Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.

Grab your popcorn because it’s Movie Week and this evening I shall be playing the role of Georges Sadoul.

It’s Movie Week and in true cinematic fashion we get about 3 cold openings before finally getting to the plot with the first being Anton recounting his plans to steal the Glitterball trophy – which ought to have felt like I was watching Ocean’s 11 but because of the framing, the colour palette and the unhinged energy that crackles between Anton and Craig it was giving me Black Swan

and yes, I suppose Craig is the Natalie Portman and Anton the Mila Kunis in this situation. Motsi and Shirley were in the next room filming the opening scene for the Suranne Jones themed routine for 100 Years of the BBC Week.
I am going to assume this was originally about 3 times longer just because Matt Goss’s hat got a bigger starring role than Out of Focus James Bye and Just Kym Marsh’s Head

or perhaps they were just so busy what with Eastenders and Waterloo Road that they sent in a pair of cardboard cutouts to help make Matt Goss look a little more three dimensional.
While Matt Goss continues to disappointingly only have 1 hat, we did get our first glimpse of Tyler’s torch collection

sadly the 5 minute scene in which he talked Jayde through each and every model and their lumens measures was left on the cutting room floor.
Every good heist needs a lookout so while everyone else tore around the Elstree studios like The Great Muppet Caper, Richie was sitting in an abandoned car park in the middle of the night ON LOOKOUT DUTY AND DEFINITELY NOT ANYTHING ELSE

and you might think this whole bit would lead into an opening routine that was unabashedly just The History of James Bond routine from 2020 reskinned as Ocean’s 8: Feature-length Girlbossery but no, we have to go TO the real opening credits AND THEN we come into an Encanto Routine to We Don’t Talk About Bruno – an inevitable theme I think we all saw coming because all of these routines were filmed in April when this was the biggest movie on TikTok, where Jason Gilkison gets all his biggest ideas from

and you know it was a Jason Gilkison production because they did THIS move and I had war flashbacks to that damned Halloween routine

Why does he keep doing it? What does it mean? WHAT POSSIBLE SYMBOLIC MEANING DOES IT HAVE? At this point, I think he’s specifically terrorising me.

The only thing about doing a routine to We Don’t Talk About Bruno, is that everyone is going to spend the entire thing anticipating the moment Bruno Tonioli comes barrelling out on stage like a cannonball but alas, apparently nothing could persuade Bruno away from LA and instead the titular Bruno was played by Graziano who does look the most like he could potentially live in your walls

not that that was the only role he was playing because he also had the essential role of Atmospheric Background Actor Wearing a Sombrero, the scene would have looked positively unColombian without him

supporting Graziano in his main role, in an effort to cause Motsi as much confusion as possible, were Giovanni and Vito playing the “rats along his back”

it’s like a serape clad test of object permanence.

But as much as the song is about Bruno and me spending the entire thing trying to work out WHO THIS WAS

only to realise it was Dianne after checking off every other female pro vamping it up in the background, nobody working harder than Jowita who can camera-spot like nobody else

the true star of the performance was Michelle Tsiakkas descending from the ceiling as a SPOT ON Isabela Madrigal

and my God did she know this was her moment, I have not seen anyone stomp the everloving crap out of that dancefloor like she did since Brendan Cole getting any moderately negative critique

she had legs and she was going to make sure you heard them, saw them, seismically felt them and honestly, give her a partner next year because this Olympic grade vaginal wafting deserves to be the last thing some milquetoast soap actor ever sees

the other benched pros didn’t fare quite so well, with Cameron walking around looking like a funk musician who had one hit in 1976 and has suddenly had a resurgence in popularity because Bruno Mars sampled the song

Lauren got the special guest routine last week so was relegated to Background Actor Who Looks Out a Window like she’s the quirky neighbour on a kid’s show who teaches you phonics for 5 minutes

Luba didn’t get much more screentime than the medium-sized donkey that lurked at the back in all of its Not A Medium-sized Horse SHAME

and naturally Neil got the ~hilarious~ bit where it was meant to look like he couldn’t fit his shirt but it just looked like the chestburster scene from Alien if John Hurt had been wearing a sports day bib for the whole scene

I don’t understand Neil, but it’s not in a fun “I don’t understand Matt Goss” kind of way he just makes me a bit sad.

