictly is the casting of slightly needy grasping old luvvies who need support following their routines, and at least a 7 on the paddle, otherwise they’ll melt down in a great big blancmange of tears and strops and crying jags. I’m not necessarily SPECIFICALLY thinking of Patsy Kensit, Anita Dobson, and/or Hamela Stephenson. I could be talking about anyone. But who have they to turn to in their post-dance hour of need when it hasn’t gone quite as well as they’d hope? Miserable Craig? Jabbering incoherent Bruno? Len? No. They need a good old dose of warming Alesha Dixon “you got the party started”/”I really saw the connection”/”there’s a real honesty about the way you dance”/”you really captured the spirit of the dance” chicken soup for the Strictly Soul.

4. Alesha Dixon vs Bruno’s Wandering Hands

It started off like any good fag-hag relationship. Lots of joking about men, and how fabulous the other is, and preening and hugs. And then, particularly this series…it turned SINISTER. Bruno kept on grabbing Alesha when she wasn’t ready, when she didn’t particularly want him to, when it wasn’t appropriate, and occasionally, right on the tit. Far be it for me to admit that Alesha didn’t end up top dog in one of her many glorious feuds, but if the lack of nibbles isn’t what drove her off in the end, Bruno’s psychotic perversion may have done it. She may have turned him a little bit straight I think, such is her BEAUTY AND MAGNETISM.

3. Alesha Dixon vs grammar

Never have so many people suddenly decided they cared Quite. So. Much about the proper use of “you were”. Especially as, you know, Len does exactly the same thing, and worse, and Bruno mashes his English through a play-do fun factory before it’s allowed to leave his mouth.

2. Alesha Dixon vs Nancy Dell’Olio

Her last real serious feud was one of Alesha’s best. It saw the use of a 2 paddle, repeated threats of legal action, judicious deployment of the phrase “was that supposed to be funny?” (which really works as an insult on so many levels), Nancy claiming that Alesha was threatened by her raw femininity, and Alesha telling Nancy to keep her legs together in future. And no, she didn’t mean it that way (totally did). I can only hope that Nancy auditions for Britain’s Got Talent (using her very real talent of “being a lawyer”) so their feud can roll on gloriously into 2012. It might even get me to watch Britain’s Got Talent (SPOILERS : totally won’t)

1. Alesha Dixon vs Craig Kelly

Truly THE iconic (*drink*) Alesha Dixon feud, and I doubt anyone could argue otherwise. So heartfelt, so real, and so venemous that even I had to take a step back and whistle occasionally. There was not a weapon in her arsenal that Alesha did not deploy to get rid of Craig Kelly. Accusations of “dad disco dancing”, psychoanalysis of the order of “you’re not as good as you think you are”, and most famously, the coup de grace “I can’t believe Zoe went and I had to ENDURE THAT”. If that hadn’t killed him off, Lord only knows how much further she would have gone. However far it was, I’m sure Flavia would have thanked her for it. Possibly in a harness.

So long Alesha, and all your feuds. You will be missed. And in that spirit, here’s the 50th Internet poll today asking who people want to be your replacement (when it will be Karen Hardy)

Best Judge : The best judge this year wasn’t even on the show (…probably), but for bringing a well-needed dose of humour and fun to the judgery, the prize can only be awarded to Drunk Alesha. Necking a bottle of red wine, hand-waving the entire competition as a foregone conclusion about halfway through COZ HARRY IS WEW FIT, and burbling away merrily about how horny everyone got on the main show, Drunk Alesha provided the most likable face of judgery in years.

Worst Judge : Again, not even visible on the show, the prize for Worst Judge goes to Jennifer Grey’s scriptwriter. Little insight into the dancing, awful deployment of the obvious soundbites (“YOU’RE MY WATERMELON CHELSEE, AND NOBODY PUTS US IN A CUPBOARD!”), and some random crap about Lulu’s lumpy porridge that I don’t even want to think about.

Best Judging Moment : Alesha’s 2 paddle

Runners-Up: “DESIGNERGEAR! DESIGNERGEAR!” ; “Put your vagina away Nancy”; “You should have stayed in the coffin”; “HANDS HANDS ! SPATULSITIC! BIG OLD BANANAS AT THE BACK!” ; Holly cracks herself up at a joke nobody hears ; Kristina’s bitch-faces ; Pasha laughing at everything ; “I think they noticed dear, they’re not daft” ; Nancy defusing homophobia with a fiery kiss ; Nancy telling Bruce that he INVITED HER TO HIS DRESSING ROOM ; Alesha cussing Edwina out for chatting with Vincent rather than listening to her ; Aliona pissing herself laughing at Len turning the colour of a beetroot

