SCD: It Takes Two

Some random comments from Monday and Tuesday.

- I'm not a fan of this new magic button they BBC have found for their recaps. You know, the one that makes people go reallyfast and then s l o w r i g h t d o w n. . . .

It's a bit odd. As is the glowing rays of light eminating from variouos people they've decided to go with.

- I hadn't quite twigged until Saturday that we were having another two weeks of separate boys/girls competition. It doesn't seem very fair as there are a number of boys who are considerably worse than any of the girls, the bottom group of which are all at much the same level.


... that's about it. I'm away from tomorrow until next Monday. I maybe will have internet access to post about Strictly, but I might not. I do get to watch the dancing with my mum and my gran though, which will be fun.

SCD Week Two : Results

- Well. WELL. The Anton fanbase has done rather poorly, haven't they? I can't believe they kept him and Kate in for all those weeks last year and then failed to keep him in when he had someone half decent. Anton was so sad. Although he has been annoying me recently, what with his constant TV appearances and his whole confident gentlemanly act has tipped over into smugness, a bit, which I didn't like. But he was so sad!

- We nearly had a Lisa-Jodie dance off which was all I wanted. Jodie did really well in the dance off. We might have gotten rid of Brendan. Bother.

- The new professionals dance was very very weird. I didn't really like it. Hayley really bores me. Brian is okay. I like Ch/Kristina.

I have no more comments that aren't just repeats of everything I said before, re: Bruce. Oh, but I liked Tess' dress.

Strictly Come Dancing: Week Two

Sorry I'm a bit later with this, we had a friend up for the weekend. Luckily they were also a Strictly fan so we settled in happily on Saturday night, with Strictly and Chinese takeaway, as is rapidly becoming a habit.

Jessie and Darrren
Well, she was much better than I thought it would be - she didn't deserve the bottom, at least not alone.

Matthew and Christine
I love Matthew. He is so sweet, and he loved Alesha and he bought Carol flowers and he was just lovely. I don't actually remember much of this dance, except that it looked quite flowing and stuff, and that Matthew sang along to the song and I couldn't concentrate on anything else except the adorableness of that.

Lisa and Brendan
Oh God, I can't believe they keep Brendan. I can't believe he's just allowed to be awful and make people cry and be all over them *shudders* and still be in the show. I hate that they are pretending he has changed this year, which they do every year and then he will get to about week five, and his partner won't be able to do something and he'll be awful, and they come on ITT and be all, 'oh no, it's fine, hoho' and AHHHH.

Anyway. Lisa didn't look brilliant, she looked quite uncomfortable in the dance. She's in the dangerzone, points wise, so perhaps she will go home.

Jodie and Ian
She's taller than him in heels. That's not good. But she was remarkably graceful. I think latin might break her, which is sad, because I love Ian. They need to stop finding him taller and taller people now.

Heather and Brian
Brian proved he could choregraph - I really liked his routine. Heather was quite good when she relaxed, but did vary between that and looking utterly terrified. Hopefully now she's been through it once, she can start going for it. She did a half-flare (I recognised a step!) which earnt some points from me, because I always get confused on those.

Gillian and Anton
Well, she was okay. Perhaps my theory that Anton has forgotten how to teach is wrong. Maybe. She wasn't very flowing and graceful, and she did cling to Anton a bit, but she managed to keep up with him, and seemed to remember the routine.

Rachel and Vincent
She was quite good, complicated hand moves and things but... it seems really mean to compare salsas and foxtrots. Foxtrots are impossibly technical and awful. And I hate to sound like Len (Oh so much!) but for women, once you've learnt the salsa rhythm, the basic steps and how to let the man lead -which is quite tricky, I admit; it's knowing when she keep your arms tense, and how and when to relax them so the man can lead you through stuff- BUT once you've over come those hurdles, all that twisty arm stuff requires very little concentration. You can just sort of go with it and let the man lead you around, if your basic footwork is good. Compared with Heather and Brian, who did alot of work seperately, it's not so impressive.

Cheri and James
Cheri was magnificant. Beautiful. The bright green was a bit... well. But she was graceful and elegant and all of that stuff that is good in a foxtrot.

