Last night! Two-dance week was upon us! Alexandra, Debbie and Joe all fared well, quelle surprise, whilst Mollie plus samba went even less well than you might expect. Tonight! Expect lots of 'no-one wants to go home before the final' content, but lose one we must, as Steve's already down to recap about 13 or 14 dances next week, if not more, and he doesn't need to add to that total.
We open with a pro-plus dance to Aretha's 'Rock Steady', which features lindy hop and break-dancing: together at last! I actually don't mind the combination insofar as it works with the music, but the floor is so stuffed of bonus dancers (including the female equivalent of those two kids they had in Diversity) that it's not always easy to see what's going on - and much of the work directly in front of camera is the breakdancers rather than the regular pros, and it's always a bit less emotionally investing to see strangers doing these things. Anton is also involved and I miss the days he used to just not bother with this sort of thing because he. is. not. good. Then they all fall over at the end and make snow angel poses, and I'm sure that's meant to be symbolic of something, but god knows what.
Tess and Claudia enter; Tess in a black dress with (natch) an asymmetrical neckline, and Claudia in some blue monstrosity with white and black line detailing that makes her look exactly like a hipster-fied cello. I don't know what she's done to anger the wardrobe gods this series. Perhaps she fastforwards 'Putting on the Glitz' when she watches ITT, I don't know. They thank the dancers, including the 10 and 13 year old 'B-girls' and this show actually using the phrase 'B-girls' is quite a thing. A thing that Mrs Confused of Tumbridge Wells is penning an email to Points of View about right now.
The judges enter, Bruno with Shirley and Craig with Darcey - who's in a virginal white dress, to counter the absolute filth of the lacy see-through one she wore on Saturday, her wardrobe being an ever-intriguing phenomenon this series. Shirley makes her mark, perhaps because of Bruno, and then she pulls Darcey in for an embrace.
Now for the recap of last night, in which the following is noteworthy: Gemma's rehearsal hair looks an absolute STATE; Katya wears a fluffy black dressing gown with silvery spots/stars on it; Gemma's trying to coin the phrase '30s club'; there is a lot of emphasis on Mollie's mistakes.
And so we come to our final safety results of the series, barring the ones we'll see after the guest performance. Our couples are all dressed in the outfits they wore for their second dance last night, so either they all chose that, or there wasn't time to change to reprise dance one (to be fair, most of them had a better second dance, except perhaps Joe). Joe and Katya and Alexandra and Gorka are both safe, and Alexandra goes absolutely crazy. The first couple in danger? Gemma and Aljaž, meaning the storyline has gone as we might expect. They give what sound like farewell speeches, saying how happy they are to have got so far, and Tess says the couples had the choice which dance to reprise, and they chose the tango. Shirley says they've had a spectacular journey but advises Gemma to get down more in her legs and fix problems with her head. Gemma says it's a fighting dance, so they'll go out and fight.
With the safe couples, Joe says those were the nicest words he ever heard and we try to pretend musical theatre leading man Joe hasn't danced before. Claudia reminds Katya it's her first time in the final. Of the two series she's done. It's also Gorka's first final, but that's apparently not remarkable. Alexandra thanks everyone for voting for them. Even though people haven't been very much going on the last two weeks. Gorka says Alexandra has real inner strength and fights for everything.
We get a trailer for ITT which previews Darcey, Shirley, Tess and Claudia coming on to the show and 'some of our favourite champions' which appears to be permafixture Ore and... Chris Hollins. Mm-hmmmm. Guest performance time now, with Craig David and Bastille (or one of Bastille anyway). Actually quite a welcome change for this show to have some contemporary music. Janette and Aljaž do a little contempo-waft-meets-Latin dancing in front of it, consisting 90% of lifts and one bit where she opens her legs right in front of his face to allow him to give her gynaecological area a proper inspection. Romantic.
Dance Debrief opens with the judges doing the robot as they enter to... Whitney Houston's 'So Emotional'. We cover Alexandra being committed and outstanding; Joe stumbling his way out of a lift and the unusual gravity-defying thing they did at the end; Mollie's shoulders kind of raising, a fraction, if you squint; Bruno being the only person giving Debbie a 10, because 'there's nothing wrong to it'. And nothing about Gemma, because it's more worthwhile to spend our time with a recap of this segment, apparently. It does feature lots of footage of Shirley and Darcey homoeroticism, some clips of the judges more than once because there really is so little of note to recap, and not one mention of the single iconic moment of this segment, Shirley vs Claudia, so what a waste of time that was.
So we come to revealing whether Mollie or Debbie will be dancing off - and, of course, it's Mollie.
She says they're grateful to be in the semi-finals and that they'll go out and give it their all in the waltz. Mollie says she'll keep her shoulders down and try to nail the footwork. Darcey says 'you're in the arms of AJ', which is a fun play on the song lyrics of the sort we'd normally expect from Bruno and tells Mollie to be confident in him and in the dance.
Debbie says Strictly had brought happiness back into her life, and given her her sparkle back, which seems quite sad, poor Debbie. Claudia asks how many lifts Giovanni will put in their dance and he says 'I think all of them'. Heh.
Recap of the five semi-finalists' moments from the whole series now, which is an entirely superfluous bit of filler.
Tess reminds us that both Mollie and Gemma got 32 for their dances, in case we were trying to jump to conclusions about who will be saved before they even dance. Mollie and AJ dance first and they do a good job. It's very sweet, and Mollie doesn't seem to let the nerves hinder her, dance off queen that she is. I'm not expecting her to be saved third time out, but it's a good shot. Gemma and Aljaž
Craig says both couples were neck and neck and both pulled out the stops, but Gemma and Aljaž just had the edge. Darcey also saves them for being more confident and assured. Bruno congratulates both couples for improving but thinks Gemma and Aljaž stood out more to his eyes. Shirley says she would have saved them too, which is a total lie, surely. [I must admit I thought if Shirley had been given a vote, she would've saved Mollie. This year is full of surprises. - Steve] Everyone gives Mollie and AJ a standing ovation and Mollie congratulates Gemma for dancing her socks off, wishes everyone luck and thanks AJ for being her hero. Aww. Tess says they're so cute that they've even started to look alike. We get a best bits as is often the case at this stage: Mollie luffing AJ; Mollie training hard; neither being remotely comfortable doing VTs; lots of hugs; Tallulah the Tango Queen. Mollie thanks everyone again.
Claudia reminds us that public votes determine the result in the final and we then send Mollie and AJ out to 'Can't Smile Without You' with a very dizzying lift, whilst the judges sway along in opposite directions to one another. The post-show post-mortem features our four final couples being very excited. But who will triumph? Join Steve next week to find out!
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