Tonight's Strictly Dancing

[girlofprey]

• Lisa's American Smooth was great, and undoubtedly the best of the night, but I just hate to see her crying in training and Brendan asking her why she's "having a fit". So even though I'm pretty sure she's not going to go this week, I wouldn't mind if she actually did. But her dance was great.



• I liked Heather and Brian's samba better than Rachel and Vincent's, although I do see what the judges meant by her "letting Brian do all the work", and I do think she's a bit stiff a lot of the time in her dancing. But I really liked it.



• Mark and Hayley. Oh. It was still a bit stiff, and the timing was clearly off, but he did loosen up quite a lot, and seem to be actually enjoying himself. I don't know when he needed an acting coach they sent him to John Barrowman, of all people, except that he's pretty much the polar opposite of Mark. But I sort of love him now, and I love Hayley, and I love them together, and I loved her dress, except for the weird see-through bits. I do not think at all that they deserve to go through based on that dance and performance, but I really expected and saw previously that there was going to be a dip in his technical accuracy when he loosened up, and I would like him to go through to see if he can actually marry the two together a bit more. He was stopping a bit also. They can work on that.



• I did agree with Craig a lot on Cherie's dance, frankly.



• I wasn't that impressed with Christine's samba. Or Tom's american smooth. But the judges liked it, and that floor roll of Christine's was great, and they were perfectly fine and all.



• Don was a little lacklustre, but he's lovely, and he's Don, so there you go. His lifts were very good. Better than Andrew's, I think. Lilia's dress was beautiful as well.



• I thought Jodie's dance was great, and beautiful. I've managed to see some of her rumba from last week, and I don't actually think it was that bad, although I see what the judges meant about a lack of emotional performance. But I don't think I like the rumba, to be honest. And tonight her dance was lovely. Hurrah!



• I thought Christine did a really great routine for John considering that he wasn't actually doing much samba, as I understand it. But he was lovely, and he was great, and clearly the public are going to save him. Rah!

To be honest, all the sambas seemed a bit slower than I was expecting, and I think they all suffered a bit from only having one week to learn a dance for the first time. But a lot of them were great, and I enjoyed it, and I'm looking forward to the results tomorrow.

Comments

[whatho.livejournal.com]

I agree very much re Don and John. I think everyone was very fair to Don, to be honest - they more or less said it was competent, and it was. I suppose it's sort of surprising that he doesn't act the dance more, but he's awfully contemplative and that sort of gets in the way of everything. Anyway, he's great. That's the point. And I thought John's samba was beautifully suited to his strengths. He's just a bit too lovely for words, and I love his dancer very much as well. They actually remind me of Julian and Erin a bit from season 2 - they have the same sort of profound connection.

(While I agree with Craig that Cherie's American Smooth wasn't massively typical, I did actually think it was a strikingly beautiful dance and astonishingly well-suited to the music, so it did kind of stand out for along with Don and John. But she doesn't need the votes.)