Out for the (Vis)count(ess)

Week 7: Top 9 Results - 4 November 2019

We begin this show this week with a tribute to Elton John, choreographed by Christopher Scott and starring Aljaž as Taron Egerton and Oti as either Renate or Richard Madden, depending on which bit of the film you think this is. Strangely, even though we've been promised hot and heavy same-sex couple dancing in tonight's show, this is not the routine in which it appears because in those outfits it's apparently quite queer enough for a primetime BBC1 audience already. People who got lucky on a sartorial front: Karen, Gorka, Nadiya and Johannes. People who didn't: pretty much everyone else but especially Kevin. They dance to 'Tiny Dancer', 'Crocodile Rock' and 'Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me', and I guess if you have to condense the Elton songbook down to three tracks, those are three pretty great ones to go for. (Oh, and the guy who's filling in for Neil is quite handsome, he can come again.)

Tess and Claudia return, and both have sadly had an outfit change for the worse: Tess is a ruched sequinned dress with batwings, and Claudia's in a pale pink halter with with a red sequinned skirt. The judges are brought back to the stage, and we go straight into the recap mixed with behind-the-scenes action: Chris is still finding it "proper weird" to have his costumes fitted, Alex thinks Mike and Katya's routine is "so fun", Hot Greg catches a walkie-talkie lobbed from off-camera, Karim gets palpitations from hearing the theme music. In terms of post-performance reactions: Kevin chants "there's only one Alex Scott", Mike hopes that he'll take off again [Not going on his dance-off record and the public outrage he won't. - Rad], Kelvin felt himself getting a bit choked up and apparently not just because his shirt was so tight, the Viscountess declares her routine a "scary samba" (so maybe it would have been a better fit for last week?), Anton tells Emma he really thought she was amazing, Saffron's a bit deflated after those scores but she still enjoyed it, Giovanni tells Michelle she did a great job, Rosie Ramsey is embarrassed that she cried on national television but she's very proud of Chris, and Karim and Amy have a very elaborate "three 10s!" celebration.

Time to find out if we're getting that Emma vs Emma dance-off that so many of us anticipated. Tess has the Cue Cards Of Doom and the following couples are safe: Chris and Karen, Emma and Anton (Anton leaps around on the spot like he's been temporarily possessed by the spirit of Kevin) and Karim and Amy. The first couple in the dance-off is...Mike and Katya. Well, glad to see all the effort the show expended on a props-heavy charleston in the pimp slot went over so well with the voting public. Mike says that he doesn't mind being in the dance-off because he loves getting to do the dances again. Craig tells Mike that it's a brilliant dance for him because it's compact, energetic and goofy like him, and he just needs to not make any mistakes. Again, I feel the need to point out that "don't make mistakes" is not advice, it's basically just the rules. (I have the same rising of blood pressure on The Great British Bake Off when Sandi and Noel ask Prue and Paul if they have any advice for the contestants on the technical challenge, and the answer is always some variation on "do it correctly", thanks EXPERTS.)

Claudia's with the first three safe couples, and Karim confirms that he is loving life right now. He's got the Viennese waltz next week and he's scared of the spins, and Amy wants to make it to BLACKPOOL, because we've now hit that time of the year. Emma thanks everyone for saving her from elimination, and confirms that she's got Couple's Choice next week: she's got theatre/jazz and lots of time to rehearse so it's going to be great. Anton says that he would have hated for them to be in the dance-off because he thought Emma danced that rumba beautifully. (I mean that's not what you were saying while Shirley was talking, but fine.) Chris got a tweet from Ant and Dec, and says that he's living the north-east dream right now. Also Karen has fallen in love with South Shields.

After that, Emeli Sandé is here to perform 'Shine', accompanied by Aljaž dancing with Luba, and then Graziano dancing with Johannes. Representation! It's all completely family-friendly (especially compared to what AJ and Gorka were getting up to last year) but of course there were still plenty of people "not being homophobic, but..." about it on the internet, such a joy to behold.

Next, it's time for Dance Debrief where Motsi shows us some footage of Chris out the front on his own dancing in sync with Karen (and again the slow-mo shows this to not be entirely true, but never mind). Motsi describes him as "never a toothache" which...maybe that's a South African thing? Or a German one? Shirley follows this up by demonstrating how Saffron should have been positioning her feet and rotating her hips and shoulders, then Craig says again that he wanted Michelle to have been more extreme with her extremities. Karim also gets the slow-mo synchro treatment and also doesn't quite hold up to Bruno's description of it as "perfection", but it still looks pretty good all the same. Randomly, Claudia ends the segment by shouting out Dave Arch for getting an honourary degree from the Guildhall, and slightly cruelly suggesting that it was for his fine work with a slide whistle during Mike's charleston.

