Abandon Hope

Week 5: Top 12 Results - 21 October 2018

Last night! Charles, Danny and Ashley excelled! Vic, Lauren and Seann very much didn’t! And Bruno was skiving again so Alfonso Ribeiro turned up to tell us he once won Dancing With the Stars! Tonight! We see who’s going through to Halloween!

So, tonight’s pro dance. What I assume happened is that MattFlintMania heard The Baseballs’ cover of ‘…Baby One More Time’ and decided ‘oh yes, I’m going to choreograph to that, AND, GET THIS, Imma make it baseball themed hark at my genius’. In this lindy-jivey-miscellaneous routine, Katya and Pasha play opposing team captains for The Strictly Dodgers (men) and the Glitter Sox (men). Anton plays Katya’s coach, Amy and Aljaž play people who got caught on camera snogging when they shouldn’t be (TOO SOON, MATTFLINTMANIA), Graziano plays a hot dog vendor and Nadiya plays the one who left her PE kit at home and had to find a spare top from the clothes bin of shame. It’s very silly although it is at least more entertaining than the real thing – I went to a baseball game in the States once and it went on forever with nothing happening except someone singing the national anthem and me not knowing what to do at that point whilst everyone put their hands on their hearts and sang along. Seriously – they’d hit a ball, do the running, then all go off the pitch for 20 minutes of waiting around, rinse and repeat - I left two hours in and they hadn’t even finished the first half or scored any home runs – a bit like the first two weeks of any Strictly series, really.

Tess and Claudia enter, Tess in a purple strapless dress, Claudia in a nude and sparkly dress that doesn’t quite suit her skintone. It’s weird how Tess is actually being dressed better than Claudia this series, isn’t it? The judges dance on, except for Darcey, whose dress is so tight on the legs that she can only shuffle awkwardly.

Interminable recap of last night in which the following of interest happens: Danny calls himself an ‘official fly boy for strictly’, Kate wants to go shopping in her Viennese Waltz dress… Seann and Vick are singled out for criticism whilst Kate’s flaws are emphasised over Ranj and Lauren’s despite scoring higher than both, perhaps suggesting she’s in danger?

And now to the first set of results. Safe: Charles and Karen; Faye and Giovanni; Graeme and Oti.  The first couple in the dance-off? Seann and Katya. If Vick and Graziano are down there with them and both perform the same as in the performance show, it’ll be interesting whether the judges cut off Vick for a worse dance or Seann for…well, all the reasons they might choose to jettison Seann over anyone else.

In the Clauditorium, Charles thanks everyone including his late dad, Faye complains about Giovanni’s singing, which she describes ‘confident and passionate’, with a look on her face that says ‘I have been in a band with the two Lees (Latchford-Evans and Lisa Scott) and bloody H, I have had to use confident as a euphemism many times’. Graeme tells us he has ‘Thriller’ next week for HALLOWEEN. No idea what dance genre, but I suspect we’ll be none the wiser even after we’ve seen it.

And now for the second set of safety results, and time to find out if they’re still doing three of these things – and with these being so early on, I suspect they might be. Danny and Amy are fine, as are Stacey and Kevin, Joe and Dianne and Ashley and Pasha, leaving the couples who were at the bottom on the leaderboard to find out their fate.

Alfonso is asked for advice and he says it’s not a nice feeling, but you know when you’re likely to be near the bottom and mentally prepare yourself for it. Not sure explaining how it feels to wait is quite the same as advice, but then what advice can you give to people who are in dance-off decision limbo?

In the Clauditorium, we learn that Danny is happy to have finally danced well; Ashley and Pasha have a Charleston next week which probably means the traditional ‘make-up, hair and costume make Pasha look ridiculous for Halloween’ gag is still on for this year; Joe likes a lavender bath (and Kevin’s weird infatuation with him continues as he offers to come round and share in the fun); and Stacey and Kevin have run out of stories so are reusing ones they told us on ITT.

