And every Sunday evening the Teletubbies make a blood sacrifices to their Sun Goddess to sate her unquenchable thirst.

After a chaotic, scattershot conclusion to the leader board, the First Boot of the series was always going to be a heart-breaking affair.

Kicking us off and buying us some time before the reality of the situation fully sinks in is a saunter of River Island clad Cowboys

this does at least feel a step closer to getting them to dress Graziano up as a pirate, complete with eye patch and hook hand.
Apparently they couldn’t convince guest singer, Tom Grennan to partake in the western aesthetic

I can’t say I blame him, he probably would have looked like he was on his way to a child’s birthday party and Nikita was very much filling that role already with his slightly too small hat

meanwhile Neil was apparently just about to nip to the shops and wanted to know if anyone needed anything

I believe you could easily theorise that the request was very much Bring Your Own Clothes for this routine and the closest Neil could get to cowboy ruggedness was indeed Soho booze run at 10pm.
The women didn’t fair much better in the wardrobe department as while most of them were passable saloon girls (which is my transition goal) Nancy was apparently just wearing a samba outfit that had been given the ol’ Chanel suit treatment by Marge Simpson

and in the grand scheme of Ariadne’s Favourite Karens, I have to admit Wild West Tomb Raider ranks maybe just below Murderous Chess Champion Karen

Also, God bless her for somehow being the most butchly dressed person on that dance floor despite the fact Gorka was contractually shirtless and practically suffocating himself to flex his abs to high heaven

he just wants a Men’s Health cover guys!
He’s at least doing better than Cameron who desperately tried to make a forward roll looking like some sort of death defying feat

all the while looking slightly like Netflix did a gritty reboot of The Milkybar Kid.

Quite who wins the disagreement over badly played poker between Graziano and Giovanni (the two most cowboy-y names, obvs) will never be known as the whole routine ends on a BBC-friendly completely bloodless raising of the chins

Just like a Tarantino film!
There are as of yet, no signs as to who The Anton is because nobody burst through the doors dressed as Yosemite Sam. Although Katya was somehow relegated to merely playing the piano in the background despite my unwavering belief that she constantly carries around a hen party appropriate cowgirl hat just waiting for the opportunity to don it

can’t believe they wasted her in this routine, if there was one thing Katya was born to do it was dance as a cowgirl.

Unfortunately nobody thought to make make use of the Western Theme and instead Claudia was back in her sensible black cage and apparently we interrupted Tess’s spa day

Bit late to the Saturday Jumpsuit Soiree, Tess. They’ve long moved on to Disco Adjacency

Craig and Anton wore black suits, I shall not deign them with a screenshot.

And we’re right into revealing who’s safe. And if you’re wondering who this year’s Clara Amfo is, it’s very much Tilly looking like a baby having a near death experience

Nikita, a hug! STAT!

To those of you that are new to the blog, first of all: Welcome, I apologise. And second of all, I will not deny that a huge reason I ever started recapping television in the style that I do is because of Monkseal, whose Strictly recaps will always be unparalleled and one of the most anticipated parts of his recaps was The Safety Sex Faces and seeing as he has hung up his recapping hat, I would very much like to keep the tradition of The Safety Sex Face alive, so once again The Monkseal Memorial Safety Sex Face Gallery is back!

and our first couple in The Dance Off is…

She gave us that samba at a critical camp level and we paid her DUST. The viewing public owes her an apology.
The advice from Anton, and Anton only, because he is after all a Dance Off Aficionado, is to just not make the same mistakes because her dance is good – which he says with such little conviction that the audience genuinely gasped a little bit. If I were Neil and Nina, I’d have slipped Dave Arch a tenner and asked him to play Mi Gente instead and done the samba again. He’d have done it too!

From our first batch of saved celebs were learn that John Whaite has a penny sandwiched between his bum cheeks every week and that they spun the wheel of the 3 films they offer to black women on this show and AJ struck it lucky with The Bodyguard and will be moving from a Foxtrot to an American Smooth which by all means should potentially mean a 10 paddle comes out next week. AJ getting The Bodyguard does only leave Dreamgirls or Sister Act for Judi.

