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.