Strictly quarter finals

[shallowness]

I can't access Livejournal at the moment, so I'm going to try to crosspost this blind. And fail.

Saturday

Christina won on the dress front and there was a lot of raz-matazz and consolidation of the previous development from Simon (I’m not sure whether I said ‘shut up’ most when Simon or Mark was talking, though.) The opening seemed a bit skippy, mind.

I loved Caroline’s AT, although I thought there was one bit of hesitance and maybe it was a few shades off ‘Give it 10’, for me. She seemed upset as if she believed something had gone wrong afterwards.

I really liked Mark’s routine as a routine, but he was given little proper dancing to do and what he did compared poorly next to Simon’s similarish number.

I spent most of Pixie’s cha-cha rueing her hair. It’s the second worst it’s been since Halloween. And then there was Len vs. Trent – I think that positioning them as rebels was daft and then he sounded a little cocky about next week’s dances. I’m putting it down to not knowing how to handle Len – I’m fairly sure Trent got them docked from 9 to 8 then and there for talking back. I also think that it’s a bit rich for Len to decide he’s going to get really strict about lifts now, after overmarking for weeks. He always does it at this point, though. I felt bad for Pixie during the judging.

Jake’s Charleston, along with Caroline’s routine, was the best of the night. I love it when the dancing is good enough to encompass slapstick as opposed to slapstick and business covering the lack of dancing. He performed it brilliantly – as you’d expect.

I did think that Craig made a poor choice with taping up the 5 paddle, because I think Jake and Janette were expecting a 10 and that was the only way that it would have made using that paddle okay. For once, bad form, Craig – I’m not saying he should have given that dance a 10, because the timing on the ending was off because of a wrong move, but using the 5 paddle was off. On the scoring more generally, I get why Craig hasn’t given a 10 yet, but it’s telling, given the claims that this lot are the best yet. I mean they’re good and this was the right top 6 but whether quality reigns over popularity remains to be seen.

Frankie’s salsa looked just a bit ragged, as was picked up on, even if they used all the synonyms. (The FM I was watching it with put it down to Kevin being sick, but it sounded to me that she’d have had problems with the lifts even if he’d been 100%. Certainly, the lifts weren’t a patch on Caroline’s.) And I thought Thursday’s ITT where she and Pixie talked without the pros was revelatory, because Kevin has pulled some moves because Frankie finds them too hard, but Trent hasn’t.

The waltzathon was interesting for seeing how the judges ranked people (well done, Simon given the male celeb handicap), but for me as a viewer, they might as well not have bothered with the whole thing. I noticed that Simon and Kristina seemed to be standing in one bit of the floor, I noticed that lovely way Frankie rests her hand on Kevin’s arm, and I spent the rest of the time not knowing where to look, because the cameras didn’t either. I love the idea of comparing like for like, but it might have been easier for viewers if just two couples were on the floor. Actually, it would have been more fun to have a dance where you can do tricks and they call people off. But on the other hand, if you’re talking purity of the dance, the waltz is a good choice (not a shocker that Jake is weak at it), it just wasn’t tremendously watchable.

Claudia and the toaster <3 obviously.

Big mystery of the night was why Ola’s hair is now brown.

Results

Oh, I say. Obviously I’m not talking about Claudia’s jumpsuit, although I think she should have stayed in the raincoat and resolutely non-glitter willies for the whole episode.

And it all started so well, I enjoyed the opening pro routine very much even if ‘Umbrella’ coming in was inevitable, but the framing, the water and the lighting was ace (although did that guy come in because Kevin was sick?).

I even got more of a glimpse of what went on in the waltzathon in the recap, but my criticisms about its ultimate meaninglessness to viewers stands.

But to think I laughed at Mark and Karen’s surprise that they were safe – although I was pretty surprised, because I’d thought since last week that they’d be gone next and the show hadn’t changed my mind, while nearly everyone else had yo-yo’d, relatively speaking.

For what it’s worth, I’d voted for Caroline and Pixie on Saturday.

Anyway, I was hoping Pixie wouldn’t dance against Jake, because his routine was stronger, maybe hoping she’d dance against Frankie, but thinking they were too popular to be in trouble, and it was 50/50 against Simon. It did make awesome retrospective subtext for Trent and Kristina’s paso.

I’m biased, I’ve been supporting Pixie and Trent for weeks, so obviously that affects how I see things. I mean, I could deconstruct Len’s rationale quite viciously, but what’s the point? I can’t speak as to whether Pixie had improved her legs. Did the viewer vote collapse because of Trent’s back-chat, less of a wow-factor or was the vote not there so much and she’d been protected by scores?

Er, there may be tactical Strictly voting in my future.