To be honest, it was all bit meh, really. My comments on each dance are quite short. I would probably ranked them as follows:

Quite Good: Cheri, Christine
Goodish: Rachel, Heather
Sort-of-okay: Lisa, Jessie, Gillian, Jodie

I want Lisa to go home. Or maybe Jodie. Mostly Lisa. It will probably be Jessie, although presumably the Eastenders and the Darren fans will unite to keep them out of the bottom two, given that they are in bottom place. But who knows?

The Boys' Dance

Oh, they can choreograph a meregue! Remember last years weirdness? This was a thousand times better.

-Bless John Sergant! He did quite well, I thought, they we did start looking at Don&Lilia a bit too early, presumably his solo bit went a bit wrong?
-Gary Rhodes looked marginally better. He just looks so uncontrolled... if he made his steps slightly smaller it would look a thousand times better.
-I really don't think Andrew Castle can dance. He looks incredibly stiff and awkward.
-I love Erin, even in her silly cheerleader outfit with her funny hair. It looks like Austin might just manage latin, though possibly not as good as his ballroom. We'll see.

Some Random Comments

SHUT UP LEN. Stop talking over the other judges to object to their opinions. THEIR OPINION COUNTS AS MUCH AS YOURS. Stop courting public favour. Blahblahblah.

SHUT UP BRUCE. Really, he needs someone else to write his jokes. Or he just needs to stop talking to us inbetween bits. And stop telling us which bits where funny WHY AREN'T YOU LAUGHING? Don't beg for laughs, it is just annoying. (Also, the comment about Nancy's was inappropriate and awful.)

Tess's dress was sort of normal! Huh. Also, the foxtrot dresses were not as ugly as I expected! Admittedly Cheri was dressed in bright glowing green and Gillian had some weird enormous flower on the front of her dress, but Christine looked brilliant and I don't remember what Jodie wore, so it can't have been too awful. How are we supposed to recognise foxtrots if the dresses are normal?! The world is mad.

Jill Halfpenny was in the audience! I'm so glad she's going to dance. :)

The nice chinese place are still doing thick noodles not thin ones. I AM SO SAD.

TV: ER

ER bosses hope for Clooney return. His spokespeople are denying it though.

Frankly, I'm amazed that ER is still going. I watched religously from season 5 to 8, then went back and watched the earlier seasons as they were repeated. I lost track of it after seaosn 8, catching bits and pieces... until recently I noticed they were showing the latest seaosn on E4. Season 13. Thirteen! Or was it fourteen? A silly number, anyway. I went a bit mad and bought all of it on DVD and watched it all in an embarrasing short amount of time.

But I love ER. I love it in many different ways. I love the characters and stories of seasons 1-4, the quiet moments playing in wheelchairs interupted by awful tragedies, the complicated politics of medicine and the nurses and the paramedics and the desk clerks and the silly decorations and the patients who came back episode after episode, season after season. I like the characters and much of the plotlines of seasons 5-8, the increasingly audience grabbing stories, Kerry being gay, Abby being great, Carter growing up. I love the madness of seasons 8 onwards, in all it's drama, soap-opera-esque style. I even love the endless characters I don't understand who come and go like... things that come and go quickly. I love that Neela was just depressed from about the minute she arrived until... well, as far as I have seen. (I think I have missed a season out.) She wants to be a doctor. No she doesn't. She wants to do something else. She ends up being going back to being a doctor because she can't do anything else. She's in the wrong speciality. She's tired and alone and tired and alone.

I got a bit obsessed with Neela.

I don't know how the returning characters will work. By my estimation (and my ER watching has been spot and out of order for the last few seasons) only Abby and the nurses will recognise Carter. Oh, probably Pratt. Is he a person? Dr. Greene is dead. And also boring. Why do we have to have a flashback? A flashback that won't be filled with the characters I loved. If Doug Ross returns... only the nurses will know him. Will he bring Carol and/or the twins with him? It could be fun.

