Penny's from heaven

Results show: 28th October 2007

As if we'd forgotten, there are 11 couples left and tonight one couple will leave for good! Last night we saw the good (Matt and Flavia), the bad (Brendan "Bad Boy" Cole and his SHOCKING and ILLEGAL extra lift!) and the ugly (Kenny the Gorilla, obviously). Who will be going home? Titles! Audience clap-along! Drink! [I can't drink, I'm too busy clapping along! - Steve]

The celebs and their partners return to the floor, along with Bruce and Tess. Tess seems to be modelling a metallic Tina Turner tribute number with a "Croydon facelift" hairdo and large hoop earrings for an authentic council estate look. Bruce jokes (and I use the word in the loosest possible sense) about the clocks going back and having an extra hour, which will surely only confuse those people who don't realise that this was filmed last night and the BBC IS LYING TO US. Things we have to look forward to: the professional dancers' paso doble, a foxtrot from the British ballroom champions, and... Wet Wet Wet? Oh well.

Recap! Kate and Anton's samba was terrible. Backstage, Kate asks, "Where did it go wrong?" Anton replies, "Just when you... started moving." [Love him. - Carrie] Kate had trouble keeping a straight face after she flashed her knickers at the judges. Kenny practises the art of the understatement to describe his and Ola's samba: "Technically it wasn't great." Craig is obviously a fan of the Louis Walsh school of voting prediction, saying Kenny will need "every vote in Scotland". [That made me laugh like a lunatic. I was waiting for him to add something along the lines of, "And his family loves him." - Carrie] John is disappointed with his performance, but Nicole says everybody makes mistakes, and his son is still proud of him. Lilia is proud of Dom - drink! Gethin and Camilla are hi-fiving and Gethin says he's making progress - "I wouldn't have been able to go out and do that, have a good time on the dancefloor, six weeks ago." Gabby says she never felt that she was on the beat. [Stupid cow. GET on the bloody beat then. - Carrie] Letitia is happy with her dance, which Len called her best dance to date, and Darren says they're going slowly uphill and hopefully won't have a sharp descent. Penny's dad, who doesn't seem to have anything better to do than hang around the BBC studios all the time, says she's got her confidence back. Penny says the samba was made for her because it's how she dances in nightclubs. Alesha seems impressed that she managed to be serious - "I'm a l-l-l-laydeeeee!" Kelly and Brendan in CONTROVERSY SHOCKER! Arlene is furious with Bruno for not penalising them for the extra lift. Brendan thinks the others are a bit annoyed about it, but at least the other judges gave them eights to make up for Bruno's extravagance. Matt's mum was impressed by how smart he looked. Matt wants to "keep the boys alive" in the competition and show everyone it's not just about the girls.

Bruce chats to the judges. Len says Matt's American smooth was brilliant and also thought Penny was good but, being the stickler for rules that he is, was certainly not impressed with Brendan's antics. Bruce asks Bruno why he gave them a ten, and he responds, "I didn't have an 11!" He claims that he "speaks from the heart" and the dance was fantastic. Arlene shouts him down, yelling, "Rules are rules! Are you a judge or a joker?" Fight! Fight! Fight! My money's on Arlene. [God yes. She's probably got some residual bitterness left over from losing DanceX; I certainly wouldn't bet against her. - Steve] Head Judge Len "Voice of Reason" Goodman says the show "is not judged on public applause" - correct there, it's public votes that count - and that the judges are "supposed to give credence" - what's the point in them being there at all? Filler, Head Judge Len. [On the plus side, we now know what the point of the judges is. I'm with Len, Arlene and Craig on this one. It's all very well saying, "That was a good dance, I really enjoyed it, have ten out of ten," but if that couple didn't obey the rules which everyone else had to abide by, then they have to be marked down. Maybe if Alesha and Matthew had chucked in an extra lift or two it might have been more aesthetically pleasing and distracted people from the occasional technical lapses. But they didn't, because it's CHEATING. - Carrie]

Speaking of which, now we have the pro dancers' paso, which some of the couples will be dancing next week. The man plays the role of the matador and the woman is either the bull or the cape, apparently. [I thought the woman was always the cape? Then again, you can write everything I know about dancing on the back of a stamp, so never mind. - Steve] The ladies come out in very skimpy, shimmery silver outfits. I thought the paso usually had longer skirts than that. The men are very dull in head-to-toe black with no chests on show. They're dancing to the White Stripes' 'Seven Nation Army', which is a perplexing choice for the dance as well as putting the male singer a bit out of his depth. The couples do a weird move where the men are on their hands and knees on the floor and the women lie on their backs. It's a bit like a more elegant caterpillar. I doubt Head Judge Len would approve. The music changes to the Mission Impossible theme tune. All the flashing lights detract from the dancing. Frankly, I don't think it's a very good guide to what a paso ought to be like. Must do better.

Tess is backstage and thought the paso was very sexy. Matt is modest about coming top of the leaderboard. Kate says, "Everything went wrong! My top nearly came off," and says it was quite offputting that she could hear Bruno cackling as they danced. John says everything went wrong for him too, and, shockingly, he doesn't want to be in the dance-off.

Claudia does her usual plug for 'It Takes Two'. Next week - Rod Stewart, the boys from Joseph [WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP! - Carrie] and Mark Ramprakash.

Various celebrity audience members backstage harp on about their favourites, or their mates, or usually both.

