First Christmas special
Dec. 27th, 2023 01:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessI hope everyone had a merry Christmas and all that. (Mine has been unfortunately sleep deprived.)
It occurred to me I had the time and space during the build-up to Christmas to get back to reposting fic (I’m not writing any new fanfiction), so I reposted a couple here and on AO3.
Je me souviens, every single thing, The O.C., PG, Taylor/Ryan implied. Coda to 4.04 ‘The Metamorphosis’. 169 words. Summary: I remember every single thing. (February 2007).
Do Atwoods dream of French dictionaries? The O.C., PG. Ryan, Kirsten. Past Ryan/Marissa, Ryan/Taylor implied. 380 words. Missing scene for 4.04 ‘The Metamorphosis’. Summary: Ryan had a weird dream. Coffee and Kirsten don’t really help. (February 2007)
I don’t have much to say about them. Looking back, I think they’re slight, but they show how taken I was by Taylor/Ryan in season 4 of The OC. (I had an absolute HTML-related nightmare updating the masterlist after ‘Je me souviens’.)
Strictly Christmas Special
Introductory dance where it became obvious that the celebs had been instructed to go big with their faces, the men wore silly Christmas jumpers, but Sally Nugent seemed to have done well in terms of the colour of her skirt. Presenters and judges had gone appropriately sparkly for Christmas, although I think Motsi might regret the green velvet dress if she watches the show back.
First, Dan Snow doing a jive with Nadiya as a Gingerbread Man. There were lifts, his timing was terrible and a jive was always going to be tough for a man as tall as he is. I hadn’t spotted the trouser split, but if, despite that, Craig was giving it a 7, the scores were going to be generous (I still couldn’t believe Anton had given it a 9 when he could have seemed generous with an 8 and there were five other dances to go.)
Next, Keisha off Sugababes (with the two other original Sugababes in the studio audience) was doing a Viennese Waltz where she was an ice queen and Gorka was either a snowman or Anton given what they did to his hair. She’d improved from the rehearsal footage, though I think she’d have been more comfortable with Latin. The judges were very (too) positive, and she got higher marks than Dan.
That was followed by Danny Cipriani partnering Jowita and the first sighting of the show’s Santa Claus (in the Dickie Attenborough tradition) in the VT. I didn’t quite catch what kind of disco Latin (with lifts) it was meant to be. Lotsa lifts, because after Hamza, Jowita thinks all rugby players can do lifts. Danny acquitted himself quite well, was leered over a bit (because he wore a sleeveless Santa suit) and overmarked, and I learned it was a cha cha. (Jody was in the audience with lots of other 2023 celebs, and I don’t know how he felt about watching Jowita get chucked around like that, but he’d watched Hamza and her salsa at the beginning of the series, so…)
I’d thought Danny was too tall for Jowita and I’d noted that Tillie (an actress apparently) was taller than Neil. She kinda let slip in her VT that she’d had some dance lessons. They made nothing of the fact that Tom Chambers was a former Strictly champion when he popped up in said VT.
Anyway, I thought this jive, where they were elves, was a cut above what we’d seen already, so fast from the off, and Tillie never flagged. The choreography was clever, although it felt like a jive/Charleston hybrid more than a pure jive, and if I had notes, they would have been for her to be a little more compact, but the judges were properly delighted and she was top.
Next Sally Nugent of breakfast TV, which as we all know, is responsible for more Strictly misses than hits, but she looked like she could be a decent ballroom dancer with her length of limb, and her wintry foxtrot with Graziano was as elegant as you like, if lacking flow. She felt like the Annabel of the Christmas special, having had one ballet lesson that made her cry as a five year old. I would have liked to see her on the show proper (but I suspect a watching Zara had Feelings.) Genuinely don’t know why Craig decided to make a point about the illegal lifts then when we’d had two routines full of ‘em. Did they air the routines in a different order to the one they danced them in?
Jamie, from Eastenders, apparently took Nancy to the set (isn’t it practically next door to the Strictly studio?) where they made a big deal of bumping into Emma Barton, and although she was on the show proper more recently, didn’t win, unlike Tom Chambers. Anyway, they were performing a quickstep in a pub, and I thought he was one of the better dancers – he made Nancy look gorgeous, though I’m not convinced he led – although Anton, bizarrely, was the judge who maybe best explained why. Shirley wittered on about not having a high enough paddle, Craig, by virtue of restraint, could give a meaningful 10. Christmas 40. (Shirley was probably the most overexcited judge.)
Sam Ryder sang a Christmas song that sounded a bit like lots of other Christmas songs. I was clocking the similarities between his backing singers and Mutya and Siobhan Sugababes, so it wasn’t holding my attention. Fortunately, the pros came on, Luba and Lauren looking sparkly, and Gio and Kail looking as though they were going to do a rumba, only it was more of a partner swopping jive. Luba was the one who caught the eye, FWIW.
The studio audience agreed with the judges and gave the nod to Jamie and Nancy. There’s a bizarre mismatch because they treat giving the Christmas trophy (for one dance where everyone is overmarked) as if it were a glitterball being awarded after a long season of many, many dances and chances for the TV viewers to get invested and vote.
Big closing group number with added judges, Shirley and Anton were responsible for the best highlights, while Sally, for example, looked as if she would not be a natural at Latin. TessnClaud wished us a merry Christmas and then went and danced around their invisible handbags in the midst of the dancing throng. I think Claudia was seriously attempting to start a conga.