Worst Judging Moment : Jennifer Grey

Runners-Up : Len falling asleep on the “I HATE ALIONA AND HARRY” button for a month ; “sexless, cold, and stiff” ; James vs Len (however many times that happened, I can’t even remember…) ; WHY NOT PUNCH CRAIG AUDLEY? (however many times that happened, I can’t even remember…) ; Len calling another human-being puerile ; every time someone called Anita “inspirational” for not dying mid-routine ; every time someone told Chelsee that they never expected she could be elegant/get through a dance without shitting herself ; Edwina endlessly poking Vincent into saying “I know nothing” whilst crickets chirruped ; Robbie probably tweeting his disapproval at Craig’s scores as they came

Best VT Storyline : Nancy On The Farm

Runners-Up : Any time anybody did any actual training ; Holly brings her own helicopter and racing car and everyone else just watches ; Erm… ; Lulu’s so awful that she has to rehearse on her own with a broom rather than interacting with other human beings ; Alex Jones giving James the finger ; Holly strips Artem with her sword for absolutely no reason other than because she can ; Harry is a 1950s gentleman ; Pasha interacts with children in an ovary-meltwing fashion ; Satan talks to Anita ; Holly “mourns” for Artem’s shoulder

Worst VT Storyline : Jason Donovan

Runners-Up Let’s make Chelsee a lady ; Alex Jones is repeatedly electrocuted and this is supposed to be helping her learn to dance ; Dan Lobb picks a fight with Craig – a nation yawns ; “I’M A COUGAR!” ; Russell is haunted by a glowing green fart ; Robin Hood – Prince Of Sheathes ; Lube – The Musical ; Basically anything where Aliona did porn-acting ; Ola blows snot-rockets on a prone Robbie ; Robbie IS UGLY OH NO ; Robin is Billy Connolly ; Katya desperately tries to recreate the Gavbot magic by playing tennis with Dan – a nation yawns ; Lulu runs around with an Andrew Lloyd Eyebags mask on

Best Host : Zoe Ball

Worst Host : Tess Daly

Most Amazingly Wonderful Pointless Controversy : The Nancy Dell’LOLio real-life troll bandwagon. Pretending someone sabotaged her dress, threatening to sue everyone over everything, claiming the show was pointless without her – all amazing.

Most Tediously Awful Pointless Controversy : JASON DONE SOME TRAINING FOR A BIT OR SOMETHING

Runners-up : ALEX JONES WORKS FOR THE BBC, THE HOOR! ; Robbie hates someone, will reveal all on Monday (never does) ; Alesha points out that Jason has as much chance of winning the show as a deodorant stick tied to a tea-tray, carnage ensues ; Audley’s wife said a thing probably about Natalie and stuff ; Robbie’s wife said a thing about Natalie and stuff

Best Pro Dance : BISEXUAL ROLLING IN THE DEEP MAYHEM

Runners-Up : Born This Gay, Artem Is The Singular Sensation, another Argentine Tango showcase, Team Ka$ha jive with Caro Emerald, Addams Family Values

Most embarassingly poor guest-performer : Cee Lo Brown’s tailor

Most bullshit elimination : None of them really (see, I can do this, because it’s my blog, so there. Everyone went out in more or less the right order, for once, which was nice)

Top Holly Valance “Not Giving A Shit” moment : Laughing when she was in the Bottom 2

Runners-Up : Spending an entire Argentine Tango sat on her arse ; reacting to her first 10 like it was a mild tickling sensation ; openly hating on the Charleston all over twitter, to anyone who would listen ; spending half an It Takes Two segment joking about her tits ; riding into a VT in a helicopter ; deciding she didn’t really want to do ballroom dancing, so could the whole show change to being ballet based please? ; sitting on the floor in the Swingathon and refusing to move ; sitting on the floor in her rumba un-picking her knickers

King Of All Pros: Pasha Kovalev, duh. I WAS RIGHT! I WAS RIGHT ALL ALONG!

Runners-Up: Brenda Cole, Artem Chigvintsev, (*cant quite believe he’s typing the words*) Anton du Beke

Queen Of All Pros: Kristina Rihanoff, for pumping out a level of choreography I’m not convinced Jason deserved

Runners-Up: Natalie Lowe (now Duffer-Tested), Aliona Vilani, Flavia Cacace

Worst Celebrity (Talent) : Nancy Dell’Olio

Runners-Up: Edwina Currie, Lulu, Audley Harrison

Worst Celebrity (Personality): Bloody Lulu

Runners-Up: Robbie Savage, Dan Lobb, Edwina Currie

Best Celebrity (Talent) : Chelsee Healey

Runners-Up: Harry Judd, Jason Donovan, Holly Valance

Best Celebrity (Personality) : Nancy Dell’Olio

Runners-Up: Holly Valance, Harry Judd, Alex Jones

Monkseal’s 10 Least Favourite Dances Of The Series

10. Holly Valance’s Quickstep : Let’s see how many dances from the show’s entirely misguided attempt to cram two people doing ballroom dancing in a stadium setting I can get into this top 10 shall we?

