Samba To Save Simon?
There is clearly a lot of dead wood in this series of Strictly; it’s just a case of figuring out the order of dispatch with tomorrow night’s third elimination looking to lie between Simon, Brian and Charlotte.
Simon has a samba to a Manilow classic, which is very much a feel-good party tune. It should be fun and offer some entertainment value regardless of Simon’s technical deficiencies. Also, Simon was in trap 1 last week and after r.o. slots of 4, 10, 1 he should be in line for a mid to late slot tomorrow night.
He should also get a bottom 2 bounce and appears to have found a handy ally in Shirley, who is from the same part of the UK as Simon. She has over-scored him with 6s in the last 2 weeks, and given she is head judge with the casting vote this potentially stands Simon in good stead if he comes up against a fellow duffer in the dance-off. Given all of the above he looks too short at 5-4.
Charlotte’s survival on the show has become something of a mini-soap opera and you wonder if it might suit the show’s best interests if she manages to survive again. Strictly gets some handy cross-promotion on ITV’s GMB, and with Brendan mouthing off at the judges this ensures plenty of tabloid headlines.
While Brendan hasn’t covered himself in glory, the sympathy vote is playing out well for Charlotte so far and may well continue. Jive is a tough dance and while Charlotte is wooden and uncoordinated, she may come up with something vaguely passable, as long as she keeps in time to the Bruno Mars track.
Charlotte’s survival on the show has become something of a mini-soap opera and you wonder if it might suit the show’s best interests if she manages to survive again
Brian has a paso he looks like being able to sell quite well, but The Darkness track is a pretty awful choice of music and there may not be much room for comedy in his routine. He may also risk being eclipsed by Gemma, also dancing paso, to a stronger tune in Coldplay’s ‘Viva La Vida’. Of course, Charlotte faces a similar situation with Alexandra’s jive shaping up to be top notch and one of the highlights of the evening.
Ruth should be safe dancing a tango with ballroom supremo Anton to an evocative track. Susan looks like demonstrating her fleet footedness dancing a competent QS to the well-loved Morecambe & Wise tune. Johnny’s AS has looked a bit of a struggle for him in training clips this week while Davood has the chance to bounce back with a solid VW after that brutal 4 from Craig following his pimp-slotted samba.
Like Davood, Debbie was given a tough time last week and received harsh scores from Craig and Shirley for an excellent QS. Her CCC training this week has looked very good. Mollie, meanwhile, produced undoubtedly her best dance of the series last week and she has looked promising in salsa training this week though it’s a tough dance to score highly in. Joe may well be bigged up again for his CCC.
Ruth should be safe dancing a tango with ballroom supremo Anton to an evocative track
It was interesting to note the scoring (and comments) received by Mollie (30), Gemma (31) and Joe (32) last week. They are clearly trying to build up some challengers to the big 3 so far in Alex, Aston and Debbie.
Aston looks like having a tough week dancing QS. You sense the ballroom routines that require accurate technique and a strong frame are going to be his Achilles heel in this series. Alexandra could be teed up to top the leaderboard again dancing jive and may well be in line for the first 10 of the series.
Week 4 songs and dances:
Alexandra and Gorka – Jive to Proud Mary by Tina Turner
Aston and Janette – Quickstep to Mr Blue Sky by ELO
Brian and Amy – Paso Doble to I Believe in a Thing Called Love by The Darkness
Charlotte and Brendan – Jive to Marry You by Bruno Mars
Davood and Nadiya – Viennese Waltz to Say You Love Me by Jessie Ware
Debbie and Giovanni – CCC to The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s in His Kiss) by Cher
Gemma and Aljaz – Paso Doble to Viva La Vida by Coldplay
Joe and Katya – CCC to You Keep Me Hanging On by Human Nature
Jonnie and Oti – American Smooth (VW) to Cry Me a River by Michael Bublé
Mollie and AJ – Salsa to Súbeme La Radio by Enrique Iglesias
Ruth and Anton – Tango to Allegretto by Bond
Simon and Karen – Samba to Copacabana by Barry Manilow
Susan and Kevin – Quickstep to Bring Me Sunshine by The Jive Aces
Everything points towarda Brian going tomorrow. Can’t believe he isn’t favourite.
The Darkness have a Top 10 album this week with ‘Pinewood Smile’, though I would be very surprised if Brian escaped the Bottom Two tomorrow night.
