paso doble
Oct. 13th, 2013 08:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessStrictly Saturday (week 3)
I’m mostly negative towards theme weeks, especially when they’re too early and mean too many props, but as most of the songs for the show are all about love anyway, they didn’t force any showmances on us and some of the celeb stories about who/what they love worked, I survived. And without too much distraction, a lot of the poor to mediocre celebs improved (eg Fiona, Rachel, Ben and Deborah). Some of it’s about confidence growing and instructions sinking in, and I’m sure some of it is the pro working out how to choreograph to their celeb’s strengths. The best example of that and the best dance of the night was Artem and Natalie’s gorgeous rumba. I caught the end of Friday's It Takes Two and thought that he was right when he said she might not have anywhere to go, being such a good dancer already, but I'm glad to be proved wrong. I can appreciate her dancing! I just don't want her to win.
I mostly agreed with the judges about the ranking – interesting which of the strong dancers were up there and which weren’t (Abbey and Patrick, who were no more than fine for me too). I loved Susanna and Kevin’s Viennese Waltz. They’re growing to be my favourite couple. At one point (okay, while watching It Take Two) I thought he wanted to be her eldest son, but whatever’s working about their partnership, let it keep working. I’d love to see him wear his glasses for one of the dances and not in that pro puts on glasses to play a wacky character way. He should also embrace the ‘from-Grimsby’ tag, as that and the impersonations should mean he’ll stay on the show for years to come (the new female pros seem a lot more anonymous). But Susanna can dance and did it beautifully last night (one or two wobbly moments aside).
I thought, in their own way, Ashley and Sophie handeled the tough samba well. There was one brilliant section in the middle from him, and yes, their samba seemed a lot more what you’d traditionally expect from the dance, but I really liked Sophie’s cooler style. It is closer to the performance style we’ve seen from her as a singer, so she's just being herself. I suppose it may become problematic if she’s always like that and not transforming with the character of the dance.
Len mostly overmarked all night long.
BTW, I liked Mark’s dance more than the judges.
The other stand-out was Dave. I wished people in the audience hadn’t started laughing, but that’s a bit of the pot calling the kettle black. He’s just...it’s just... (I could live with him being voted through and stompy Vanessa and Julian being in the dance off. I think I’d have liked Janette’s Blues Brother jive if she’d had a good male dance partner to choreograph for who could pull it off.) The only thing that came close in the hilarity stakes was grumpy!Artem dancing in a onesie. I would love for someone (DAVE) to dance in a onesie next week. Or maybe Claudia could wear a sparkly one for the Sunday show?
Also, if Karen keeps laughing and playing along, her reward may be a good male celeb next year. I liked her and Deborah's dresses and the colour of Natalie's rumba thing.
Maybe Bruce could start considering a one week on, one week off policy.
Atlantis 1.3 The Boy Must Die
I have dipped my feet enough into Atlantis fandom to discover that the portmanteau name for Jason/Pythagoras is Python. Of course it is.
As for this episode, still enjoyable, between the chaff between the three amigos (what’s the Greek for that?) and the Gladiator-equivalent as a team sport stuff. Fair play, the other people in the team ticked off some boxes: woman, black man and white man – and at least he was the red shirt. All their conflicts were worked through pretty easily and even Hercules and Pythagoras managed impossible leaps. (The green screen was far too obvious a couple of times.) This may be a problem when it comes to Jason figuring out, if he ever does, that his amazing hand-to-hand combat skills etc are siginficant superpowers. I didn’t quite understand why they gave the girl a really Greek name when she had an Irish accent.
I did wonder where the Oracle was given that Persiphae was plotting against Jason’s life. I suspect she was locked in the cupboard of budgetary constraints, but still.
MEDUSA! I knew my girl would be resourceful and save the day. I may have been dramatically muttering ‘Hair, it’s all about HAIR’ at some point. She deserves better than Hercules (for that matter, most of the women in Atlantis deserve better than Hercules). So, she’s got a job in the palace kitchens, which makes sense, seeing as they were two servants down after last week’s ep. Would she be literate? (Never mind. It’s an AU. Forget I asked.) It seems that she isn’t quite in the in-group of Jason, Pythagoras and Hercules, a bond forged in the pilot, even though she saved their bacon – because she feels she owes Jason her life (even though she also saved him last week) and is a good girl more than feelings for Hercules, surely.
The witchy evil stebmother queen (doing a variant of voodoo in mythblender ancient Greece) and the cruel fiancée of the virtuous princess was all leavened by some humour. I liked Ariadne basically calling Pasiphae heartless, and loved everyone mocking Jason for the look of love. Also, you keep talking Pythagoras, cause you’re winning my heart.
Sarah Parish and Mark Addy are particularly good value. I hope we get a Minos-centred episode soon, because he doesn’t seem very much on the ball.
