Monday 16 October 2017

Strictly Come Dancing 2017 - Week 4

WOW! What an amazing week of dancing.  Our remaining thirteen celebs have really upped their game this week, well most of them anyway.  For me, Week Four is always a bit of a comedown after Movie Week but this year, OMG! Sorry about all the capital letters but seriously folks, this week saw some outstanding performances and some real surprises and our first 10s of the series.

First of all, I am really taking a dislike to Shirley Ballas.  When she first joined as head judge, I thought she wasn't too bad but as the weeks have gone on, she is overly harsh to the dancers she clearly doesn't like and she is definitely biased.  She also needs to learn the names of the celebs she is talking to.  In the first week, she called Chizzy 'Lizzie' and had to be corrected by Darcey.  This week when criticising Charlotte, she called her 'Mollie'.  No-one bothered to correct her, they probably didn't think it was worth the effort, given her attitude.

Anyway, onto the dances.  First up was Debbie and I have to say the last two weeks have seen a drop in standards from her.  This week her Cha Cha Cha wasn't as good as we would expect, given how lithe and supple she has shown herself to be.  I had previously thought she was heading straight for the finals but now she may have some competition on her hands.   She did do an amazing standing split though. Next up was Brian.  Brian never fails to deliver the entertainment factor even if the technique isn't always spot on.  He was dancing the Paso Doble and was dressed as a rock star.  He really amuses me and he is genuinely delighted with the scores he gets and is always so thrilled with any positive comments he gets. Next up was Mollie doing the Salsa.  Mollie is slowly improving but she needs to loosen up a little, although this week wasn't too bad.  Again, like in last week's American Smooth, AJ put in some amazing lifts and apart from the final one where she hit the floor slightly, they were impressive.

Davood was next and he had been previously criticised for the routines being overly sexy and not enough dance content.  This week he had the Viennese Waltz and all the spinning and turning left him physically ill.  In fact, it was touch and go if he would be able to perform after the dress rehearsal on Saturday afternoon.  He suffers from motion sickness so he resorted to wearing anti sickness bands on his wrists and he got through it. Not only did he get through but he scored his highest mark yet and gave a beautiful performance, not sexy but romantic. Next, we had Charlotte.  I do like Charlotte, she is such a sweet girl, it's just a shame she can't dance.  She did the Jive this week and she did show some improvement from the last two weeks.  She is heading in the right direction, she just isn't in the same league as some of the others and won't last much longer.

Following Charlotte was Joe.  Now Joe is this year's Greg Rutherford for me.  If you recall last years blog, I had a real soft spot for Greg and was gutted when he left, even though I knew he wasn't going to make it to the final.  Joe is the same for me this year.  I adore him, he's such a cheeky chappie and he really tries hard.  The problem is that he isn't consistent enough.  He had two great weeks in week 1 and week 3.  Unfortunate, y he then dipped in Week 2 and again this week.  His Cha Cha Cha was too wooden and stilted and not his best routine.  Knowing Joe, he'll be back next week with a great performance. Ruth was doing the Tango this week.  Now I have never been a big fan of Ruth but this week I was actually quite impressed.  She had a good hold, good frame and never missed a beat.  You could tell she really worked hard at this routine and clearly, the Tango is her dance.  She actually deserves to stay this week, which is not something I have previously thought of her.

Aston was up doing the Quickstep next.  Now you all know I am not an Aston fan, but I have not been able to criticise him much.  UNTIL NOW!  He was still good, compared to a lot of the others, but the Quickstep was not his dance.  He's definitely a Latin man, the ballroom is not his forte.  He just seemed to struggle to keep up with the pace of the dance and didn't look comfortable at all, although he still continued to play to the cameras with his cockiness.  At the other end of the spectrum, Simon was dancing the Samba and it was bad.  He hasn't got the natural sway needed for this dance and it was awkward to watch.

Up next was Gemma dancing the Paso Doble.  Oh my word, this girl has come on leaps and bounds since week one and has steadily improved week after week.  This was an amazing Paso and her whole performance was smooth, polished and fierce.  Oh boy was she fierce.  She scored a whopping 35 points and has impressed the judges.   However, she was followed by Alexandra and if I thought gemma's performance was impressive, Alexandra just blew everyone away.  It was almost like deja vu from Ore last year.  Ore scored 39 for his jive last year in week four.  This year Alexandra performed the Jive in week Four and also scored an incredible 39 points.  She got 3 10s, the first of the series, with only Craig scoring her 9.  The poor girl was just so overcome she burst into tears. (She lost her mum just after joining the Strictly line up and she was just overcome with the whole result.)