And The Monkseal Memorial Safety Sex Face Gallery must continue:

Ugo, we’re going to need significantly more effort, it takes two to sex face properly.

and from this bunch we learn that Sara is being thrown to The Samba Gods as a human sacrifice, quite what the theme of her dance will be we do not know but with them forking out cash on I Have Nothing for AJ, I imagine Sara’s going to be Samba-ing to whatever song they played over the credits of the godforsaken Eragon film with Sara obviously dressed up as a dragon.
Rose will be getting her first proper taste of ballroom with a foxtrot while Ugo continues the trend of exceptionally early Couple’s Choice routines with theirs being themed around Moana which does mean THE BOOBIES ARE BACK! Because I imagine he’ll be Maui and not Heihei the ridiculous rooster? Although with this show, you never know! Oti might just be dressed as the inherent eroticism of the ocean and Ugo can be Germaine Clements’s big glittery crab – the possibilities are as endless as the very concept of a Couple’s Choice routine.
As for Adam and Katya, well she’s mostly just promising not to murder him during what I am absolutely positive will be an Aquaman routine. They just have to make a choice as to which Aquaman costume they choose

NUMBER THREE. NUMBER THREE. NUMBER THREE.

Before we get to finally finding out who will be dancing against Nina and Neil, there is a special performance from Griff who has arrived a week early for Movie Week dressed as Belle trying to smuggle every single piece of cursed furniture out of The Beast’s castle

I would very much like a play-by-play of what the audience experienced as this performance was set up because obviously Griff had to come out, go up some sort of stepladder and then have someone drape the skirt around her, all the while everyone held their applause and politely talked in hushed whispers.
And the entire time, I expected a reveal, or at least 5 dancers to emerge from beneath that skirt and yet Luba and *INSERT MAN’S NAME HERE* remain alone and dwarfed by Griff, The Giantess

I’m choosing to believe this is how Attack on Titan ends.

On to more Safety Sex Faces

Dan Walker is going to be a GIFT for these.

That does mean it’s between Katie and Gorka or Dianne and her Lamp Post Attendant with Nina and Neil’s opponents being…

I for one am shocked that the weird uncanny American high school experience didn’t gel with the British voting public. SHOCKED I TELL YOU, SHOCKED.
The advice is as ever “we believe in you!” – the outcome of this dance off was very much predetermined, I think we could all see the writing on the wall for Nina Wadia, Camp Queen but before that, on to our safe couples!

Well, it turns out Dianne’s jumpers were certainly an ominous warning because she and Robert will be dressing up as Kermit and Miss Piggy next weekend. I can only imagine that this keeps happening to Dianne because she’s the only Strictly Pro who isn’t allergic to the body paint. That, or she has royally pissed off someone because the thought of Dianne sweating her pink body paint off on a lime green Robert Webb with two bulbous ping pong balls taped to his head is enough to make me consider unironically tweeting #DefundTheBBC.
Greg Wise will sadly not be reprising his role as John Willoughby in Sense and Sensibility but has found himself as The Contractually Obligated Bond of the evening

Something something, strengthening Britishness on television, something something. Somewhere Gorka and Giovanni seethe.
I just hope Karen gets to revive her couch of a jumpsuit from last year’s Bond theme pro-dance

for the record, Bond Girl Karen is my 3rd favourite Karen.

Apparently Dan has convinced Nadiya that Sheffield is some sort of wonderland paradise and she should move here forever both because we have great curries and because I can confirm, 100% of Sheffield do indeed love Nadiya Bychkova.
Meanwhile Rhys has managed to master his inside voice and vaguely alludes to a potential Chicken Run routine which I will allow only if he is dressed up as a pie and Nancy is in full Mrs. Tweedy cosplay. I will accept nothing else.

And then it’s on to the first Dance Off of the series where both of them at least improved on their routines – Nina doesn’t nearly topple over when she does the Argentine Tango foot flicking and Katie manages to point successfully. I do think Katie probably had the more technically demanding routine and her dance off performance was significantly better paced, however I hate the routine and Motsi saying she was saving them because the uncanny American teenagers from wildly different decades were “more convincing” is some Evan Hansen-ing if I’ve ever seen it! Nina embodied “angry wife” to perfection, it’s her bread and butter! THE CHEEK! Anton at least opts to toss Nina a bone, I imagine because he knows he would have absolutely been her partner had she did better with Neil than she’d ever do with him.
Ultimately it comes down to Shirley and she saves Katie meaning that Nina Wadia is the first boot and I am not out for blood

we’ll always have the samba

and so, 14 couples (all things going well with Amy and Tom) head on to Movie Week

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