Enjoyed that show very much. Susan and Ruth clear personal bests. Have to say Simons odds on to go, can’t be in a dance off and stay.
Overall it’s Alexandra or Gemma’s to win
Impressive polling from both Brian and Simon to escape b2. I am guessing low voting totals for maybe 6 or 7 last night & very little between them but it looks most likely Davood was last on the pv to end up in the dance-off.
Last night felt like they were applying the breaks on Debbie. First up, negative comments, low score. 1 of 2 possible reasons. Shes romping ahead in the votes, or punishment for letting last week’s elimination slip before the results show.
Gemma gaining momentum now. Possibly a little too early, but id have her as the most likely winner as things stand.
Hi Rob. Here are a few thoughts I had after last night’s show.
– The curse of running order slots 1-5 strikes again. Starting from series eight, 30/48 of those in the dance off, and 16/24 of those eliminated in weeks 2-4 performed during this part of the show.
– Each of the three new female professionals have appeared in the dance off already. This highlights what a good job Katya & Oksana did last year in avoiding the dance off until week 10.
– On the last ten occasions Brendan has performed a Latin dance in an elimination week, he has appeared in the dance off eight times, and been eliminated four times.
– I was delighted, financially speaking, to see Alex pick up the first ten of the series. The last eight celebrities to receive this accolade, went on to achieve a top three placing (Ricky, Kara, Harry, Denise, Natalie, Frankie, Jay, Ore).
– In every week so far, Alex has danced after Gemma in the running order. If these are to be the two alpha females of the series, Gemma should eventually be in line for a number of advantageous running order slots
– A reminder that, with one exception (in 2007), the final three celebrities in each series has contained at least one person aged 36 or older. If the pattern is to continue this year, the most likely candidates are still Debbie or Joe.
Top analysis, James – thanks for this. I’d already forgotten about Oksana who of course danced with Judge Rinder.
Alex has certainly been shown a lot of favour with r.o. slots in the last 3 weeks, and will no doubt continue to dominate. I think we can probably book her a place in the final but worth remembering both Denise V.O. and Nat Gumede only got to the final after being in the sf dance-off, and both looked mortally wounded after those b2 appearances.
The only female on that list who went on to win was Kara Tointon and that required some significant machinations by TPTB in ramping her and tripping up Matt Baker.
Three male winners and only one female out of eight – so in terms of a female earning the first 10 and going on to win the stats look against Alex winning.
Love these insights James they do help immensely in making a betting strategy clearer.
Perhaps it’s only me that believes this but Alexandra does seem to be a completely different level of performer to DVO, Nat, Frankie. Being so good so early does seem a hindrance though and being the best dancer isn’t on its own enough to win if they aren’t likeable enough and that could be Alexandra’s downfall.
If she is following the Ore path, and didn’t he get 3 tens for a jive in week 4 last year? then maybe she will have a couple of underwhelming weeks with some judges nitpicking. Might actually help her chances of winning.
Gemma needs to prove to me she can handle a sexy Latin dance. If she can do that then she has the right credentials. She’s improving, likeable and down to earth.
Just one further thought, didn’t Gemma open the show in week one. James will know, isn’t that a good pointer to a winner/high finish?
Hi Bruce. Starting in series 8, the week 1 schedule had all couples dancing on either the Friday night or the Saturday night.
The finishing position of the celebrity who opened the series is patchy: Felicity 8th, Holly 4th, Fern 10th, Ashley 6th, Caroline 1st, Kellie 2nd, Laura 9th, Gemma ??
The finishing position of the celebrity who opened the first Saturday show of the series is as follows: Jimi 10th, Harry 1st, Kimberley 2nd, Ben 8th, Mark 4th, Jay 1st, Louise 2nd, Gemma ??
The finishing position of the person who closed the first Saturday show of the series is as follows: Kara 1st, Jason 3rd, Louis 1st, Abbey 1st, Simon 2nd, Peter 7th, Will 13th, Aston ??
Thanks James, my instinct proved wrong about the show opener. I had remembered Caroline but thought there had been another. First up on the Saturday show is quite interesting to see though
Much appreciated
Alexandra v Gemma has all the makings of a Natalie v Abbey 2013 battle with a similar result potentially. Glad I have both safely covered. I’m not surprised they’ve slammed the brakes on Debbie. They like their female winners young, glamourus and sexy and I don’t think Debbie fits the bill.