Strictly Come Dancing:Week Five

This show is hotting up, and by far my favourite of the two Saturday prime time reality shows. This week the contestants were dancing in the famous Tower Ballroom in Blackpool, and were competing in the Samba and the Viennese Waltz.

Sarah and Brendan opened the show. Apart from Sarah getting her heel caught in her dress (which she recovered quite well from) , the dance, I thought, was quite good but did not really evoke the atmosphere of the Rio carnival, which was the idea of that dance, but it was quite well executed technically. The judges slammed it for lacking sex and passion. Julian and Erin came on next. They also danced well and the crowd really enjoyed their dance. Again, the judges were harsh, and picking up on missed steps, but scored them higher than Brendan & Sarah.

Denise and Ian were up next, and in previous dances the judges commented that Denise suited Ballroom over Latin dances, but this was retracted as Denise sambad very well. It is quite a complicated dance and all the celebrities claimed to struggle with it as there are a lot of different steps. Next up was Roger and Camilla, and I though they danced very well, as Roger is another one not comfy with the Latin dances. They got a very mixed results from the judges, some thought they (Roger) were wooden and the hips were not relaxed enough, but others though it was a very good dance, and that Roger led Camilla in the steps, which is the idea (that the man leads the woman). Their marks meant that they were at the bottom with Sarah & Brendan. Jill and Darren danced next and were a good as ever. Jill has been in for some stick in the press as she had had dance training in her teens, and many said she was too good, or had an unfair advantage in the competition. They did dance well again, but I was too distracted by a very unflattering dress. Aled and Lilia closed the samba contest with a very good dance again, and good marks, finishing in the top half with Denise and Jill, whilst Julian, Roger and Sarah languished at the bottom of the table.

The Viennese Waltz was a non-scoring dance. All competitors had to be on the dancefloor at the same time, the competitiveness came to the fore and there were lots of jokey remarks in rehearsals and a bit of gamesmanship. Mainly by Brendan. Each couple danced quite well, and took turns to take a solo spin, turn or lift whilst the others waltzed around them. It was described as endurance ballroom as there are lots of forward and backward turns and you have to be sure not to turn into another couple.

After the break, that came back for the results. The bottom two, in terms of judges scores combined with public voting, were Sarah & Brendan and Julian & Erin. It was Sarah & Brendan who went, which seemed fair, as people were not being entertained by Brendan's competitiveness and mini tantrums in rehearsals when his amateur dance partner struggled to master a new step.