It occurred to me I had the time and space during the build-up to Christmas to get back to reposting fic (I’m not writing any new fanfiction), so I reposted a couple here and on AO3.
Je me souviens, every single thing, The O.C., PG, Taylor/Ryan implied. Coda to 4.04 ‘The Metamorphosis’. 169 words. Summary: I remember every single thing. (February 2007).
Do Atwoods dream of French dictionaries? The O.C., PG. Ryan, Kirsten. Past Ryan/Marissa, Ryan/Taylor implied. 380 words. Missing scene for 4.04 ‘The Metamorphosis’. Summary: Ryan had a weird dream. Coffee and Kirsten don’t really help. (February 2007)
I don’t have much to say about them. Looking back, I think they’re slight, but they show how taken I was by Taylor/Ryan in season 4 of The OC. (I had an absolute HTML-related nightmare updating the masterlist after ‘Je me souviens’.)
Strictly Christmas Special
Introductory dance where it became obvious that the celebs had been instructed to go big with their faces, the men wore silly Christmas jumpers, but Sally Nugent seemed to have done well in terms of the colour of her skirt. Presenters and judges had gone appropriately sparkly for Christmas, although I think Motsi might regret the green velvet dress if she watches the show back.
First, Dan Snow doing a jive with Nadiya as a Gingerbread Man. There were lifts, his timing was terrible and a jive was always going to be tough for a man as tall as he is. I hadn’t spotted the trouser split, but if, despite that, Craig was giving it a 7, the scores were going to be generous (I still couldn’t believe Anton had given it a 9 when he could have seemed generous with an 8 and there were five other dances to go.)
Next, Keisha off Sugababes (with the two other original Sugababes in the studio audience) was doing a Viennese Waltz where she was an ice queen and Gorka was either a snowman or Anton given what they did to his hair. She’d improved from the rehearsal footage, though I think she’d have been more comfortable with Latin. The judges were very (too) positive, and she got higher marks than Dan.
That was followed by Danny Cipriani partnering Jowita and the first sighting of the show’s Santa Claus (in the Dickie Attenborough tradition) in the VT. I didn’t quite catch what kind of disco Latin (with lifts) it was meant to be. Lotsa lifts, because after Hamza, Jowita thinks all rugby players can do lifts. Danny acquitted himself quite well, was leered over a bit (because he wore a sleeveless Santa suit) and overmarked, and I learned it was a cha cha. (Jody was in the audience with lots of other 2023 celebs, and I don’t know how he felt about watching Jowita get chucked around like that, but he’d watched Hamza and her salsa at the beginning of the series, so…)
I’d thought Danny was too tall for Jowita and I’d noted that Tillie (an actress apparently) was taller than Neil. She kinda let slip in her VT that she’d had some dance lessons. They made nothing of the fact that Tom Chambers was a former Strictly champion when he popped up in said VT.
Anyway, I thought this jive, where they were elves, was a cut above what we’d seen already, so fast from the off, and Tillie never flagged. The choreography was clever, although it felt like a jive/Charleston hybrid more than a pure jive, and if I had notes, they would have been for her to be a little more compact, but the judges were properly delighted and she was top.
Next Sally Nugent of breakfast TV, which as we all know, is responsible for more Strictly misses than hits, but she looked like she could be a decent ballroom dancer with her length of limb, and her wintry foxtrot with Graziano was as elegant as you like, if lacking flow. She felt like the Annabel of the Christmas special, having had one ballet lesson that made her cry as a five year old. I would have liked to see her on the show proper (but I suspect a watching Zara had Feelings.) Genuinely don’t know why Craig decided to make a point about the illegal lifts then when we’d had two routines full of ‘em. Did they air the routines in a different order to the one they danced them in?
Jamie, from Eastenders, apparently took Nancy to the set (isn’t it practically next door to the Strictly studio?) where they made a big deal of bumping into Emma Barton, and although she was on the show proper more recently, didn’t win, unlike Tom Chambers. Anyway, they were performing a quickstep in a pub, and I thought he was one of the better dancers – he made Nancy look gorgeous, though I’m not convinced he led – although Anton, bizarrely, was the judge who maybe best explained why. Shirley wittered on about not having a high enough paddle, Craig, by virtue of restraint, could give a meaningful 10. Christmas 40. (Shirley was probably the most overexcited judge.)
Sam Ryder sang a Christmas song that sounded a bit like lots of other Christmas songs. I was clocking the similarities between his backing singers and Mutya and Siobhan Sugababes, so it wasn’t holding my attention. Fortunately, the pros came on, Luba and Lauren looking sparkly, and Gio and Kail looking as though they were going to do a rumba, only it was more of a partner swopping jive. Luba was the one who caught the eye, FWIW.
The studio audience agreed with the judges and gave the nod to Jamie and Nancy. There’s a bizarre mismatch because they treat giving the Christmas trophy (for one dance where everyone is overmarked) as if it were a glitterball being awarded after a long season of many, many dances and chances for the TV viewers to get invested and vote.
Big closing group number with added judges, Shirley and Anton were responsible for the best highlights, while Sally, for example, looked as if she would not be a natural at Latin. TessnClaud wished us a merry Christmas and then went and danced around their invisible handbags in the midst of the dancing throng. I think Claudia was seriously attempting to start a conga.
