Strictly Halloween (week 6)
Oct. 30th, 2022 02:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallowness‘Spooky’ VT in which scary Craig was the punchline – I guess they felt they hadn’t done one of those for a while
Black-garbed presenters, Craig and Shirley in drag (and okay, he was clearly playing Morticia, but I didn’t get that Shirley was meant to be Gomez until they said as much, I was mainly taken by the fact that Shirley seemed to have shrunk and Craig grown, which shows what a difference exchanging heels makes.) Nice try with the mask, Motsi, but with Shirley getting into character and Anton’s wig seemingly possessing him (a foretaste of his Hook in panto?), it was the also-ran of judges’ costumes.
But not as much as Beekeper!James’s was of the dancers’.
Tony and Katya’s quickstep opened proceedings (her skirt was amazing). He seemed to get the steps right and the running steps were properly good. And we learned that Katya’s soul is…a white scarf. Okay, then. The judges liked it more than me, and, as on It Takes Two earlier in the week, Tony realised how badly he’d come off last week and apologised to Shirley.
I liked Will and Nancy’s mummy cha cha more. I liked the stylisation (the way Nancy danced it was so spectacular, in particular, I wished we’d somehow seen two pros at it) but Will did it pretty well.
But, well, that was the two celebs I find the most annoying done.
Frozen Madonna!Kym danced the rumba with ice man Graziano, and the routine had a decent concept/storyline. I thought she was really graceful, but I found it difficult to judge because her outfit was so dark while a silver Graziano was more eye-catching. (To continue being personal, I find her being such a young grandmother, which we keep being reminded of, a bit discombobulating.) Good score for a rumba!
The ghost of Brian Connolly in James’s VT made me laugh.
Possibly the weakest concept of the night was for Beekeeper James and evil bee (?) Amy’s Charleston. It was definitely the least Halloween routine of the night. Having Amy fly in meant we focused on James doing solo work (a mistake). I changed my mind, she had the least flattering costume. The dance itself was not great, neither was it terrible, and despite all the chat about the lifts, he got what was probably going to be the lowest score of the night. Shirley’s point about changes of energy was valid.
All I was thinking for the next routine was whether post-dance-off Molly could match Fleur’s Argentine tango. Except it turned out to be a very different routine: embracing the vampire concept and the whole theme week spirit, starting by setting the mood and with lifts. The lifts seemed vertiginous for an Argentine tango. Don’t get me wrong, Molly continues to be good, and came off as imperious, but I found myself agreeing a bit with ‘the boys’ about the lack of intensity and reaction. So, for me, it wasn’t as epic as Fleur and Vito’s.
Next: Tyler and Dianne’s Beetlejuice cha cha cha, and I loved it. He was so confident, so rhythmical and so ON IT. In his favour for me personally was the fact that his lighter costume was more eye-catching than Dianne’s. I loved Motsi’s comment about different flavours of rhythms (which kind of supports Craig’s complaint that it wasn’t a cha cha cha as he knew it) and I’m looking forward to Tyler’s samba and salsa. 10 (from Anton, who was generous tonight, although I thought Craig undermarked quite a lot of dancers).
Red Riding Helen and Wolf!Gorka had a foxtrot, and the routine didn’t do much for me. I got distracted by whether Helen realised how see-through her skirt was and all the ‘storytelling’ didn’t click. She was graceful as always, but like Craig I noticed the slight gapping. The other judges were happy with her progress, and Helen and Gorka were happy with their scores, though.
Next came the regal tango, and despite all the backstory, the dance was mainly focused on after the ‘evil queen’ trapped him in a timer. How did he get out? Given the characterisation, you wondered how she’d done it to such a powerful king, although the final beat reminded you ‘Magic!’
Ahem. As for the dance, I loved it too. (A rock version of ‘Wicked Game’ was always going to work for me, although I’m not tired of ‘Running Up a Hill’ despite its resurgence and that didn’t do Molly and Carlos any favours.) I was, ‘All hail, Hamza, King of the Ballroom!’ It was such an intense and dramatic routine, and he was so commanding! But the judges picked up on mistakes, so the leaderboard remains volatile.
