So, are you ready for an actual shock boot after the last few weeks of synthetic outrage? Are you ready for the Year Of The Man to turn even more into the sort of slaughter of sort-of-alright-good-looking-men that an Ali Bastian/Rachel Stevens/Zoe Lucker fan could only dream of than it already has been? Are you ready for MARK WRIGHT TO BREAK INTO 1000 PIECES? Then I’ve got the Results Show for you.
Oddly enough, for no reason, the whole evening is cowboy themed with Claudia as the black hat, Boy George is the white hat, and Tess Daly as the beige hat. Boy George is here to sing “Karma Chameleon” and does so really really badly, possibly as a dirty protest against the show not allowing him to do his new single instead. And who can blame them? Who wants to hear new material on a Strictly Results Show? Remember when Bryan Ferry turned up and dared to deny us the sight of Natalie Lowe gurning away to Virginia Plain? Unforgivable. Oh there’s also a pro-routine ho-down to Cotton Eyed Joe and Timber because…I dunno anymore. Apparently there’s Bollywood coming up in a future week as well.
Len’s Glans (Pixie’s isolations, Thom’s arms, a guy falling over, Bruno rolling his eyes) is truncated this week so that Claudia can bother Barbara Windsor and Jamie Murray in the audience. I spend the whole time staring at what is currently sat atop Babs’ head. I guarantee nobody sat behind her for about three rows back saw any of the show. This is a proper King Louis XIV wig we’re talking here. I think there’s a little miniature ship in there.
ANYWAY, that Shock Boot then. Simon is in the Bottom Two again because duh, and this time joining him isn’t a 50 year old sitcom actress that literally nobody has heard of, but instead Thom Evans. The judges snarl, the judges spit, the judges curse the public’s very name, but in the end Bruno and Len override Craig and Darcey and save Simon. Iveta then gives a speech about how Thom has filled her heart with butter.
Never change Iveta. Never.
It’s amazing though. Of the series hunks, one is gone, one has been in the dance-off twice, and the other has had his brain so scrambled than when Claudia tries to interview him nothing comes out but gulps and whines. This isn’t the Strictly I KNOW where being a good looking man is an automatic guarantee of sailing through to Bonfire Night at the very least. It’s kind of…exciting?
The mighty mighty Monk Seal 
Filled her heart with his MAN BUTTER*, no doubt.
*I failed biology.
Well so much for the year of the man! Unless you are a bit funny looking and ginger of course. Its not as if the producers have not tried to get hunks this year but I think that the trend in recent years has been that the public love female dancers.
The last year to have two above average male dancers was 2011, since then in 2012 only Zombie Louis and no one in 2013. I still think Jake has a good chance and he would be a different type of winner being over 40, but there are some good ladies again this year not Natalie Gumede good but up there with past champions.
Given that Hollins was 38 and Ramps was 37, a 42 year old guy winning doesn’t feel that radical to me. Now if it were a 42 year woman…
Simon is now past the “people thought you were safe and didn’t vote for you” stage and into “maybe the public like everyone better, sorry” territory…I think Len and Bruno were right based on the dance-off though.
Have to say I am most impressed with Caroline at the moment, best staging and technique this week for me. She’s also up for it too – whereas all the other couples were hugging each other at being saved, she and Pasha were all “right, well done, we’re through, now for the next dance”…
Yeah. It always makes me slightly irrationally anrgy when Len rolls out the “people thought you were safe” reasoning, every year making it sound like some amazing revelation that he’s just thought of. Perhaps everyone thought he was crap, Len, how about that for a startling new idea?
At least the actual couples have stopped saying it. I remember a particularly grim interview on ITT in Series 7 where James was putting questions to Ricky & Natalie where all three of them sat around agreeing that the only reason that Marvellous Them had ever been in the dance-off was because people thought they were too amazing for it to even be possible that they might go home.
I am idly pondering if Simon might break the record for most Bottom 2s. They couldn’t feasibly send him home over any of Judy/Scott/Alison barring a major disaster, and I don’t see his vote getting much better…
I think the issue for the men is that the hunk vote is well and truly split, Jake is cool and dat ass, Steve Backside is buff and dat ass, Thom was ever so nice and dat ass, Mark is cheeky one minute and soft as a caramel the next (aw <3, etc) and dat ass, and Simon was supposed to be ringer dingding but instead has either mugged a lot or been a bit cold. Once you're bitten by the bottom two bug it's hard to last much longer too. I think the ladies don't know who to back (unlike Louis' year where it didn't really matter how randomly he got scored he was always winning).
