Hamza - Wanted to like it more than I did. It was good, but not wow, except for the last lift. Shame about being a little off time at the end too. Jowita's choreography has been great so far, but this wasn't her best. I love Hamza but I think he needs to work a little more on showmanship. Starting to think Helen could have a chance at challenging him for the glitterball if she continues to improve and he doesn't.
Molly - Oh dear. What a mess. Poor girl. Not sure how much to blame Carlos and how much to blame production, but nothing about that worked. Horrible, ill-fitting song, weird choreography, loads of pointless running around, backing dancers in horrible outfits stealing attention. Not sure if she was simply hopeless at jive or if she was just completely demoralized by being handed that horrible routine.
Tyler - Don't shoot me, but it was one of the only dances I liked. Surprised it doesn't seem to have gone over well online. At least it was fun, I liked the lifts and didn't think the hip action was too bad. Better than Will anyway. For once, I've not got a clue what Craig was seeing.
Will - Hated the choreography, not enough Samba in it. Thought he'd be better from the rehearsal footage. Just a load of wiggling about, what few Samba steps he did were meh at best. He's probably the one I'd like to see go most this week, of course it won't happen though. At least the costumes were good. Loved Nancy's rainbow bum feathers!
Ellie - I like her but I wish she was improving more. She got totally done over this week though, not sure if Johannes' fault (I've never liked much of his choreography) or if the producers are desperately trying to send her packing. Horrible song, horrible plain beige dress (at least it had a big swirly skirt,) meh choreography and camerawork done by someone either off their tits or having a seizure. Possibly both. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, I'm going to assume the Prop From Hell was foisted upon them. Dear god why wasn't it at the start rather than the end though? Wouldn't have looked nearly as bad and timewastey then. Poor, poor Ellie.
Kym - Song wasn't as bad as I'd feared, but it wasn't good. Sung horribly as expected, and just such a shame she didn't get traditional music. If they really wanted a Rihanna song surely there were at least one or two others that would have worked better? I feel like Te Amo might have suited a Flamenco-y Paso (maybe, I know
duck all about music/dance timings though.) I'm guessing it's because she hurt her back a couple of weeks ago, but I thought some of the shaping was a bit messy. At least the backing dancers felt like they were serving some purpose instead of just being there to trip over.
Fleur - Worried what little support they had has been obliterated with that overscoring.
It was fine, I didn't hate it (well, I found the Beyonce impersonation parts a bit cringey) but God I wish Couple's Choice would just
duck off altogether, the few good ones aren't worth the waste of time and potential the rest take up. I feel like it looked better in rehearsal? I thought it looked a little messy, but I have a theory that the reflectiveness of the outfits might have had something to do with it, perhaps making it look worse on camera than it did in the studio? I thought most of the choreography was fine, but I really thought the 'heartbeat' move would have worked lot better on the gaspy bit of Lose My Breath. At least the singing didn't make me want to jump off a cliff for once.
Helen - Was a bit huh at the outfits at first, but then I liked that they were a bit different. Helen as usual fails to blow me away (she just looks awkward, stiff and not really enjoying herself to me, sorry) but still a big improvement over the majority of her bland dances I can barely remember. Also one of the rare cases of the backing dancers actually adding something to the dance rather than hindering. Lmao at the ending, bit cringey, but hey, it was a step up from that time Gio and Graz made vaguely horrified expressions at the camera after not even actually kissing (cowards!
) I was gonna say, shame it wasn't someone a bit more appealing than Cameron, on second thought, thank god it wasn't Neil!
I'd be fine with Blackpool
bleeping off altogether. It's sometimes cute how excited the pros and celebs get about it but that's pretty much its only upside. There's always so much awkward titting about to try to fill the space and 70-80% of time the extra dancers are as useless as tits on a bull, at best, at worst they're actively getting in the way or drawing too much attention.