Fleur and Vito were doing a Beyonce!fortune teller (disco) salsa, and um, it was very busy, from the opening to ‘geek!’ Vito’s outfit (did those trousers need to be patterned? No, they did not). There were good bits in it, like that long lift, but I think it failed on that smoothness in the salsa Craig was talking about.
Claudia loves the helpful Karen, I loved Neil for turning up in the next VT. Ellie S and Nikita were doing a Scooby Doo foxtrot as Velma and Shaggy respectively and, um. I had a similar problem with the routine to the judges’, it was a routine of two halves: slow foxtrot (without the usual hold because of the height difference) and them breaking off to do ‘comedy bits’ that felt like they belonged to an entirely different routine. The judges not named Craig’s concrit seemed fair.
Ellie T’s couples choice VT was all about how grateful she is to have found stand up. They closed with a Hocus Pocus couples choice that was maybe musical theatre. Anyway, it was the most entertaining lady celeb routine of the night. I maybe couldn’t appreciate the detailing (and I thought that Johannes danced it with more snap and dazzle) but she obviously flourished with the lack of rules/reliance on performance, got told it was her best dance, got scored accordingly and made it to the joint top of the leaderboard!
I voted for my favourite routines: Tyler and Dianne once and Hamza and Jowita twice (because I didn’t like his place on the leaderboard – otherwise, I might have voted once for Kym). We already knew that Tyler was Shirley’s tip for the final, Molly was Anton’s, but tonight Helen became Motsi’s, but they all love Hamza too. But who makes it to the final is a lot up to the voting public too.
Tyler bested Will in the cha cha off, and Helen bested Ellie S, although that was even less of a like for like contest. With most couples getting 30 or above, I don’t know if the lifts will be enough to save James, or the immaculate footwork will be enough to save Ellie S (whereas apologies and a clean routine will probably mean people keep Tony in.) But it might still be about the middle of the leaderboard.
Black-garbed presenters, Craig and Shirley in drag (and okay, he was clearly playing Morticia, but I didn’t get that Shirley was meant to be Gomez until they said as much, I was mainly taken by the fact that Shirley seemed to have shrunk and Craig grown, which shows what a difference exchanging heels makes.) Nice try with the mask, Motsi, but with Shirley getting into character and Anton’s wig seemingly possessing him (a foretaste of his Hook in panto?), it was the also-ran of judges’ costumes.
But not as much as Beekeper!James’s was of the dancers’.
Tony and Katya’s quickstep opened proceedings (her skirt was amazing). He seemed to get the steps right and the running steps were properly good. And we learned that Katya’s soul is…a white scarf. Okay, then. The judges liked it more than me, and, as on It Takes Two earlier in the week, Tony realised how badly he’d come off last week and apologised to Shirley.
I liked Will and Nancy’s mummy cha cha more. I liked the stylisation (the way Nancy danced it was so spectacular, in particular, I wished we’d somehow seen two pros at it) but Will did it pretty well.
But, well, that was the two celebs I find the most annoying done.
Frozen Madonna!Kym danced the rumba with ice man Graziano, and the routine had a decent concept/storyline. I thought she was really graceful, but I found it difficult to judge because her outfit was so dark while a silver Graziano was more eye-catching. (To continue being personal, I find her being such a young grandmother, which we keep being reminded of, a bit discombobulating.) Good score for a rumba!
The ghost of Brian Connolly in James’s VT made me laugh.
Possibly the weakest concept of the night was for Beekeeper James and evil bee (?) Amy’s Charleston. It was definitely the least Halloween routine of the night. Having Amy fly in meant we focused on James doing solo work (a mistake). I changed my mind, she had the least flattering costume. The dance itself was not great, neither was it terrible, and despite all the chat about the lifts, he got what was probably going to be the lowest score of the night. Shirley’s point about changes of energy was valid.