The hunx are a bit too equally matched.
Poor Simon’s ass 😦
Mark being pushed by bottom 2 tease to the point of breakdown was fantastically cruel on the part of the producers, and combined with Karen earlier being overawed by how something she choreographed was temporarily top of the leaderboard, it’s safe to say they’re the Ultimate Woobie Pairing. As much as I’m enjoying this hunk carnage, they’re my faves (well, joint with Judy) and I really want them around for at least another month.
And yet I don’t want to get rid of anyone circling the bottom of the leaderboard. Judy is an absolute delight and was WAY underscored. Alison is too much fun to lose, even if she’s getting a touch of the Rileys. Scott… well, if anything I’m enjoying all this Kate Garraway schadenfreude he’s accumulating (and I find his dancing absolutely fascinating, in the worst sense of the word). And then of the mid-tablers, I could only stand to lose Simon and maybe Steve. Top four aren’t going anywhere. I’m far too invested in people this year.
So at mum’s for half term and managed to get into trouble on three fronts re the results show, a) I already knew the result and had therefore “cheated”, b) wouldn’t spill the result because she told me not to, c) because the result was somehow my fault and because I said they were both a bit beige personality wise.
In other news
Me “did Iveta just say he filled her heart with butter?”
House “sounded a bit like that, can’t be, have you been watching Grantchester.”
Me “what floppy headed ginger public school actors?” “Too right I’m only human”.
I haven’t even checked my family’s opinions on this series yet. I shudder to think.
Barn dance man up ended over hay bale – communicated my views on line dancing in one move.
Sounds like a crossword clue.
4 Across, Barn dance man up ended over hay bale, (7)
T–SP–
I can see why the GBP are voting for Judy & Anton, but NOT Scott & JFG *shrugs* 😦
I haven’t been a Radio 1 listener for decades, so I don’t know, but has he got a big fanbase? Or is it the extra viewers that have forsaken XF and are now distorting Strictly?
I had to laugh at JFG retweeting someone who’d sent her a pic of Shirley Temple with Joanne Clifton written on it, as though it were a compliment!
If it really is “in no particular order” as Tess declares every week, then leaving Mark & Karen till the Bottom 3 was viscously nasty after the triumphant performance he gave, so SHAME ON YOU EVILLE PRODUCERS!
Also cruel, but that’s the way the Dance Off voting is set up, was poor Tom & Iveta thinking they’d made it through with 2 votes, only to have it snatched away from them! :O
And what WAS that funny gesture with his mouth Simon was making during the initial vote announcement? Looked like he was imitating sucking on a dummy….or something else….I’ll leave that to your discretion in the Recap Monkseal. :O
I dunno, was it the right decision? It seems unbelievable that a guy who danced an amazing Jive (and later Charleston) that first week ends up mired in the Bottom 2. But I really wanted them to save THAAAM & Iveta, who I’m devastated have left the show. They’ll be much missed by me, and have provided some very funny moments in the training room, however unintentionally. I think that’s what was so charming about Thom, he had a strangely old fashioned, naive air about him, inspite of having nude photoshoots on his CV. Good Luck in Hollywood!
I enjoyed the Barn Dance’s all male pro Brokeback Mountain bits very much…..er until a random podgy rope twirler came on the scene to shatter my fantasy. Yee Ha!
Just wanted to add…..what has happened to Boy George!!?? I thought his macro-biotic diet made him healthy and fit now? Cos he looked old, pale and ghostly, his voice sounded overcome with the lurgy, and it was very sad to witness. 😦
His ex-b/f on drums looked like a waxwork, and the whole thing was incongruous, with the musical artistes barely able to muster a performance, whilst the Pros were going at it hammer and tongs with their ridiculous Ballroom Jives! Weird, well weird, if you ask me.
I think Simon was just miming to Judy how nervous he was. Justifiably so in the end…
A shock boot indeed. Poor Simon. I really felt for him, as the penny came crashing to the floor re his relative lack of popularity. He looked like he was on his way to a complete breakdown when everyone was gathering for the usual group hug. Loved Iveta’s speech – I thought she was about to propose…
I’d love a shock boot amongst two of the top 4. Short of Judy/ Scott getting through to the final on the back of the naughty, rebellious GBP vote, (like the producers would let that happen…) I can’t see any other 4some in the final, and would love the chance for a middle-packer or “J” word contestant to claw their way in. Otherwise we’re in for a dullish 7 (?) weeks watching P/F/C/J pulling further and further away, practising their show dances ahead of the final face off.