Despite the fact that it has become a sort of parody of itself, it's sad to think of it ending. But also a bit exciting. How will they end it? I hope close down the ER, after the eight million storylines they did about it over the years. I'd like that.

I'm creating an ER label in case I feel the need to comment on the last series. You never know.

SCD : It Takes Two (Monday&Tuesday)

Monday

- New hair. New ceiling. Longer credits. It Takes Two is back!

- The new ceiling makes me want to duck.

- Aleeeeeeeshaaaaa! And Matthew! Adorableness.

- Blah Len, blah. I think Craig can give ones out IF HE WANTS TO. If you can't give them out, why do they exist? Pah. PAH.

- What was Claudia wearing? She looked very very thin. It was all a bit odd.

- They proved Erin was the best teacher with numberical proof. PROOF.

- No clips? Whatwhatwhat? Clips are the only time we get to see Erin!


Tuesday

- Much better clothing today Claudia.

- The new ceiling still makes me want to duck everytime we see it.

- John Sergant is the most adorable thing that ever lived.

- Training clips! Oh, why aren't people allowed to dance in jeans and t-shirts. It is clearly the best thing ever.

- Erin! Laughing and smiling and dancing.

- The comedians were good and made me laugh lots, though I can't remember entirely at what. "Len - 6, which means 2." Yes, so true! I love it when Claudia's guests recognise the travesty of Len's scoring system. Remember John Barrowman? He turned out to be great last year.

- Clips! Oh, Erin! Playing? In training? What happened?! Awwwww.


In conclusion: Love Erin. Love Claudia. Hate Len. Good.

Strictly Come Dancing: Week One Results

I hate that we have to wait a whole day to get the results now. HATE. Also, I hate that we have to see the two worst dances again. Why did the BBC think this was a good plan? I moaned about this last year. I promise not to moan about it (too much) this year. But oh my god. So many things I would fix about the results show if I had the power. So many things I would fix about the whole show, come to think of it. Starting with Bruce and ending with the judges.

But anyway.

ALESHA. MATTHEW. Dixon&Cutler return for another round in the ring, and we get to see their training. Oh, the happy memories. FellowStrictlyWatcher and I had a bit of a reminisce. Remember her laugh? Remember how she wouldn't stop talking? Remember when she wore a stunning dress and he couldn't concentrate on the dance at all? Oh, they are super.

The professionals danced: you could tell it was a Foxtrot from the ugly dresses. There seemed to be a medieval princess theme. Certainly an Anton/Erin creation; their dances rarely have couple doing solos, and are much more about people dancing in unison or in... I want to say rounds. Like singing. Also, Erin danced with Matthew. (Aww.) And Karen seems to have abandoned Brendan in favour of Matthew, which is completely understandable.

Then the group dance. So much incompetence, so little floor space. Watching the professionals attempting to steer their celebrity into the right place was just hysterical; Austin was boogieing away, John was laughing, all the lifts seemed to go wrong. On the plus side, Jessica Wallace looked alot more confident than she did last night. Yay?

Claudia had a chat with Tess and OH! HER HAIR. She looks like a grown up! It's a bit odd, but quite, quite pretty. I did always think that Claudia would turn into one of those beautiful older women, and it seems like I was right. It's going to take some getting used to, and I'm glad to see she is still as silly as ever. "Not just saying castle, that would be weird."

Bruce talked for ages and ages and ages with Bette Midler, for no apparent reason. Did they have some extra time to fill or did he just get distracted? It was all a bit much, wasn't it? Then she sang, very nicely, but really, the wing gesture was the highlight. The wind beneath my wings. Get it? WINGS. Then Ola and Jordan came out and danced a rumba. It's always a rumba. Usually Ola&James or Darren&Lilia, and occasionally Ian&Camilla. It's just sad how little ballroom they have in this section, by which I mean how little Anton&Erin we have.

Results

... and finally to the point of the show. I'm glad Gary and Karen were saved, because going out in the first week two years in a row is a bit much. And John didn't end up in the bottom two! Mostly, the bottom two were the ones I'd have picked.

The dance off:

Phil and Flavia: he did smile for a minute at the begining, but then he went completely wrong, so he was back to the slight grimace of concentration. Overall it was about the same as the first time.

