Wednesday, 16 October 2019

Arrested Development

Week 4: Top 13 Results - 13 October 2019

Last night – well, who knows what the fuck happened? Let’s see what that car crash has done to the results…

We open with a ‘street commercial’ cum theatre jazz cum miscellaneous pro dance to ‘Wish You Well’. Our initial focus is Karen, Katya and Nancy being mean’n’moody in hot pants and shadowy lighting. Although our focus is mainly Karen and Katya #PoorNancy. We then move to an extended focus on Graziano (!) where he prances about in front of a massive sheet looking for a partner and we see shadows of all the female pros running around, presumably going ‘nope, not it’. Then Luba gets pushed out as the one person who’s used to being lumbered with a dead weight, the sheet goes and we get a full cast rest of the routine that involves Janette being chucked about in the air in the background. [Just for a change then. - SteveThen everyone changes from black outfits to white ones with yellow trim for, I dunno, symbolism or whatever, and Amy runs away to hack her lungs up probably, the dance ends and Luba kills Graziano. Or something of that nature.

Our hosts enter; Claudia in a black blouse with a white bow – only the loops have fallen to the sides giving the effect of her having a massive white arrow pointing to her face. Or maybe they’ve got the work experience kid on the cameras and it’s a helpful visual aid of where to point. Tess is in a hot pink jumpsuit that I would like were it not for the fact that it emphasises that the fake tan team have gone way overboard this week. They remind us that last night we saw ‘miraculous’ growth for David and Mike. Yes, in the sense that it was miraculous that those routines got the scores they did.

The judges enter but after last night they’re getting minimum attention from me so let’s move straight into the interminable recap in which the following of note happens: Alex pretends she enjoyed her dance, Katya eventually stopped crying at some point, I discover that the person I accused of being Saffron’s dad is actually her grandad.

Time for our first set of results, and with the mess that is this week’s leaderboard, we could be in for a SHOCK! BOTTOM TWO. It won’t feature Chris and Karen, Karim and Amy, Catherine and Johannes, David and Nadiya (who full on screams)… and, that’s it, nobody’s getting flung in the dance-off yet for some reason.

Motsi says it’s dangerous with everyone being so close. Only because you four scored them last night using whatever logic – I’ll assume tarot or tea leaves or a magic 8 ball or, I don't know, throwing darts at pictures of the contestants.

In the Clauditorium we learn that Catherine is everybody’s ‘Auntie Cath’ and is a purveyor of snacks. [Honestly this was not a surprise to me at all, you can just tell, can't you? - SteveThey’ve seated her quite far away from Karen, presumably for her own safety; Karim has decided Amy sounds like Yoda, and they have a salsa next week.

We return to the cue cards of doom, which spell good fortune for Saffron and AJ, Will and Janette, and Emma and Anton.  However, it’s not such good news for… Emma and Aljaž. Emma (W) looks deflated although she’d looked pretty nervous the whole time. I guess she must have done the maths on where she was on the leaderboard and where she was likely to come in the public vote. Bruno advises her not to get nervous, but she’s a bit shaky and sounds like she’s about to cry, and Tess gripping her widdle hand with the claw probably isn’t helping.

In the Clauditorium, Saffron is excited to be through and still quite beige, Will and Janette have contempowaft to ‘Seven Years’ hahaha Steve enjoy that [yeah THANKS - Steve], and Emma and Anton hit the wall at 4pm every day and eat sweets, what a pair.

Time for super special guest whom I only know about because of Nicole Kidman, Keith Urban. He looks a bit like a diet Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and sounds like Savage Garden recording a Coke commercial. Katya and Kevin come out and dance for about five seconds and look like they’re taking the piss the whole time, by doing their best drunk dancing. It would be incredibly grating in normal circumstances, but the song probably doesn’t merit much better. WHAT A WEEKEND WE ARE HAVING.

Dance Debrief now, and let’s see if this mob can shed any light on what the hell happened yesterday. Motsi tries to claim Emma and Anton’s score wasn’t just for the ACTING, Shirley tries to claim David had good footwork LOL NO, and Craig tries to be the arbiter of CONTEMPOWAFT NEEDS TO BE DEEP’N’MEANINGFUL and he thought Saffron was a bit robotic. You only need to see her speak to know that. Then we come to Katya and Mike and she was indeed screaming the whole time. To be honest I’ve never been a big Katya fan, but I could see what she brought in terms of some creative choreography. But dear LORD that just cemented how much I dislike her this series. Oh, and Bruno’s off on his jollies again next week and Alfonso Ribero’s returning in his place.

And now to the final safety results, with Kelvin and Oti; Mike and Katya (who screeches and jumps up and down and even Mike’s like ‘give it a rest, love’) and Michelle and Giovanni (who do the obnoxious triple ‘thank you’ in perfect unison) all safe. Alex and Neil are the two before the bottom two, and Alex looks visibly winded when it’s revealed that Dev and Dianne are dancing off. Craig says he’s ‘truly shocked’ they’re down there. I mean, you lot scored them lower than David so… Anyway, they need to put personality in because they have the dancing down. Shirley tells him to use as much body action as he can and ‘enjoy the moment’ of knowing his public vote is pretty lacking.

In the Clauditorium, Kelvin feels naked without fake tan, it’s Alex’s birthday, Michelle has a rumba next week, Katya claims she was so emotional because she was proud of Mike.

Trailer for ITT, the podcast, social meeds and that BBC Three mess – God I’m so glad ITT is back to its usual time.

The first time I watched Dev and Dianne’s routine, I was more focused on him than her and hadn’t really clocked what a mess her look truly was – that mess of woollen straps on her head! The excessive fringing everywhere! As for the dancing itself, Dev’s hip action is still good, but he seems deflated through out, he struggles a lot with the lifting and dragging bits and then there’s a bit where it looks like he hurts his back, which made me worry he’d done a serious injury to himself – fortunately he recovers OK, but that did have a bit of a sense of defeat about it. 

Emma misses some of her opening steps and also seems a little flattened by being in the dance-off (or maybe just by hearing the singers do that again), but she does pick up when Aljaž flings her against the wall, and in the bit where she’s hanging about between his legs she’s positively beaming. As you would be. [I was going to say... - SteveSo it could be that she’s pulled it round in the second half of the dance, but honestly I think these two are quite well-matched, especially if we take it on the competition as a whole. 

Craig saves Emma and Aljaž for coming to life and going the extra mile. Motsi saves them for looking more rehearsed and on top of it. Emma starts crying. Bruno saves them for showing no mistakes (err…) and for being cleaner and more focused. Shirley would have saved them, too.

Both Dev and Dianne look completely gutted, and she starts crying. Dev keeps it together enough to thank her and the rest of the gang, and the rest of the celebs make love heart signs at him, and Karim’s crying as well. Are all the male celebs Karim’s best friend this year? Dianne says she’s loved working with Dev and he worked really hard. They ‘dance’ to ‘When You’re Gone’ – and when I say dance, I mean Dianne just loses it and Dev hugs her, then everyone else hugs them all and the audience claps fade out uncomfortably and the post-credits chatter is full of tears. DOWNER ENDING.

Next week – well, who knows what else they can throw at us?  But that’s going to be Steve’s to deal with, and I’ll see you for HALLOWEEN!

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