Bruce introduces a "very special foxtrot" from the British ballroom champions, who dance to swing tune 'It's a Blue World', which for once is within the singers' range. Bruce may think this dance is special, but it has no personality at all. Perhaps that's how professionals should be; who knows? Anyway, I'm bored. The judges don't give them a standing ovation, which they seem to do for most of the filler. Bruce says there was "more rise and fall than the Roman Empire". Blah.

Time to speak to the judges again! Didn't we do this earlier? Craig didn't get a say earlier though. He is uncontroversial, saying the show is full of surprises and the standard changes weekly, but "It's good to see Matt coming up through the ranks to challenge the ladies." Arlene says the boys are "closing the gap rapidly"; she thinks Gethin did well, and has faith in John Barnes. As Bruce thanks them for their remarks, Len and Bruno clap politely but nobody else bothers.

Here's the moment we've all been waiting for - Wet Wet Wet performing their 1992 hit 'Goodnight Girl'. Since they haven't had a hit since 'Love Is All Around' was in the charts for most of 1994, we can only assume they've got a greatest hits album coming out in time for Christmas and probably a stadium tour on the horizon. [Quick, run! Women, children and gays first! - Steve] Perhaps Marti Pellow's coke fund is running low? Allegedly. Matt and Nicole do interpretative dance. It looks like a rumba but has very little chemistry [but why? They used to be married! - Carrie], though there are plenty of lifts and tricks.

FINALLY! It's time for the results. Two couples will have to dance again, nobody wants to leave, etc. This is the MOMENT of TRUTH. So, in random order, the couples who are safe are: Matt and Flavia - who probably would have had to get no audience votes at all to be in the bottom two; Kate and Anton - what the fuck? Everyone is shocked, including Bruce, who remarks on what a surprise that is. How many lives does this woman have? When will the sympathy votes run out? I am pleased for Anton though; Letitia and Darren - I think Darren gasps, "Fabulous!", though he is muffled by Letitia's hair; Alesha and Matthew; Gethin and Camilla; Dom and Lilia, with a cheeky chappie thumbs-up; Kelly and Brendan; John and Nicole, who look pretty relieved.

Those are, as Bruce pointed out, pretty surprising results. Only Gabby and James, Penny and Ian, and Kenny and Ola are left in. I'm almost expecting a husband versus wife dance-off, but it's not to be - Kenny and Ola are through! Gabby does not look happy. [AHAHAHAHAH! - Carrie] Everyone seems shocked. Len says he's "absolutely astounded" that two of the best sambas of the night are in the bottom two and advises them to dance their best, relax and enjoy it. Bruce says it "doesn't seem right". Well, get used to it. This is democracy in action right here. [THIS is what I want my licence fee spent on - pissing off stuck-up tossers on light entertainment shows. - Carrie]

Gabby and James are first up in the dance-off. Their samba is pretty good and they don't deserve to go out. [And since the judges remarked on the appalling nature of Gabby's voltas last night, I now know what a volta looks like, because I watched Gabby doing them badly again. Thanks Gabby! - Steve] Penny's acting, on the other hand, annoys me. If it was up to me, Penny and Ian would lose just for choosing inappropriate samba music and spending half of their routine on boot-related choreography rather than proper samba moves. Still, this will be a difficult choice for the judges.

Bruce reminds us that the couple with the most votes will be back next week, which means the other couple will be leaving. Oh, right. Is *that* what the dance-off is for? Thank goodness for Brucie. Craig says this is "the situation we wanted to avoid", but "for sheer versatility" he chooses Gabby. Arlene says "because she danced for her life", she's choosing Penny. Bruno says this is an "unprecedented situation", but Penny and Ian had "extra bling" in their "Austin Powers samba" and so he wants to save them, which means Head Judge Len actually has the casting vote this week. Len is clearly not happy, and stresses that his role is "to vote off one of the worst, not one of the best". [Tough shit. Next they'll be wanting to do all the voting themselves. This is ENTIRELY the judges' fault. When will they learn? Kate and Anton and Kenny and Ola are likeable and endearing, because they've got more of a learning curve ahead of them - a "journey", if you will - and the judges keep insulting them. Apart from the fact that their high scores from the judges make the Great British Public think they're safe, the two couples in the dance-off this week aren't going to have a natural fanbase out there. Penny seems OK, but I haven't got much of an opinion on Ian one way or the other, and Gabby and James are just the most fearsomely, ambitiously competitive couple in the world - people will not vote for them. - Carrie] Perhaps he will quit and be replaced by Jason Gardiner in an X Factor-style storyline. Anyway, Len says both danced beautifully, but for her "more rounded performance", he's saving Penny.

Gabby does the usual stuff about having had a phenomenal time and says she had more to give; James mutters grumpily that they "should've been in the top three but there you go". [Graciousness seems to be a running theme of losers this series. - Carrie] Off they go for their last dance, and try to show off with an overhead lift which comes off looking a bit clumsy as Gabby flashes her knickers at the camera. Who would have thought that Gabby would go off before Kenny? Or Kate, for that matter? [Not me. I'm hardly a fan of Gabby's, but for these two couples to be in the bottom two on this occasion was absolute horseshit. - Steve] This is what happens when the Great British Public vote! After the credits, Tess tells us that the voting lines have now re-opened and "Remember you're voting for your favourite!" I think she should be telling us to remember to vote for whoever does the best dance. Everyone seems to have forgotten.

Tune in next week, when Alesha and Kelly will probably be in the dance-off!