9. Dan Lobb’s Viennese Waltz : Stay emo, Dan!

8. Harry Judd’s tango : A piquant reminder that even though Aliona’s choreography this year was almost entirely on point, especially at the end, she was still capable of some utter bollocks.

7. Alex Jones’ rumba: Ola’s catsuit has never been more misused…

6. Anita Dobson’s samba: Fuck off Eileen

5. Jason Donovan’s Argentine Tango: Like that end-of-rumba Serial Killer face, but for an ENTIRE DANCE. Very rarely have my stocks of brain-bleach been so sorely tested.

4. Lulu’s cha cha: HA HA HA I’M LULU, ISN’T IT FUNNY HOW AWFUL I AM? (except not)

3. Robbie Savage’s salsa: WOO WOO! WOO WOO! And some podiums. And an aborted leapfrog.

2. Russell Grant’s “jive”: If someone can proffer an argument as to how this dance was consistant with the “he’s much better than Widdy, he’s ACTUALLY TRYING TO DANCE!” defence then I’m open to hearing it. Bumped up quite a few slots by the show pretending it was amazing and everyone loved it and will remember it forever.

1. Edwina Currie’s Foxtrot : Just because it still annoys me. Having spent a pre-series claiming that Edwina was “far wittier than Widdy” (which, let’s face it, would not be hard, as Widdy’s summed witticisms from her two months on the show basically amounted to “OH MY GOD JUST YOU WAIT I’VE GOT (X) NEXT!”) and then being cautiously optimistic after her cha-cha in which she at least tried, we got THIS AWFUL MESS where she didn’t even dance and then dissolved into incontinent incoherance afterwards. SHAMEFUL and Vincent is going to have to deliver a dance at least the quality of Rachbot’s Argentine Tango next series to make up for it.

Monkseal’s 20 Favourite Dances Of The Series

20. Audley Harrison’s Foxtrot

Normally I’m not one for the “LET’S GIVE THEM A DUFFER AND SEE WHAT THEY CAN DO!” school of Strictly thought. I’ve never really seen the point of watching people “pay their dues”, and I’m not sure what is ever really learnt from it. What did we learn about Vincent this year? About Aliona with Rav Wilding (that precluded them from loading contenders on her anyway)? About Lilia with Richard Dunwoody? (apart from that there are miracles even she cannot work). And yet I can’t help hoping that this series was the making of Natalie with the public. One of the few pros to pull their celebs further than they warranted on talent alone in this very “to form” series, Natalie achieved this via a mixture of Erin-esque Latin, poking out the endearing side of Audley’s personality, and EPIC SKIRT-SWISHING, of which this routine was surely the romantic peak?

19. Nancy Dell’Olio’s rumba

I promised it would be here at the time, and here it is. Nancy lurches out of her coffin, drunk, gets molested by a zombie, then traps him in her crypt. We’ve all been there haven’t we ladies?

18. Holly Valance’s rumba

She really did have more on-floor chemistry with Brenda though didn’t she? I don’t think her dancing would have been as good technically with him necessarily, and I doubt the combination of their personalities would have been particularly edifying (Brenda + Someone Who Seems Like They’re Not Really Trying = NOT PLEASANT) but in terms of chemistry? They had it.

17. Anita Dobson’s salsa

Probably a controversial choice, but as Anita’s stay on Strictly further descended every week into neediness, madness, and repeated routines where Robin made her play the role of a 14 year old girl, this was incoherent lip-syncing fun in an absolutely hideousmazing Bertie Bassett dress. When I want to remember Anita fondly, it will be like this. Slung over Robin’s shoulder and popping her hips and bellowing “OK! I BELIEVE YOU!” noiselessly.

16. Russell Grant’s foxtrot

I was almost tempted by the whiff of Flavia’s clam, but in the end, Russell’s one appearance in this ranking has to be for this magnificent deployment of umbrella, and for once tapping into a gay vibe of triumph that didn’t feel forced or rote or just yelling “KYLIE!” over and over again.

15. Chelsee Healey’s samba

At the time I dismissed it as Chelsee on auto-pilot in Latin once again, but nothing else in the party dances this year has approached the level of art quite so much as her face wobbling with excitement as fireworks shot out of her arse. The giant balloons didn’t hurt either, or the fact that it almost felt like the dance filled the space it was set in. Almost. It was (yet again) a woeful year for salsambchas, but this out-shone them all.

14. Brendan Cole’s rumba

Rumour has it that Bloody Lulu was involved in this routine somewhere. I can’t recall seeing her myself. She must have been somewhere towards the back. Behind all the fog.