Thanks for your hilarious recaps, Monkseal. I still haven’t recovered from your comment about the impact of Krotchtina’s hair on a manly chin…… or should I say, chinsssssssss?
Now now (*insert name here*) isn’t that fat…
The main thing I learned from this week’s results show is that it’s impossible to fancy a man who is dancing to Cotton Eye Joe. Even if it’s Tristan, and he’s got cream trousers on again. That’s me cured of my pining for his loss every week.
Thom was one of those people where all the elements were there and he should have been a brilliant dancer, but somehow everything he did felt a bit flat. I felt the same way about Louis Smith and he ended up winning the thing, so who knows what Thom could have acheived if he’d been kept in? I love Iveta, and I mainly feel sad for her that she won’t get to spend the rest of her days up until Christmas pawing Thaaaam and pulling “oo-er missus” faces at the camera. I mean, I can’t personally see the appeal of him, but she was obviously happy. And she deserves to be.
Yeah, but Thom couldn’t do backflips.
I’m slightly concerned about what’s going to happen to Mark Wright when he’s eliminated. I just hope that his entire clan are in the audience ready to draw him to their collective bosom, that’s all.
I originally assumed that Jake would be the one to have the Scott Maslen Memorial Breakdown this year due to the stress of the competition and filming The Best Christmas Walford’s Ever Had, but he really doesn’t seem to be showing any signs of cracking at all, so I’m now just transferring all of my hopes for a proper ballroom meltdown onto Mark.
I hope he Jan Ravens it. But then I hope everyone Jan Ravens it. WHEN IS SOMEONE GOING TO JAN RAVENS IT AGAIN?
Sorry you’re feeling ill Monkseal, but whilst your much anticipated recap is delayed, thought your readers might be interested to see this version of a Samba from Dance Avec Le Stars, with French Figure Skater (and longtime Gay Icon) Brian Joubert, apparently in a partner swap this week, though you’d never guess! Bruno would be salivating if he was Judging this dance, though the BBC would have to change Strictly’s time to well past the watershed. Are all overseas versions of our show this filthy? :-0
http://vimeo.com/110028816
I adore Brian’s DALS journey, which is mostly crying about his daddy issues and trying not to be scared of touching girls, all accompanied by intense scrutiny from his crazy mother Raymonde.
LOL at your brilliant description! 😀
I can’t believe his weird uber clingy Mother is STILL watching him like a hawk after all these years, and hasn’t backed off by now! She’s still sucking lemons aswell.
So many times I’ve danced drunkenly to that song. Admittedly not quite like that (Dentista <3)
Well that French presenter (Vincent Cerutti) can whisper sweet nothings to me. *Ahem*
I like the split screen with Judge’s comments and slow-mos of the dance, and instant Twitter reaction as they walk off. Also, I’m sure that Judge in Bruno’s position, is the guy who used to teach the Strictly Pros the Salsa when it was first introduced……..Now they just hire Pros who already know. 😉
Hi Huriye
If you youtube Petra and james Marlow dwts you will see Bruno’s reaction
to an identical Samba right down to the red undies (which cost Petra some votes I think) also to gasolina. Essentially he asks James when he is free for a full service having had his spark plugs explode. Or something ; -)
I watch the German version of strictly – Let’s Dance – and is very tame by comparison. Although three dances stand out in terms of choreography, Laurel and Hardyesque Charleston (called Dick and Doof here, fat and stupid, a charming nation) a beautiful rumba to Diamonds (again used recently by dwts) and a michael Jackson freestyle that won the contestant the show (again purloined by dwts for Corbin) the crossovers in dance and music choices occur frequently.
Germany has not had a same couple yet but we do have a transgender pro. Go us!
Hi Beyonce Castle,
Thanks for all the great info. I looked up Peta & James’ version of Gasoline Samba, and you described Bruno’s reaction perfectly, Tom the host, looked awkward! I didn’t realise that the various shows can just lift a whole routine and styling (albeit slight variations in choreo) but still basically the same! Not sure I agree with that.
I searched for some Let’s Dance clips, but couldn’t find any. 😦
I used to love watching the German version of Dancing on Ice, the first one with Kati Witt as host, and when I still had access to all the German channels via satellite, my German was improving alot! 🙂