Don and Lilia: the section in front of the judges was better, but he completely messed up a section later on... he did smile alot more than Phil and he seemed more relaxed than the first time.

I would have saved Don and Lilia, I think overall. I don't normally agree with Len, but this early on in the competition, I think enjoyment and entertainment are bigger factors than ability, if only because the level of ability is so low. I can't imagine Don and Lilia lasting much longer though.


Next week the girls are doing a foxtrot and a salsa. Week two used to be rumba and quickstep, didn't it? How odd. Oh well prepare for the typical ugly foxtrot dresses. At least they gave us some warning. Plus, we get a whole week of Claudia before then.

Other Saturday Night Viewing

Fellow-Strictly-Watcher, who I may shorten to FSW from now on, claimed to have heard of a show where celebrities have to stand by a swimming pool while a wall comes towards them with a person-shaped cut out in it and they had to make the shape of the person. Had I heard about it? she asked. No, I said. I think you were dreaming.

Half an hour before Strictly started, she called me downstairs. It turned out she wasn't dreaming. It's called Hole in the Wall, and is summarised by the BBC thusly:

Dale Winton hosts a series in which two teams of celebrities, captained by dancing star Anton Du Beke and cricket legend Darren Gough, must try to force themselves through various crazy-shaped holes in giant moving walls.

Clad head-to-toe in tight silver lycra, there's everything to play for, as failure results in a head-first plunge into a swimming pool. The wall shapes get harder and travel faster as the celebrities get wetter.

Yes, it is as insane as it sounds. Insanely brilliant. We could only imagine that someone pitched it as a joke, not expecting it to be made into an actual show.

The shapes seem nearly impossible. The lycra is unflatteringly brilliant. Or brilliantly unflattering. Sometimes they have to work together, which they pretty much always failed at. They had guest "stars," who were a troupe of can-can/burlesque style dancers. The four of them plus Andi Peters had to go through a wall together, the shape of which was cancan dancer, with a leg up. In other words, they had to form a line of cancan dancers. Apparently a line is a difficult concept. They all went in the water.

Anton seems to be continuing his campaign to be on TV everyday, in any capacity. Darren Gough wasn't annoying but I still don't like him.

Next week will apparently have Vanessa Feltz and Vic Reeves. It seems like good pre-Strictly tv, the sort of thing to put on while you get tea ready (or make the phone call to the takeaway), nip to the corner shop for chocolate and/or wine, and speculate on what Tess will be wearing.

Strictly Come Dancing: Week One

How exciting is it to see the dancing back?

The correct answer is very very extremely massively exciting!

Nearly as exciting as seeing Claudia on the TV every single night for the next three months. Oh BBC, you are good to us sometimes. For a quarter of the year at least. Well done.

Moving on though, the Week One's movers, shakers, and other natural disasters...


Tom and Camilla

For the first couple on, they actually did a respectable job - he was smiling, trying to move his hips, trying, and largely successing, at being entertaining. I always think Camilla's choreography is very good; just the right mix of simplicity for her partner and flair for the audience. I hope he stays around for a while, he definately could do well, and Camilla deserves it.

Phil and Flavia

Oh dear. OH DEAR. I'm going to comment in general about costumes later, but I can't really let this one pass without saying something. My fellow strictly-watcher said it looks like she'd been hunting, and strung her catch up on her arm. Except that her catch was something yellow and fluffy. It was a bad choice.

(I know catch mostly relates to fishing, but I can't think what the hunting equivalant might be.)

The dance was okay, Phil was concentrating so very hard and Flavia looked tense... several times I spotted her leading him, him waiting for her to take a step so he knew which way to go. It was all a bit awkward, not very flowing, not much rise and fall.

Don and Lilia

Warning: I don't much like Lilia. This mostly relates to my dislike of Darren real-sportsman-been-on-a-journey-such-a-blokey-bloke Gough, but she does grate on my nerves as well.

