15 couples dance, one couple leaves
Sep. 30th, 2019 07:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessStrictly week 2
I endured mild panic at the beginning as I was one of those having transmission difficulties.
Enter the presenters in metallic gowns (Claudia’s hair extensions distracted me all night), and I wished I could have seen the bottom of Shirley’s skirt. Anyway, the judges’ entrance was a mess until they snapped into some kind of pose.
Saffron’s cha-cha was pretty good, assisted by the fringing on her dress. The speed of the song took away some of the grace – she was throwing her arms about – but I thought her timing was okay.
I’m sure they’ll improve on the Tony Hadley terms and conditions.
There were some rather lovely bits about Anneka’s dance (I know I’m partial to a waltz) and she was clearly loving it. Overall, it was only so-so, but she may be better at ballroom.
Dev’s jive was light-footed and he showed good leading potential.
There were nice bits in Lady Emma’s tango, though she could have done with more strength. Big oops from the director when she and Aljiaz went missing. Although they weren’t tango colours, I loved the effect on her skirt.
Chris unleashed the first cute kid of the series. Might have wanted to hold back as he had the gimme of the Charleston, which was pretty decent from him, energetic and entertaining.
I LOVED the song for Emma’s foxtrot. The first set of turns looked dodgy, but the ones after improved, and it had a strong ending.
James reminded us he’d suffered brain damage (and Luba looked sad because she knows she’s not going to be competing long in her first partnered series). Then Luba was terrible at flipping pancakes and James wasn’t great at jiving and he had so much less content than Dev.
Catherine’s samba was a mixed bag. There were bits that were painful to watch and then bits that were very good. Obviously, it was too fast for her.
Michelle proved she has it in ballroom too. She committed to the (camp) daft story that wasn’t quite messing about, but showed grace throughout the proper dancing. Giovanni must be happy. He’s got the best lady celeb so far.
David was wooden and placed in his paso, but did raise a talking point: was his paso really worse than James’s tango? I say no.
(Playing the result music at this juncture was eeeevil.)
Karim’s mum is a star. That was very good for his first ballroom, also. There were showy touches, but the dancing promised he’ll be leading soon, and we could even expect sway from him. (Lovely embroidery on Amy’s dress, but that plus pearls in her hair, a different pattern on Karim’s tie and the colour of that plus her dress were a bit much.)
I wasn’t expecting the American Smooth from Mike and Katya’s outfits, and what we got was the weirdest piece of choreography so far. Why did she put in the daft accents? The hysterical response to the lifts wasn’t hysterical in the way Katya wanted, I suspect, and then he’d do steps that seemed to go with the music and !?!? Schizoid.
I liked Alex’s attitude in her cha-cha and her performing is coming on. (I think Neil’s rather chuffed for his first partnered season.)
Clean-shaven Kelvin got to dance alone (though Oti may rethink that after the judges’ comments). My main thought was ‘he can move’, though I take Shirley’s criticism, and possibly he’s going to be stronger at Latin for a while.
Rather than gimmicky, I found the use of bats clever for Will’s salsa, ditto the lifts, although I missed the sense of rotation in the overall routine. As we’ve come to expect, he put it all out there.
And then the contestants were all joyous and excited because they’d yet to go through the results.
Overall, every time Claudia reminded us of how many couples were left, I certainly clutched at the thought of the elimination. I had lost track of who’d improved and who hadn’t, and because they were short of time, we didn’t get much chance to absorb the final leaderboard. Motsi has settled right in. And the 3 paddles got a fair amount of use.
Results show
Excellent mash-up of songs to do a paso take on Roxanne (was the flamenco guest star there for the Singing Moon). I love a Red Curtain Trilogy nod, so, yeah. GOOD.
Shirley’s red trouser suit won the outfits.
The results came in three groups and we were reminded that Will was probably chosen for the show for his medal-winning reaction, Andres and Catherine also got teary. Mike/Katya’s wacky choreography was given an early nod. And it’s going to be horrible for the two Emmas, who both have a partner with a name starting with A.
In the middle of that, Lewis Capaldi sang badly, straining his voice, but fortunately Janette and Aljiaz came on to do an amazing, lift-tastic but rather moving bit of dancing.
Shirley and Motsi were fairly informative in the Judges Debrief. Watching Mike in slo-mo was not great, but the behind the scenes clip was fun.
Unsurprising that it was David vs. James. I thought it might be close, and I couldn’t tell who was worst after the dance-off, but I think saving David was the right call as he had more potential.
Movie Week next week, and a hint It Takes Two’s timeslot may shift, I’m wondering if it’s because of the World Athletics Championship.
