This week hinges around two major themes.
Remembrance Weekend: Yes, after Ben’s thrift-shop sailor routine last night, the War Porn big guns need to be drafted out properly, so we open the whole show with a tribute to all the Thunderbirds that have died in the name of International Rescue, danced whilst the Puppini Sisters sing. Damnit, I thought I’d thrown away the key where nobody would find it. We also get a generic tribute to everyone who ever died young, being performed by something called “The Tenors”. Only one and a half of them are fit though, so *shrug*. That’s a worse strike-rate than G4 and possibly even Il Divo depending on the state of the gap-toothed one. Oh yeah, erm, Janette and Aljaz play the ghosts of dead soldiers or summit. Finally lots of the celebrities and pro-dancers go and hand out poppies. It’s hard to snark, except to say that I wish Iveta had been amongst them dressed as the Starship Troopers routine alien, spreading intergalactic peace and skintight catsuits.
LEN’S GRUMPY: His first rant, delivered to Craig, in the middle of a Len’s Glans mostly focused around Darcey awkwardly justifying her 10 for Patrick despite the massive sloppy mess he made of the final lift and also dribbling all over Sophie and Susanna’s dances, is on how Craig is a MEANIE-FO-FEANIE because he looks for the bad in everyone, whilst he, Len, is GREAT because he looks for the GOOD in people. Some more than others, it has to be said. The second rant is delivered to all of the other judges for saving Mark in the dance-off, despite a performance that was full of mistakes and missteps (something Mark audibly apologises to Iveta for on the way off the dancefloor). Of course they did this because the other person in the dance-off was Dave. Yes, the public have decided to honour the PURITY OF DAHNCE (either that or Abbey got a bottom 2 bounce, Patrick was kept nice and high and dry, and the bottom of the leaderboard was littered liberally with fan favourites) and put the worst two dances on the night up for judgment.
And so, the 2013 John Sergeant Memorial Panic is OVAH. Unless anyone wants to fire it up again and target it at Fiona Fullerton? Anybody? I’ve got matches.
The mighty mighty Monk Seal 
Len has lost the plot! Goodbye, Dave, never darken my Scottish door unless you have cooked up something tasty ( which you have transparently failed to do on SCD)
It’s around this time in the series that Len starts getting grumpy and bullying Craig, but really, if he’d have had the casting vote and kept Dave in over Mark, I think the viewers might’ve told Len to bog off to LA and don’t bother coming back this time! 😛
It’s a blessed relief Not So Comedy Dave has gone IMO, though with the reaction on DS you’d think he’d promised each and every one of them a Michelin starred meal if they said he’d be missed! 😉
Roll on Blackpool! Let’s hope the Coach doesn’t break down, and Claudia isn’t really driving! 🙂
But most of all let’s hope that lovely Natalie is well enough to dance again.
And Natalie Gumede as well.
I can’t say as I’ll miss Dave, as although outside the show I quite liked the man (he works better as part of his double act with The Other One) none of his dances really did anything for me either in the “wow that’s good dancing” stakes or the “ha ha hilarious” stakes. Michael Vaughan last series, and Markveta in this one, have raised the bar for expectations of Komedy Kontestants in my view, wherein they manage to be not only hilarious through ineptitude but also hilarious through epicmazing choregraphapy choices AND also show occasional flashes of redemptive brilliance. Dave scarcely managed one out of three. It’s not enough to merely be shit. (Was it ever?)
I continue to find the (apparent) popularity of Fiona baffling, and the (actual) popularity of Ben eye-rolling. So there’s still plenty to complain about going forward, thank goodness 🙂
I do hold out hope that Mark will last another week or two, though. Bottom two bounce, a dance he’s less ill suited to than rumba, gathering up some ex-Dave voters… I think it could come together for him, hopefully at the expense of Fiona who is surely running on fumes by now. Right? I hold no illusions of Mark managing to outlast Ben, though, not with both judges and the public wanting to push him so hard.
That said, I don’t think Ben’s good enough a dancer to make the final. He’d be the worst finalist since… well, probably Christopher Parker, although he was before my time; certainly the worst finalist of the last six or seven series. A certain minimum level of quality is a requisite, I think: call it the Hollins-Gough line, or something. He’s on the wrong side of it, especially in anything where he’s not allowed to a) do lifts the entire time and/or b) remove his shirt.
The judges are going to push hard for Patrick and Abbey, but I reckon a bottom two in the next three weeks with either them both together or with Natalie (presuming her recovery) will force one of them out.
Susanna seems a bulletproof lock for the final at this point, and Natalie (presuming her recovery) will be carried there by repeated judge saves if need be. Sophie’s worst dances are probably behind her and she should be able to ride a largely ballroom-based comeback narrative to the third final slot. The fourth slot now feels a little up in the air: the judges seem to be behind Patrick for it, but we’ve seen him in a bottom two and I have to suspect his vote isn’t quite there; Ashley’s good enough and “likeable” enough (read: white, young, pretty enough) to take it, but Ben remains a complicating factor. Hmmm.
Of course if Natalie’s out for good we’ll probably get a three-person final instead.
If I had to call the rest of the elimination order now, I’d say:
Mark, Fiona, Abbey (zomgshockboot, probably due to ending up in a bottom two with Natalie or Sophie), Patrick (likewise, a bottom two with Natalie or Sophie), Ben (just missing the final as he finally lands in a bottom two). Natalie/Susanna/Ashley/Sophie final. If the final’s all done on public vote, Natalie gets 4th place. Sophie 3rd, Ashley 2nd, Susanna wins it.
