shallowness

Tess’s red gown worked better than I thought it would throughout the episode, although Claudia’s sparkly jumpsuit looked more comfortable. Shirley went for a sparkly silver dress, and Darcy wore a gown of two halves – the back being splitalicious.

Most of the male celebs seemed to be in costumes rather than outfits, if you know what I mean.

I don’t know why they couldn’t have brought Janette along for the awkward meeting with Kate’s husband to discuss how they were doing a wedding-themed dance. It’s not like she’ll be busy any more. The effect to make them look like a couple on top of a cake was good, though, and her gown was gorgeous. The song brings back 10 Things feels. I thought there were good, light and sprightly bits to her quickstep, and it was a return to form for her after a few iffy weeks.

AJ and Neil were good background value in the Clauditorium.

I know Danny and Amy have made it to the tabloid front pages for quarrelling or something, but you wouldn’t know it from the show. I felt that his previous dance training was more evident in his body than the samba, so I felt vindicated when the judges said as much. He sold it, though, and it wasn’t the trainwreck of last week.

The dance I was most looking forward to (although I didn’t know what everyone was doing): and it was an EXCELLENT contemporary routine from Ashley. Again, commendable choreography (from Pasha?) that put her front and centre, which worked for the narrative and showed off her dancing, and guh, the ending. It was a shame Craig was the first judge, because I did scribble down ‘she’ll do it even better second time round in the final’, so I thought there was a little room for improvement, but he struggled to pinpoint where. But she deserved a verbal standing O. Darcey’s whole standing for a 10 thing, which is probably the dancer in her needing to express her excitement, came off as even more annoying after the mood of this dance – Shirley was proper emosh from this point on in the show.

From the sublime to the eye-popping. Graeme’s samba…well, they went for the exercise theme. And he did it well, the synchro was great, but the whole thing left me in hysterics – had the singers changed the lyrics to mention Gorka?

Well done, Faye’s legs. I thought she exuded star quality in her jive. I thought Shirley’s comments and mark were more about Giovanni than her execution of what he gave her, but the judges have done this before, and I don’t think they’re entirely wrong about Giovanni’s choreographic choices. Pasha is killing it with possibly even better material in Ashley; Kevin is continuing his interesting dialogue with dance styles whilst being mindful of Stacey’s lack of dance training; even AJ would later prove to be upping his choreographic game. Giovanni whining about having three days of training isn’t good enough. It’s solid advice. Fortunately, generous Bruno came through with his 10.

Wondering if that would count as a lift or an assist (and really, starting on a platform and having the smoke added nowt to the routine) distanced me from Stacey’s waltz from the outset. She was pretty good, but the leg lift wasn’t, and she felt a bit too careful and placed for me. But I think the marks reflected a good job with complex material.

The fact that both Joe and Danny were doing the samba were at the back of my mind, and Joe seemed to have a better feel for the style, even if I felt that the samba beat him overall. But he came across as a real trier.

The VT to Lauren’s Viennese Waltz raised exactly the type of nuggets that I wanted about choreographing for a disabled partner – that AJ’s right-handedness didn’t match well with where she has the impairment. And then the dance did all the talking. There was such improvement (she hasn’t done a ballroom for a while). There was continuous rotation in the routine and much more elegance and properly directed confidence. I could wish she hadn’t begged for a 9 - she’s not the most naturally relaxed contestant left at interviews and AJ doesn’t help her there – but I think she deserved her position above Stacey, as I was more emotionally invested in the dance. (And let’s be real, Stacey and Kevin won last week from the reaction their routine garnered.)

I was expecting Charles’s Charleston to be good as it played to the strengths we’ve already seen, and it was, which shouldn’t be taken for granted, because they must feel all the dance-offs. They, especially him, brought in a touch of commercial – he was a little more cool than goofy Karen. Good lifts. Apt closing routine. I nearly voted for them, because they didn’t deserve all those dance-offs, but Lauren had surprised me good, and I wasn’t phoning for both of them.

Quick recap: stop repeating stuff like you understood its import, Tess, and stop trying to ship Lauren/AJ while you’re at it. Stacey and Joe probably didn’t improve and Faye stayed at about the level you’d expect, but I’m not expecting the three of them to make it to Blackpool. I could cite bottom-of-the-leaderboard Danny, even though he made no mistakes thise week, but I’ve expected him to figure in the dance-off a couple of weeks running and he hasn’t, so…

A couple of other things, I missed Killing Eve. Also, I'm looking forward to Fantastic Beasts 2, but I fear there are going to be too many wizards and not enough witches.