I endured mild panic at the beginning as I was one of those having transmission difficulties.
Enter the presenters in metallic gowns (Claudia’s hair extensions distracted me all night), and I wished I could have seen the bottom of Shirley’s skirt. Anyway, the judges’ entrance was a mess until they snapped into some kind of pose.
Saffron’s cha-cha was pretty good, assisted by the fringing on her dress. The speed of the song took away some of the grace – she was throwing her arms about – but I thought her timing was okay.
I’m sure they’ll improve on the Tony Hadley terms and conditions.
There were some rather lovely bits about Anneka’s dance (I know I’m partial to a waltz) and she was clearly loving it. Overall, it was only so-so, but she may be better at ballroom.
Dev’s jive was light-footed and he showed good leading potential.
There were nice bits in Lady Emma’s tango, though she could have done with more strength. Big oops from the director when she and Aljiaz went missing. Although they weren’t tango colours, I loved the effect on her skirt.
Chris unleashed the first cute kid of the series. Might have wanted to hold back as he had the gimme of the Charleston, which was pretty decent from him, energetic and entertaining.
I LOVED the song for Emma’s foxtrot. The first set of turns looked dodgy, but the ones after improved, and it had a strong ending.
James reminded us he’d suffered brain damage (and Luba looked sad because she knows she’s not going to be competing long in her first partnered series). Then Luba was terrible at flipping pancakes and James wasn’t great at jiving and he had so much less content than Dev.
Catherine’s samba was a mixed bag. There were bits that were painful to watch and then bits that were very good. Obviously, it was too fast for her.
Michelle proved she has it in ballroom too. She committed to the (camp) daft story that wasn’t quite messing about, but showed grace throughout the proper dancing. Giovanni must be happy. He’s got the best lady celeb so far.
David was wooden and placed in his paso, but did raise a talking point: was his paso really worse than James’s tango? I say no.
(Playing the result music at this juncture was eeeevil.)
Karim’s mum is a star. That was very good for his first ballroom, also. There were showy touches, but the dancing promised he’ll be leading soon, and we could even expect sway from him. (Lovely embroidery on Amy’s dress, but that plus pearls in her hair, a different pattern on Karim’s tie and the colour of that plus her dress were a bit much.)
I wasn’t expecting the American Smooth from Mike and Katya’s outfits, and what we got was the weirdest piece of choreography so far. Why did she put in the daft accents? The hysterical response to the lifts wasn’t hysterical in the way Katya wanted, I suspect, and then he’d do steps that seemed to go with the music and !?!? Schizoid.
I liked Alex’s attitude in her cha-cha and her performing is coming on. (I think Neil’s rather chuffed for his first partnered season.)
Clean-shaven Kelvin got to dance alone (though Oti may rethink that after the judges’ comments). My main thought was ‘he can move’, though I take Shirley’s criticism, and possibly he’s going to be stronger at Latin for a while.
Rather than gimmicky, I found the use of bats clever for Will’s salsa, ditto the lifts, although I missed the sense of rotation in the overall routine. As we’ve come to expect, he put it all out there.
And then the contestants were all joyous and excited because they’d yet to go through the results.
Overall, every time Claudia reminded us of how many couples were left, I certainly clutched at the thought of the elimination. I had lost track of who’d improved and who hadn’t, and because they were short of time, we didn’t get much chance to absorb the final leaderboard. Motsi has settled right in. And the 3 paddles got a fair amount of use.
Results show
Excellent mash-up of songs to do a paso take on Roxanne (was the flamenco guest star there for the Singing Moon). I love a Red Curtain Trilogy nod, so, yeah. GOOD.
Shirley’s red trouser suit won the outfits.
The results came in three groups and we were reminded that Will was probably chosen for the show for his medal-winning reaction, Andres and Catherine also got teary. Mike/Katya’s wacky choreography was given an early nod. And it’s going to be horrible for the two Emmas, who both have a partner with a name starting with A.
In the middle of that, Lewis Capaldi sang badly, straining his voice, but fortunately Janette and Aljiaz came on to do an amazing, lift-tastic but rather moving bit of dancing.
Shirley and Motsi were fairly informative in the Judges Debrief. Watching Mike in slo-mo was not great, but the behind the scenes clip was fun.
Unsurprising that it was David vs. James. I thought it might be close, and I couldn’t tell who was worst after the dance-off, but I think saving David was the right call as he had more potential.
Movie Week next week, and a hint It Takes Two’s timeslot may shift, I’m wondering if it’s because of the World Athletics Championship.