Special Musical Guest Star of the week is regular results show guest Paloma Faith, who has either gone blonde, or been replaced by Billie Piper. She is also wearing a TERRIBLE dress mashing up a nylon Barbie-pink 60s-look with satin bronze puffed sleeves, that looks like the kind of thing ‘quirky’ contestants do in Project Runway episode ones before getting cut. [Part of me wonders if this was originally meant to be on for Hallowe'en but there was a last minute schedule change? - Steve] It makes about as much sense as fusion week or Aljaž samba. Johannes and Karen (in their pyjamas, of course) show AJ and Lauren how contempowaft is supposed to be done.

Dance Debrief time, and the judges arrive and do some sub-Gangnam Style lassos and squatting dance moves. Danny’s jive is shown as Darcey effuses over the power and quality and there being ‘no doubt’ about it needing a 10; Joe’s heelwork is singled out for praise by Shirley, whilst Craig demonstrates what he means by emotional reaction in contemporary dance by pretending to punch Alfonso in the stomach. Alfonso says Charles and Karen’s routine reminds him of when he was (according to Alfonso) cool in the 80s and he does a bit more Bruno impersonating but still doesn’t fall off his seat what is the point.

There then follows an advert for all the spin-off media; It Takes Two, social media, podcast, unknown miscellaneous BBC Three content; Strictly Come Dancercize; Dancing With the Stars (did they mention that show yet); Gleb On The Farm and James Jordan’s ‘edgy’ Twitter rants.

And at last we come to the part where we learn who’s in the dance-off. Safe? Kate and Aljaž; Ranj and Janette. This leaves Lauren and AJ and Vick and Graziano in danger, with the couple in the dance-off being Vick and Graziano. Which is good, because thinking of a title for these recaps is sometimes tricky and I’ve only worked out puns for Seann and Vick.

Darcey tells her to do what she did on Saturday. Given she was bottom of the leaderboard, surely that’s not great advice. Craig tells her she has infectious passion and energy but to aim for a straight leg more.

We learn that Kate and Aljaž have a rumba next week (YES) with an ice-queen theme, to Kate’s alleged favourite song. Kate worries that it's hard, but Aljaž says it's the perfect dance for Halloween (correct). Lauren and AJ have the paso next week. Halloween is Ranj’s favourite time of the year and he can take up to five hours to get ready – as when he was a wood nymph (amazing make-up, but not what’s with the T-shirt?).

HALLOWEEN trailer now, and everyone has a ‘magic mirror’ that causes them all to sabotage each other by, erm, blowing air? I swear these things used to have at least a little bit of a budget before, even if it was restricted to a couple of paper witch hats, some cotton wool webbing and a plastic spider or two.

And now to the dance-off. Seann’s still hampered by the music, his poor footwork and a general sense of can’t be arsed with this any longer. Vick’s footwork is still terrible, but she does at least put more energy into it and looks like she’s enjoying it more than Seann, so it’s possible she could win this. Craig says both couples need a lot of work but on that routine he’ll save Vick and Graziano.  Darcey saves Seann and Katya for ‘a cleaner performance’ (and is booed). Alfonso thinks they both stepped up, but he’s saving Seann and Katya for fewer mistakes, leaving Shirley to make the final call. For enjoying their performance most, she saves Seann and Katya. I wasn’t really expecting that going on that dance-off – but, leaving aside the dramas, I guess Seann’s performance over the series has been stronger. [I think Vick's probably been more consistent than Seann has overall, but they were both absolutely diabolical in that dance-off and so there was a convincing argument to be made for getting rid of either one. I probably would've saved Vick for having more potential overall, but...feh, I can't get too upset about it. - Steve]

Vick thanks everyone who’s supported her and Graziano effuses about Vick, babbling out more words in five seconds than he has in five weeks of this show (including It Takes Two). Vick and Graziano dance out to ‘Miss You Like Crazy’ which isn’t the best fit for our singers. The post-mortem analysis features Danny saying ‘anything’s possible when you’ve got Amy as your partner’ which doesn’t quite mimic anything we’ve seen either last year or in any of the previous weeks of this series. Sorry Amy. Next week it’s Halloween, and Rita Ora will be the special guest. Join Steve then, and the week after, to see the horrors unfold, and I will be with you in three weeks' time when we'll finally get into single digits of contestants and the show might have a more manageable running time!