He was awful. AWFUL. I don't think Lilia's choreography helped; most of the first part seemed to be counter-rhythm steps, instead of letting him do some basic chachacha before, after or inbetween, which is not the easiest thing to do it you're uncomfortable with the rhythm and timing. The whole section in front of the judges which cringe-worthy and he looked so uncomfortable. Once they moved on it got better, and he did some basic steps quite well. But generally it was all a bit uncomfortable.

Did everyone take a drink at Craig's "natural rhythm" comment? Yes? Good. Movinig on.

Austin and Erin

Warning 2: I love Erin. Love her more than anything. I love that she is strict and harsh and makes them work, I love that she giggles sometimes, I love that she danced with Julian and made him love her. I love her. Except for her hair. I might have to make a post about the travesty of dark-haired older women being told that dying their hair blonde makes them look ten years younger, and not being told that while they might look younger, it also makes them look awful.

Except that's pretty much my entire post.

But the dancing! It was rather lovely. I wonder if they felt sorry for Erin after the past couple of years and gave her someone who might be good, because he is a bit shorter than the partners she normally gets. But it was smooth and flowing, plenty of rise and fall, he looked like he was, for the most part, quite relaxed and enjoying it. Erin always teaches really well (remember Willie Thorn's waltz, Peter Schm...thingy's ballroom and pretty much every dance Julian ever did) and her ballroom is especially good.

And I love her.

Mark and Hayley

A couple of hours after the show, I made a list with some inital reactions to all the dances from memory (rather than using the BBC site to refresh my memory as I am now.) I got to seven couples and then went completely blank. In fact, the only way I remember who I had missed who by remembering that in fact there had been two new female professionals, and that I had missed one. My fellow-strictly-watcher remembered who the celebrity was.

That pretty much sums up my reaction to this dance. I agreed with Craig it was dull. In fact, I realised when it finished that I had spent half the time looking at my chinese food, rather than watching the tv. (The lovely chinese takeaway has started bringing us thick noodles than are slightly chewy instead of the beautiful delicate thin noodles we used to get. It's all very sad.)

Gary and Karen

I love Karen. I love that she is wacky and crazy and uses props and is insane. I love that she gets emotional, that she isn't afraid to say what she thinks about the other dances, without resorting to insulting the people who danced them. I love that she's completely blase about Brendan and his awfulness.

Gary Rhodes, Mr. Perfectionist, should get on well with her. For all her wackiness she works her celebrities hard. So it's quite something for her to say that he's actually holding them back. And the dancing didn't seem to benefit at all. Karen did her usual crazy energetic performance and Gary failed to keep up. He waved his hands madly over her. He looked odd and uncomfortable. All very poor, and definately deserved to be at the bottom of the table. That said, I hope she doesn't go home in the first week again, just because that's a bit sad for Karen. I can't seem them lasting long though.

John and Kristina

I love John Sergent, ever since I saw him HIGNFY/read his biography (I can't remember which came first.) He's adorable and funny and sweet. I have lived in fear for the past month that he was going to be awful and embarrasing and that he would go out first. He's paired with one of the new dancers as well, so he doesn't even have that fanbase to fall back on.

But I needn't have worried. While not the best dance (that belongs to Austin&Erin) it was a wonderful performance. I agree with the judges; quiet, understated and just lovely to watch. The dance itself looked flowing and smooth and all of those things a waltz should be. I really really really hope he gets votes; his mid-table which is pretty dangerous, he deserves to stick around for a bit. I can see his tango being quite good, I think he'd manage a sedate jive... after than it might start to fall apart. But he's lovely.

Ola and Andrew

I'm breaking form and putting Ola's name first. And commenting about her costume, because Oh. My. GOD. It was a catsuit. It was shiny. It has sparkles. It was some sort of animal print, lowcut front and back... the horrors go on. Ola has lovely curves and we couldn't see them at all. More importantly I don't think anyone could see Andrew - which was a good thing because the dance largely involved his standing still and making some poses that best showed off Ola's shiny-sparkily-animalprint-catsuit. Oh dear. I can't really comment much because I have no idea of his dancing skills and can't imagine him doing any other dance.