13. Nancy Dell’Olio’s paso doble

It’s been a real stretch this year to admit to myself that I loved a comedy contestant. Obviously there was my dalliance with the Gavbot last year, but he was really more of a LIKABLE SPORTSMAN ON A JOURNEY, and Katya’s tin-ear for comedy being what it is, we were mostly spared from purposeful comedy. No, usually I’m more of a “PURITY OF DAHNCE” kind of guy, but this year, Nancy pushed me over the edge. And truly this was her apex. The glamour of the Comedy VT, the stirring of the music, the giant bull blowing smoke behind her, the lobster’s claw, the counting out loud…Truly, more than any other female dancer to take this dance on, she WAS THE CAPE.

12. Alex Jones’ Viennese Waltz

I’d hate to come across as more favourable towards the self-indulgent blancmange that was Broadway Week than I actually am, following both Russell and Brendan’s dances from it appearing on this list but…second best breakthrough dance of the entire series yes? Simple, but effective.

(11. Where Harry Judd’s Waltz would have sat if it had been more than just a first half of greatness followed by twaddle)

11. Harry Judd’s Argentine Tango

Not really a vintage series for Argentine Tangos was it? The pros did their best, but Chelsee was too smiley and floppy, Holly too lazy, and Jason too…terrifying for any of the top tier to really stamp their mark on Argentine Tango history. Harry’s effort was by far the stand-out of the series, and all the better for being far too subtle for Len.

10. Alex Jones’ tango

UNLEASH THE ARM-HANKIES!

9. Jason Donovan’s tango

And another dance from Broadway Week. Hmm…anyway, it was still rubbish, let’s move on. Ahem. Early Jason really was the best Jason wasn’t it? Before the weeks of training got to him, and all that personality stuff reached a critical mass, and before Kristina went off her head a little in general. When he was happy to just to be a camp melange of tango and disco and to wave big pink fans around with abandon. Joyful nonsense, and a reminder of the less tense side of Jason’s Strictly story.

8. Chelsee Healey’s American Smooth

Oh Pasha, the Literal School of Strictly Choreography gets us all in the end doesn’t it? I am happy to admit that I am one of that breed that held Chelsee’s American Smooth about her paso doble in that semi-final rank-off, if only because its dreamy lyricism actually finally delivered on that long-running storyline about her learning self-control and elegance. Thank goodness sitting through all those awful VTs and patronising Brucie accents was, in the end, somewhat worthwhile. Shame about those splits though.

7. Harry Judd’s quickstep

Still the best end-pose of the series yes?

6. Jason Donovan’s quickstep

I have to admit to being mildly disappointed that his reprise for the finale was his tango instead of this. I get that he “had to go with what the judges chose” (*snort*) but this would have been an even greater farewell for Jason than even his showdance was. Inventive, charming, well danced, and Kristina at her choreographic peak for the series. He never quite topped this for me, no matter how hard he tried.

5. Holly Valance’s American Smooth

Say what you will about Artem’s tendancy to go off-piste on occasion (I’m still trying to forgive him for those lamp-posts. It’s quite an effort), but the man knows how to choreograph for a Themed Week. And this was the first time this series Holly really rose to match him, playing the Black Swan to his White Swan. Balletic, vaguely haunting, and slightly dangly of leg (LIKE A REAL SWAN ZOMG IT WAS A CHOREOGRAPHIC CHOICE) this was the dance where Holly put herself on the map, then wandered off to get a pizza.

4. Chelsee Healey’s jive

Would obviously be higher if they hadn’t done…that, to Pasha’s lovely gap-toothed face.

3. Chelsee Healey’s quickstep

All week Ian Waite had been promising me this was going to be a trainwreck of Titanic proportions. The awful training footage, the admonishments over not wearing proper footwear, the fretting about the lack of training time. And so it was I came in to Chelsee’s quickstep expecting the worst dance of the week, if not the series. And she went and did not only her best dance, but also the best quickstep of a series replete with excellent quickstepping. Never have I been more disappointed in Ian, not even that time he choreographed that jive for Penny.

2. Harry Judd’s Viennese Waltz

SO MANY FEELINGS!

1. Holly Valance’s paso doble

As much as it’s great to see a wonderful technical performance, or a masterclass in showmanship, or a tumbling of emotional torment and drama in a routine, nothing quite beats a dance that has you bouncing up and down on your seat yelling “GET IT GIRL!” as someone fulfils the potential that they’ve held back on unleashing for an entire series. Holly was never this good before, and she certainly wasn’t afterwards, but something about the paso doble, combined with two bottom 2s in a row, pushed her to her limits and dragged this out of her. In many ways, it was the TIME WARP of Series 8, and what higher praise is there than that for a dance? None. Quite frankly.