Next up we had the lovely Jonnie, or should that be the sexy, sultry Jonnie.  Oooooh, his American Smooth was incredibly smooth.  He's also one getting better and better and moving up that leaderboard.  Of course, he has the incredible Oti as a partner, her routines and choreography are just outstanding, as we saw last year with her partnership with Danny Mac so she knows exactly how to get the best out of her partners and knows how to show them off to the best of their abilities.
Our final dance came from Susan and she was also dancing the Quickstep.  She was absolutely brilliant and so light on her feet which I didn't really expect from her.  The routine was lively and fun and a fantastic tribute to Morecambe & Wise at the end.  What a way to end the show.

At the end of the night, the leaderboard looked like this


Alexandra & Gorka39
Gemma & Alijaz35
Aston & Janette32
Jonnie & Oti31
Susan & Kevin30
Davood & Nadiya29
Debbie & Giovanni27
Mollie & AJ27
Joe & Katya24
Ruth & Anton24
Brian & Amy21
Charlotte & Brendan19
Simon & Karen19


On to Sunday night and the results.  The first couple into the dance-off was Davood! I don't think anyone expected this, there were a few gasps and stunned faces all around.  He took it well, although I don't think he relished having to spin round so much again.  He was joined in the dance-off by Charlotte which wasn't wholly unexpected.

Davood actually performed even better in the dance-off, correcting a mistake from Saturday night (he actually lifted his partner off the ground slightly which is illegal in the Viennese Waltz). This time he left her lower to the ground so her feet remained on it.  Charlotte still performed badly so it was inevitable that she would be the one to leave.  As I said, lovely girl but she just can't dance so in the end, it was the right result.  It was unanimous with the judges as all four votes went to Davood.

So, a great week and the bar has been raised.  Let's see what week five will bring us.

Until then, keep dancing.

2 comments:

  1. So I changed it up this week and watched all the videos before reading your comments hehe. That judge sounds like a diva and a b*tch...Hahahaha I love Debbie and Giovanni!!! You're right about the dance it wasn't as good as it could have been but damn if it wasn't 100% entertaining. I had to rewind and pause when they did a close up on Giovanni's chest though because I was trying to get a look at his tattoo. When it first popped up in my first viewing I was like "Woah wait does he have a Supernatural anti-demon possession tattoo?!" So a second viewing was needed and on closer inspection the answer is no, but it's super similar!! (https://images-production.global.ssl.fastly.net/uploads/posts/image/110503/supernatural.jpg?auto=compress&crop=faces,top&fit=crop&h=421&q=55&w=750)

    Is it bad that I thought the best part of Amy and Brian's was that singer?? He was awesome! Like I thought the concept of the dance was great and Brian was entertaining I just think the music outshone them. I really enjoyed Mollie and Aj's dance! They did really well. It's especially interesting to compare Molly and her costume to Alexandra's dance and costume. I know they didn't do the same dance but they both did dances with a lot of dynamic movements and wore similar style costumes. Where Alexandra's made it look like her dress was doing more movement than her body Mollie's was opposite you could see how hard she was working those sways.

    Davood seriously needs to learn how to control his fish this week he looked like a gawping fish. He's getting better at dancing but his facial expressions are super distracting for me.
    Awww Charlotte and Brendan looked like they were having so much fun with that dance, it was lovely and simple and clean. Maybe almost too simple though? Apparently I didn't make a note about Joe's dance, clearly I didn't think it noteworthy haha. Ruth is definitely improving but still meh overall. After reading your comment about Aston I realised I clearly stopped watching his dance in order to make my note because my note was "As usual Aston's dance was great but same as always really I mean that's the thing about starting off good, you look the same every week and there's not real improvement?" but clearly I missed that he wasn't perfect this week hehe. Annnnnnd Simon has ruined Copacabana for me with that disappointing samba...which is sad because I love that song.

    Aljaž and Gemma had great costumes and wonderful choreography but that song was a HORRIBLE selection for a paso...GREAT dance though even with the bad music so she definitely deserved her score. And so did Alexandra. Alexandra's jive was super fun - I love that song. My only complaint is that her costume made her movements look waaaay more dynamic than I think they actually were...(also I still LOVE Ore's jive from last year hehe) Okay I didn't realise she was suffering through such a close personal loss while doing all this oh my god, she's amazingly tough.

    I'm really glad their partnered Oti with Jonnie, I do so love Jonnie and those lefts were amazing!! I really loved Susan's dance, she looked like she was having so much fun and she did really well! It's nice to see a plus size lady on this show :) I realised after watching all the videos that I actually watched them in reverse order because that's the way the youtube playlist was structured. It made formatting my notes into a comment really tricky.

    I'm glad Davood is sticking around - I hope he learns how to school his facial expressions to match the mood of the dance better though...

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