All I was thinking for the next routine was whether post-dance-off Molly could match Fleur’s Argentine tango. Except it turned out to be a very different routine: embracing the vampire concept and the whole theme week spirit, starting by setting the mood and with lifts. The lifts seemed vertiginous for an Argentine tango. Don’t get me wrong, Molly continues to be good, and came off as imperious, but I found myself agreeing a bit with ‘the boys’ about the lack of intensity and reaction. So, for me, it wasn’t as epic as Fleur and Vito’s.
Next: Tyler and Dianne’s Beetlejuice cha cha cha, and I loved it. He was so confident, so rhythmical and so ON IT. In his favour for me personally was the fact that his lighter costume was more eye-catching than Dianne’s. I loved Motsi’s comment about different flavours of rhythms (which kind of supports Craig’s complaint that it wasn’t a cha cha cha as he knew it) and I’m looking forward to Tyler’s samba and salsa. 10 (from Anton, who was generous tonight, although I thought Craig undermarked quite a lot of dancers).
Red Riding Helen and Wolf!Gorka had a foxtrot, and the routine didn’t do much for me. I got distracted by whether Helen realised how see-through her skirt was and all the ‘storytelling’ didn’t click. She was graceful as always, but like Craig I noticed the slight gapping. The other judges were happy with her progress, and Helen and Gorka were happy with their scores, though.
Next came the regal tango, and despite all the backstory, the dance was mainly focused on after the ‘evil queen’ trapped him in a timer. How did he get out? Given the characterisation, you wondered how she’d done it to such a powerful king, although the final beat reminded you ‘Magic!’
Ahem. As for the dance, I loved it too. (A rock version of ‘Wicked Game’ was always going to work for me, although I’m not tired of ‘Running Up a Hill’ despite its resurgence and that didn’t do Molly and Carlos any favours.) I was, ‘All hail, Hamza, King of the Ballroom!’ It was such an intense and dramatic routine, and he was so commanding! But the judges picked up on mistakes, so the leaderboard remains volatile.
Fleur and Vito were doing a Beyonce!fortune teller (disco) salsa, and um, it was very busy, from the opening to ‘geek!’ Vito’s outfit (did those trousers need to be patterned? No, they did not). There were good bits in it, like that long lift, but I think it failed on that smoothness in the salsa Craig was talking about.
Claudia loves the helpful Karen, I loved Neil for turning up in the next VT. Ellie S and Nikita were doing a Scooby Doo foxtrot as Velma and Shaggy respectively and, um. I had a similar problem with the routine to the judges’, it was a routine of two halves: slow foxtrot (without the usual hold because of the height difference) and them breaking off to do ‘comedy bits’ that felt like they belonged to an entirely different routine. The judges not named Craig’s concrit seemed fair.
Ellie T’s couples choice VT was all about how grateful she is to have found stand up. They closed with a Hocus Pocus couples choice that was maybe musical theatre. Anyway, it was the most entertaining lady celeb routine of the night. I maybe couldn’t appreciate the detailing (and I thought that Johannes danced it with more snap and dazzle) but she obviously flourished with the lack of rules/reliance on performance, got told it was her best dance, got scored accordingly and made it to the joint top of the leaderboard!
I voted for my favourite routines: Tyler and Dianne once and Hamza and Jowita twice (because I didn’t like his place on the leaderboard – otherwise, I might have voted once for Kym). We already knew that Tyler was Shirley’s tip for the final, Molly was Anton’s, but tonight Helen became Motsi’s, but they all love Hamza too. But who makes it to the final is a lot up to the voting public too.
Tyler bested Will in the cha cha off, and Helen bested Ellie S, although that was even less of a like for like contest. With most couples getting 30 or above, I don’t know if the lifts will be enough to save James, or the immaculate footwork will be enough to save Ellie S (whereas apologies and a clean routine will probably mean people keep Tony in.) But it might still be about the middle of the leaderboard.