Of course if I actually had my way, what I WANT to happen is:
Fiona, Ben, Ashley, Patrick, Abbey, Mark/Natalie/Susanna/Sophie final, with them letting us see Mark’s showdance whatever happens, Sophie reprising the Charleston and it getting tens then leaving, and Natalie winning.
Then again if Patrick&Anya’s current choreographic streak continues I could see wanting him to pass Abbey or even Susanna and Sophie in my overall affections; and I really want Sophie to show me she can pull off at least one other Latin dance acceptably.
To be fair to Ben, he’s a lot better than Chris Parker. I’d say as possible finalists go, he’s probably at about Julian Clary level. That said, much as I love him (for, well, non-dancing reasons), I don’t think there’s any way he’ll be making the final.
Ooh, yes, Julian feels about fair in terms of approximate talent level, although he was a very different personality of course.
Wouldn’t mind a double boot during the semi’s. The final should be three don’t think that four worked, mainly because a runner up was not announced.
I’d be interested to see what would happen in a Sophie/ Abby dance off. They seem to be evenly matched, despite repeated over marking of Abby (why???), but I suspect, either way Abby would win through. (Why????) I think Sophie is coming to the end of her run. It all looks very elegant and classy, but strangely inert. She increasingly looks like a blow up doll with a slow puncture that Brenda has been tasked with dragging round the floor, stopping desperately every few seconds (see chair prop) to try to find precious time to reinflate her in between the lifts. Where’s her GURTCHA when she really needs it?
I think Patrick may be the semi finalist left standing, as he would surely take out Ben or Sophie in any dance off, but would probably fall to the wiles of Abby (again why???)
Well Mark’s been given jive, so so much for all that #bitterbitterbitter
Yeah, Fiona having American Smooth (with Anton, in Blackpool) while Mark has to Jive? Mark is doomed. Unless Iveta can choreograph an absolute blinder somehow….
I’m glad Dave is out. Not because he was a bad dancer (although he was the worst) but because of the increasingly indignant backchat with the judges. Instead of sheepish and likeable ‘I know I’m crap but I enjoyed it’, we were getting more and more angry faces and I’m-working-hard speeches. I was starting to actively dislike the man, which I didn’t want to do because he’s fun and nice with the Hairy Bikers. But he somehow thought he had a place in Strictly ‘as a dancer’, despite not improving and being the least musical person there. Meh.
That’s what got to me about Dave too – that affronted look he’d get whenever the judges said anything critical, like he thought he was really amazing or something. I guess at least one good thing about his stint in the show is that I think a lot more people like Karen now.
Surely Fiona has to be gone soon too. That Tango was painful (no thanks to Anton), not least because she was given Pat Butcher’s hairstyle for it.
Or at least a lot more people liked Karen, until The Ola Incident.
I think Fiona’ll be next to provide indignant backchat.
Paso, wasn’t it?
“Surely Fiona has to be gone soon too”. I couldn’t agree more. She and Mark are my hot pick for next week’s dance off, with Mark going. She’s either mithering on about her nerves in a needy and annoying way, twittering about finding characterisation for every dance, or fielding Anton’s complete look of mid-floor astonishment that he is actually expected to remember and complete the steps he choreographed for an entire 90 second routine. Perhaps she is being buoyed up by the lust (yes, I just threw up in my mouth a little there) of the crazily loyal Anton brigade. I can’t see it lasting more than another couple of weeks though…….
The Pat Butcher do was the best thing about it.
People I would not mind going before Mark: everyone except Natalie.
If Brendan was also brought down by a non-life threatening situation (he had to do jury service in New Zealand, for example) and Kevin brought in to partner Sophie in the latter stages after Susanna’s shock boot, then there would be the final 3 of my dreams. And if we have to have 4, Natalie Lowe comes back, biffs Kristina in the shins with a wheelbarrow and drags Ben up off the floor and into an amazing American Smooth/AT/chalsumba.
I can’t imagine Kevin and Sophie together. My brain just won’t do it.
Oww.. The amount of anti-Natalie dumb is hurting my head on the DS forums… Just no…
Glad at least this result came, Mark is still about though so the John Sergeant Memorial Panic is still hovering about.
Hand me the matches please Monkseal, that gun has to be aimed squarely at Fiona now,
Who IS voting for her, she is a stompy , lemon sucking judge answering back affront to woman hood with her Mr Womderful shtick for Anton.
I always knew his supporters were pearl clutching middle aged curtain twitchers and Fiona epitomises that , and 57 year old are not ingenues Fiona
I…don’t think you use matches to fire a gun. It’s not the 18th century (except in Anton’s head obv.)
I was surprised that the Karen/Kevin hug at the very end of the results show went some way toward making me like Karen more – I found her increasingly annoying as the series went on, but maybe that was Dave and she was just in the blast radius? Her vulnerable expression and Kevin swooping in to hug her was really touching.
Agree with those above – Fiona next out if I get my way. She cannot dance and she’s becoming super irritating with her backchat and “disappointment” with her scores, as if she were actually brilliant and the judges were being unfair.
Finally, as bad as Tess’s jokes were, I would take her and Claudia with jokes written by monkeys on typewriters every single night over one more night with Brucie hosting.
I feel like the only person who found Karen & Dave more likable towards the end of their run. I swear their stay was like a bellcurve, with my peak annoyance somewhere around the paso/waltz.
And I’m surprised to be one of the few to have really liked Karen throughout. The look of on her face after the Maraccas Dance (that’s right, I know all the right words and stuff) ‘I know I’m going soon, look at this lump of a man, I so don’t give a damn I’m going to wear a fruit bowl on my head and eat from it’ made me howl with laughter.