Find someone that looks at you the way that Nadiya looks at a free ticket to the semi-finals.

If you thought the scoring in Week 10 was chaotic, Nikita would like you to think again.

Given her surprise exit from the show, Dianne has had a lot of time on her hands these last few weeks and as they say “idle hands lead to a robot apocalypse”

Gotta say, casting Neil as Lead Android is, in my head at least, some divine shade. But also, Dianne must be stopped before she can mass produce these things, 1 Neil Jones is enough Neil Joneses.

Luckily she realised the error of her own ways, and her Strictly Robot 2.0 was a much more successful model

the way Karen cannoned herself out of the Android Birthing Pod like she was a Naruto character on the run makes me scream every time. Sadly they didn’t make every single one of the pros do it – I was just waiting for a robotic birthing conga line as Dianne stood on the sidelines trying her best to be a sexy evil scientist

I’m sorry, but that’s Nadiya’s gig

I know Doc Brown isn’t an evil scientist, please don’t write in.

Apparently there weren’t enough pros and for reasons known only to the Strictly budgeteer, they paid to have 4 robots CGI’d in and do the same choreography but ever so slightly out of sync making the whole thing look a bit of a jumbled mess

You guys control the timing of those things, this was entirely preventable (mostly by not doing it at all).

Even sadder than the lack of a robotic birthing conga line was the fact Cameron didn’t get to do a forward roll, but he did get to do a cartwheel

I think it’s fair to say he hated this routine, as there’s a long lingering shot of him at the end clearly feeling very uncomfortable about the makeup

He was not a boy built for Strictly. I look forward to his Strictly debut crashing and burning in Movies Week when they dress him up as a prosthetics heavy Cursed Tim Burton Dumbo

I apologise for speaking this into existence Cameron, at least try to have fun in that waltz to Baby Mine.

From one robotic overlord, to another, it’s TessBot in the safe clutches of a black jumpsuit and Claudia of course as her front of house accomplice

it’s Strictly Come La Gavroche where everything is a little undercooked but they get away with it by calling it French cuisine.

Shirley took the risk of wearing a dramatic purple dress at this time of year and only narrowly avoided being compared to a Quality Street

an ounce more shine to that and it’s Big Purple One jokes for days.

Cynthia was once again in a dress that I’m furious I do not own

I’m very much currently on the hunt for a dress I will wear once on Christmas Day and probably never again, this would be PERFECT.

And now we take our first short dip into The Monkseal Memorial Safety Sex Face Gallery

At this point it’s just iconic how good at this she is, and of course in motion:

I love it when a pro has their Revelatory Series, it’s been a joy to just see Nadiya embrace Full Strictlification.
And now back to the sub-par camera averse efforts of John and Johannes

and that’s it, only 2 saves and the red light hits none other that Rhys and Nancy who once again end up looking like Hell’s Prom King and Queen

HE CRIED GUYS, HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO THE POOR BOY?

The advice to Rhys is to pretty much feign surprise that he’s in the bottom 2 – guys he was 4th on the leaderboard with Dan Walker only one point beneath him, this is shocking to NOBODY. Once they’ve all finished doing their unconvincing Surprised Pikachu Faces, the method is then to just gas him up and tell him how it was undoubtedly his best ballroom performance – I would have just said it was flat out his best performance of the series so far.

As for the safe couples, John and Johannes are back in party Latin next week with a salsa that promises more lifts – will they manage to top the sedately reclined Argentine giraffe? We’ll have to wait and see but I eagerly await the return of Johannes 100mph Arse.
There are no wild revelations from Dan and Nadiya beyond the fact Dan is finally accepting the spray tan process – I had assumed his new slightly red complexion was due to a week of having to be within more than 5 inches of Nadiya. I imagine they’ll be back in the safe hands of ballroom for the quarter final which means it’s either a tango or a lob of a quarterfinal waltz. It’s gonna be the waltz isn’t it? The only suspense is whether or not Nadiya embraces the waltz bench or shuns it for another high concept ballroom number in a benchless park. Might I suggest the return of Tess’s Favourite Horse?

It’s been 7 weeks since we saw it, I’m worried.

Before we get to the fates of the rest of the couples, we have a performance from Years and Years because apparently we aren’t fully dedicated to only having musical guests who peaked before 2011. And of course the Olly Alexander as the next Doctor in Doctor Who rumours were dying down and there’s only 1 more episode of Doctor Who: The Fluxening left

big fan of the Vintage Changing Rooms kitchen floor suit.