Costumes

Well, Tess looks ten times better. No belt, no fringe, simple neckline, nice colour. No slit up the leg, so she couldn't lift it for her and Bruce's standard pose, but never mind.

Let's review the rest shall we?

Camilla: weird skirt, weird top, weird bra. And then they put them together, with an odd colour combo. Why a silver bra and gold skirt? Only Wardrobe can answer.

Flavia: Dead fluffy birds. Okay.

Lilia: Orange-yellowy-gold and pink do not go together.

Erin: Looked lovely, thus lending a good arguement for my belief that she brings her own ballroom dresses with her. Sadly, her lovely dark blue dresses aren't going to look nearly as lovely now that her hair is all pale and stuff. (One day I'll get over that. Just not soon.)

Hayley: I had to look to see what she wore. Not overly offensive. Bright green with feathers at bottom? Okay. Whatever.

Karen: Oh, Karen. What was that? Mostly it was the giant silver shoulder... thing that distracted me. It was awful.

Kristina: Aww, and lovely plain white dress. Hurrah!

Ola: I belive I've made my opinion clear here, and I refuse to think about it ever again.

Basically, it seems the price of Tess getting good outfits is that most of the rest of the women are going to suffer. There was nothing stand out amongst the men, that I can recall. No bright pink or sprkily red. Or perhaps I am just immune after all these years? Either that, of the combination of Ola and Flavia made everything else seem fine.

And then...

The Girls

Oh the girls. Firstly: what was that dance? "A chachacha based type dance?" What? I assume this is because, with the extra two weeks, their usual group dances (mambo and swing) are now going to be individual dances, so they had to invent something quick. But it didn't look like a cohesive dance, the costumes were random and din't match, which added to the lack of cohesiveness... basically it didn't look like a group dance. It looked like a school disco.

The dancing was simillarly bad. All the girls looked uncomfortable and nervous, and didn't perform at all. The ones that did smile looked more like they were grimacing. Anton seems to have got an... interesting partner, again: I'm more and more convinced that he can't teach latin to save his life. Basically I have no faith in any them. Only Heather Small seemed to have any ability, and she is paired with a new dancer, so is not allowed to win.

Cherie Lunghi, however, was beautiful. Did I mention I have a bit of a thing for older, dark-haired women? (The only thing better than that is older, dark-haired women in space.) She had weird sleeves though.

Hmm. Next week might be fun.


Who knew I had this much opinion inside me? I haven't even started on the judges and Bruce. I might leave that til after the results show. Because, rest assured, I have opinions there too.

What is this blog about?

TV. TV. Some more TV. Probably some films. Books, occasionally.

I created this initally to blog about Strictly Come Dancing. Occasionally I will have some thoughts about other TV. I am a big sci-fi, and generally am hugely disappointed by current tv. I love Babylon 5, The X-Files, Star Trek of various incarnations, Farscape,

I also have found myself become a bit obsessed with other reality tv, such as Project Runway/Catwalk, Masterchef, Come Dine With Me. Actually, my love of cookery programs goes back a while. I also kept up with the past seasons of the America's So You Think You Can Dance, which I might talk about sometimes.

I love reading but am much less likely to have solid opinions about books.


A bit about me?

I'm gay, so quite a bit of this blog will be about how beautiful women on TV are sometimes. There may also be some enthusing about how Arelene and Erin (and other seeminly random couples) have True-Completely-Made-Up-Gay-Love for each other. Obviously these opinions are my own and bear no reflection of, well, reality, least of all the sexuality/activities of the people involved. It is done with complete affection and a great deal of respect for all involved. (And a fair amount of wishful thinking!) Until TV gets over the insistance of male/female dance couples and lets some male/male and female/female dancing happen, expect it to continue.

I've made it sound like being gay is my defining feature. Which it's not. But it does greatly influence how I view TV.

Other things about me: I have had some ballroom and latin lessons, so I am occasionally able to judge the dancing with authority, especially in the early weeks. This doesn't mean I'm right, merely that I recognised that step, omg! I can totally have an opinion! etc.

I can't think of anything else that mmight be important. Work, family etc won't really be mentioned here. Because it's dull.