So who's probably losing to Mike in the dance-off? Not Alex and Kevin, nor Kelvin and Oti, or Michelle and Giovanni. So that leaves Saffron and AJ and The Viscountess and Aljaž in the scare slot for the dance-off, but it's The Viscountess who's confirmed to be in danger and has to deal with Tess's baby talk. The Viscountess says she's feeling "shaky" and Aljaž tells that that's why he's here. He thinks she smashed it, and they can just do it again. Tess points out that The Viscountess didn't enjoy the dance-off the first time she was there, and if she's expecting that to be a conversational avenue to kill a minute or two, she is plum out of luck because the Viscountess is giving her nooch on that front. So Tess turns to the judges, and Shirley tells her that she had nice changes of rhythm and good bounce, so if she can just get her posture a bit more upright and maintain her chemistry with Aljaž, that will fix a lot of the problems.

In the Clauditorium, Saffron's a bit shaken after her brush with the dance-off, but talking about her new nephew, Nate, who is tiny. Claudia asks Giovanni what's up with the whole "thank you! thank you! thank you!" thing and Giovanni confirms that it is indeed "a thing", so great, thanks, highly illuminating. Claudia asks Michelle what Giovanni does in training that she finds quite alarming, and it turns out not to be "wears green" or "opines loudly that Idalis was the most talented member of Seduction" but that he makes her dance by herself in frame while he watches her. Oti nods like, yep, this is normal, and Giovanni snarks "we get tired, so it's fine". We also discover that Michelle has been trading skills with Giovanni by teaching him how to sing and...he does appear to be getting slightly better, so that's nice. Claudia then embarrasses Alex by revealing that one of One Direction is a huge fan of hers but Alex refuses to say which one (my money's on Niall), and Kelvin reveals that his fantasy is for Craig to stand up and clap for him. Bit vanilla.

After a reminder that Strictly is also available on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Podcast, BlackBerry  Messenger, CityMapper and boohoo.com, it's time for the dance-off. Emma and Aljaž redo their samba first and it starts with a bit of energy and drive, but basically everything after the through-the-legs trick is a mess because the choreography just seems to have fallen out of Emma's head. Aljaž tells her that he's so proud of her, but I suspect it's not enough. Mike and Katya go again, and theirs is pretty much the same as before apart from one or both of them completely messing up the bit where Katya does a handstand and drops onto Mike's back because she ends up rolling off him and onto the floor. [The state of the dance-offs this series - Rad]

Craig votes for the most challenging and the better dance on this particular performance, which he believes is Mike and Katya. Motsi goes for the couple who gave the clearer and "easier to follow" (lol) performance, also Mike and Katya. Bruno votes for the more entertaining and more powerful performance: Mike and Katya. So that means The Viscountess's run on this show has come to an end, and Shirley agrees that she would have voted along with her fellow judges too.

The Viscountess looks pretty devastated, and tells Tess that she's loved it more than anything she's ever done in her whole life, and she'll be forever grateful to Aljaž for all he's taught her and she hopes they'll be friends forever. She says she never wanted to let him down, and she's heartbroken. Aljaž assures her that she's never let him down at all, and points out that he's the only professional to have danced with an actual Lady on the show. Until Lady Sovereign gets paired with AJ next year, anyway. Aljaž curtseys to her one last time, The Viscountess cries and says "I'm not getting over this ever". Eep.

The band plays 'Never Can Say Goodbye', Aljaž picks the Viscountess up and spins her around so far that I'm genuinely surprised she doesn't projectile vomit everywhere, then he puts her down and she just sort of collapses into his arms. Oh, my heart. I mean, I knew she was never going to last for long on this show (I actually had her down as first boot so I'm impressed she got this far) but I will miss her and her giraffes and her salmon lunch boxes and her leopardprint athleisure wear.

In the post-elimination interviews, the Viscountess chuckles that she can't remember what life was like before Strictly, Kelvin says that she's lovely, Mike is delighted to be through again, Alex really had fun this week, Chris would like to do street dance every week but has to do tango next instead, Anton's got his first couple's choice, Amy is properly going BLACKPOOL loopy already, Michelle can't even imagine BLACKPOOL (think Coney Island but with lower-quality hot dogs, Michelle), and Saffron is happy to be through.

So that's it for another week - next week is almost-Blackpool week and presumably the show's final attempt to hide its shite under a Bushell, because unless there's a sudden breakdown in support for Chris I can't really see there's anyone left he could beat in a fourth dance-off. [You don't think they're going to try and push BUSHELL 4 BLACKPOOL?  Because I can see him sending Emma B home on that basis - Rad] Whatever happens, Rad will be here to guide you through it, and I'll be back in a fortnight. See you then!