And with Olly Alexander’s entire MO being to be as gloriously queer as possible, he was joined by Karen and Luba dressed as a pair of funereal fawns who are in love, you know just like the plot of Carol (2015)

It is nice to see Luba not painted green.

I really hope Karen gets a same gender coupling next year, her physicality suits a female partner incredibly well and that undercut fully deserves its moment in the lesbian sun.

And now to find out who’s joining Rhys and Nancy, but first our safe couple:

so it’s down to Kidz Bop Roller Rink or America’s Next Top Paso Doble…

GORDON CRIED GUYS, HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO THE POOR MAN?

As for the advice to Tilly, nobody even politely pretends to be surprised that she’s there and instead they tell her to bring “more sass and sexiness” to the dance and I can only imagine that based on his shit eating grin, Nikita thought they were talking to him

it’s like 7 year old who knows they’re about to pull off a pretty good April Fool’s Day prank.

AJ spends most of her allotted Claudia Time singing the praises of Blackburn where apparently Kai got his first day of modern cuisine: cheesy chips and bangers and mash which does now suggest that Kai emerged through his temporal wormhole from significantly earlier than we initially thought, placing him potentially well within the Roman Conquest of Britain or Ancient Mesopotamia. One day I’ll unravel the mystery of Time Traveller Kai, someone show him Tablet V of the Epic of Gilgamesh and see if he understands it.
There is no news of their routine next week but it’s likely a rumba so… fire up the ol’ Wattpad accounts we’re in for fanfic galore.
Rose and Giovanni don’t have anything wildly interesting to share other than the fact Giovanni’s special talent is to blink at an insanely rapid speed

and Rose’s grandmother apparently got wind of John’s sister getting Strictly clout discounts on her sausages and tried her best to get a free haircut to absolutely no success.

And now we come to The Dance Off: A Cbeebies Massacre. Rhys and Nancy go first and everything is calm and normal – they dance the routine as well as they did the first time, it is still a waltz in Week 10 but it’s a routine that’s pretty crowd pleasing and appealing to a panel of judges. And I cannot stress enough, at this point everything was fine, normal even. And then everything changed when Nikita was clearly struck by a master plan as he applauded Rhys and Nancy

He knows they’re doomed, he knows he’s up for a benching next series and he needed to do something big to secure himself a place as a main cast member. A few hair flicks on It Takes Two can’t guarantee you anything, Graziano and Luba both know that much. And so… Nikita decided to turn this routine into his Stavros Flatley audition

I have NEVER screamed so loudly and for so long at a routine before, I now fully understand what it would be like to sit within an Edvard Munch painting.

Absolutely the best part of it though was when he got down on his knees and the camera cut to a close-up of Tilly and you could just see the top of Nikita’s head bobbing along as he propelled himself forward in semi-naked mobile prayer

Honestly, props to Tilly for not pulling a full Karen Hardy and putting an end to this routine because she didn’t want to be part of a dance that looks like it could be an Axe deodorant commercial. But also, maybe someone should have put an end to it because for some unknown reason despite divorcing himself from his shirt, Nikita wasn’t ready to part with it completely and kept it slung over his shoulder like a waiter in a very niche sexy restaurant

which ultimately came to bite him in the ass as it got caught in his microphone wire and bobbed along behind them making them look like they were in an episode of Scooby Doo and running away from the tie-dye ghost that haunts a roller rink

Bruno Tonioli would have got away with it if it weren’t for those meddling kids!

And so we come to the judges’ decisions and rather unsurprisingly it’s a clean sweep of saves for Rhys and Nancy and a particularly pointed patronising smile from Shirley

never have I wanted a dance to go to a Shirley Tie Break more in my life, I want her full reasoning and critique and I want it NOW.

Do I think Nikita’s tactical shirtlessness lost them this Dance Off? No, not really – I don’t think it helped but the judges were never going to save Tilly in this set up – first of all: perfectly fine waltz vs middling disco samba? Not a button’s chance on Nikita’s shirt. Second of all: there’s only a few dances left to dish out to the couples and they were not going to have Newly 20 Year Old Tilly Ramsay dancing a Rumba or an Argentine Tango on national television.

And so, we must say goodbye to Tilly and Nikita

Well, Nikita Stan Army, it’s been swell. See you next year?

And into the quarterfinal we go!

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