I’m mostly negative towards theme weeks, especially when they’re too early and mean too many props, but as most of the songs for the show are all about love anyway, they didn’t force any showmances on us and some of the celeb stories about who/what they love worked, I survived. And without too much distraction, a lot of the poor to mediocre celebs improved (eg Fiona, Rachel, Ben and Deborah). Some of it’s about confidence growing and instructions sinking in, and I’m sure some of it is the pro working out how to choreograph to their celeb’s strengths. The best example of that and the best dance of the night was Artem and Natalie’s gorgeous rumba. I caught the end of Friday's It Takes Two and thought that he was right when he said she might not have anywhere to go, being such a good dancer already, but I'm glad to be proved wrong. I can appreciate her dancing! I just don't want her to win.
I mostly agreed with the judges about the ranking – interesting which of the strong dancers were up there and which weren’t (Abbey and Patrick, who were no more than fine for me too). I loved Susanna and Kevin’s Viennese Waltz. They’re growing to be my favourite couple. At one point (okay, while watching It Take Two) I thought he wanted to be her eldest son, but whatever’s working about their partnership, let it keep working. I’d love to see him wear his glasses for one of the dances and not in that pro puts on glasses to play a wacky character way. He should also embrace the ‘from-Grimsby’ tag, as that and the impersonations should mean he’ll stay on the show for years to come (the new female pros seem a lot more anonymous). But Susanna can dance and did it beautifully last night (one or two wobbly moments aside).
I thought, in their own way, Ashley and Sophie handeled the tough samba well. There was one brilliant section in the middle from him, and yes, their samba seemed a lot more what you’d traditionally expect from the dance, but I really liked Sophie’s cooler style. It is closer to the performance style we’ve seen from her as a singer, so she's just being herself. I suppose it may become problematic if she’s always like that and not transforming with the character of the dance.
Len mostly overmarked all night long.
BTW, I liked Mark’s dance more than the judges.
The other stand-out was Dave. I wished people in the audience hadn’t started laughing, but that’s a bit of the pot calling the kettle black. He’s just...it’s just... (I could live with him being voted through and stompy Vanessa and Julian being in the dance off. I think I’d have liked Janette’s Blues Brother jive if she’d had a good male dance partner to choreograph for who could pull it off.) The only thing that came close in the hilarity stakes was grumpy!Artem dancing in a onesie. I would love for someone (DAVE) to dance in a onesie next week. Or maybe Claudia could wear a sparkly one for the Sunday show?
Also, if Karen keeps laughing and playing along, her reward may be a good male celeb next year. I liked her and Deborah's dresses and the colour of Natalie's rumba thing.
Maybe Bruce could start considering a one week on, one week off policy.
Atlantis 1.3 The Boy Must Die
I have dipped my feet enough into Atlantis fandom to discover that the portmanteau name for Jason/Pythagoras is Python. Of course it is.
As for this episode, still enjoyable, between the chaff between the three amigos (what’s the Greek for that?) and the Gladiator-equivalent as a team sport stuff. Fair play, the other people in the team ticked off some boxes: woman, black man and white man – and at least he was the red shirt. All their conflicts were worked through pretty easily and even Hercules and Pythagoras managed impossible leaps. (The green screen was far too obvious a couple of times.) This may be a problem when it comes to Jason figuring out, if he ever does, that his amazing hand-to-hand combat skills etc are siginficant superpowers. I didn’t quite understand why they gave the girl a really Greek name when she had an Irish accent.
I did wonder where the Oracle was given that Persiphae was plotting against Jason’s life. I suspect she was locked in the cupboard of budgetary constraints, but still.
MEDUSA! I knew my girl would be resourceful and save the day. I may have been dramatically muttering ‘Hair, it’s all about HAIR’ at some point. She deserves better than Hercules (for that matter, most of the women in Atlantis deserve better than Hercules). So, she’s got a job in the palace kitchens, which makes sense, seeing as they were two servants down after last week’s ep. Would she be literate? (Never mind. It’s an AU. Forget I asked.) It seems that she isn’t quite in the in-group of Jason, Pythagoras and Hercules, a bond forged in the pilot, even though she saved their bacon – because she feels she owes Jason her life (even though she also saved him last week) and is a good girl more than feelings for Hercules, surely.
The witchy evil stebmother queen (doing a variant of voodoo in mythblender ancient Greece) and the cruel fiancée of the virtuous princess was all leavened by some humour. I liked Ariadne basically calling Pasiphae heartless, and loved everyone mocking Jason for the look of love. Also, you keep talking Pythagoras, cause you’re winning my heart.
Sarah Parish and Mark Addy are particularly good value. I hope we get a Minos-centred episode soon, because he doesn’t seem very much on the ball.