Now that we’d had 2 opening bits and the opening credits sandwiched between them, we can get on with the show properly in which sadly the judges and hostesses were not embracing the Movie Week theme, although Claudia did look a bit like what I wanted Elvis (2022) to look like

and Motsi was giving a nice, distinctly Motsi, nod to Everything Everywhere All At Once

but everyone else needed to try harder

it’s like they all turned up for the premier of a film they only did because they owed the director a favour.
And of course, all of our cinematic couples looking like an ensemble cast doing a photoshoot inspired by Hieronymus Bosch because they finally got bored of always posing them like The Last Supper

it’s a nightmarish cinematic universe, buckle in.

Timon & Pumbaa
Samba / Hakuna Matata – The Lion King

I loved that this VT opened with Richie telling us he was excited to be doing a Lion King themed routine because he was once in a production of The Lion King and as I thought they were about to flash up a picture of 6 year old Richie looking like he had been tarred and feathered in an effort to look like Zazu, he told us it was only 2 years ago because naturally when the 7 year old that was meant to be playing Mufasa gets ill the go-to replacement is the traffic reporter from BBC Radio 2. The things I will give to get footage of this school play with a Paul Lynde sounding Mufasa is unGodly, and in order to stay true to the school play experience, Richie and Giovanni’s costumes did look a bit like a harried mother had had to put them together with sewing experience that amounted to watching 2 series of The Great British Sewing Bee

but I did appreciate the effort to at least try to give Giovanni’s warthog costume a samba skirt, as did Anton apparently

but you know, given Vicky Gill’s Crimes of Porcine Past

I am, however surprisingly, relieved that all we got was someone’s inflation vore furry art from DeviantArt

the sight of Giovanni’s sad little face as Craig tore the routine (and Shirley’s critique) apart both thrills me and will haunt me forever.

Shirley was much more on board with the routine and it had absolutely nothing to do with the fact she was an integral part of the marathon of FAFFIN’ ABAHT at the beginning of it

*gasp* THE BURNER HAS BECOME THE BURNEE!

The sheer amount of ~characterisation~ (as Craig calls it) at the beginning did mean that the rest of the routine had to be pretty jam packed and I’m not sure that’s the best approach for Richie who has a tendency to dance like you’ve filled a rubber glove with bees

but it was much more controlled this time around, although how much of that was him and how much of that was the fact he was about to pass out because he’s dancing a samba in a onesie under very hot studio lighting could be debated

I know Movie Week is pretty much an Anything Goes Free For All but I do think we could do with a less is more approach to the costumes, a pair of ears and a colour palette was all you really needed for this, throw in a tail for a good time if you must but I never want to see another Latin routine performed in loungewear that looks like you’ve shoved your entire soft toy collection down there because for some reason you and your childhood friend are roleplaying the myth of Typhon and Echidna… Now THERE’S a Halloween Week routine for you.

Scores:
Craig: 5
Motsi: 7
Shirley: 8
Anton: 7
Total: 27

Tony & Maria
Waltz / One Hand, One Heart – West Side Story

One of my favourite things about Movie Week (and some might say the only good thing) is when they ask the celebs to explain the plot of a movie that they’ve clearly only watched the trailer of

yeah, it’s not like the entire last half of the second act is about love being conquered by a misunderstanding and a bullet or anything… But they weren’t waltzing to the reprise of Somewhere with Carlos playing the role of Tony’s Ghost (it’s only a matter of time as we burn through West Side Story numbers like Vicky Gill through a feather budget) and instead it’s One Hand, One Heart and we’ve gone Full Catholicism with the staging

Rhys Stephenson is at home furious that his big religious routine had to be about how Spiderman was his own personal Jesus and he’s been repenting his sins ever since. One day he’ll get to do that street routine to Gethsemane.

Carlos has unfortunately gone to the same Ballroom School for Hold-averse Boys as Vito because there was a considerable amount of this routine done out of hold

but because it’s Movie Week you get away with it being called ~narrative~ and not faintly damned as “contemporary content” and these two were going all out on the narrative, hamming it up with woobie faces for the backseats

such emotion, much feeling.
But it was a very sweet and tender waltz with a lot of fluidity between their out of hold and in-hold portions and the final spin was rather divine

but as sweet as it all was, I was at this point still thinking about Shirley kissing a warthog, Carlos’s head whipping around like a meerkat on high alert not exactly helping to dispel the stench of a novelty onesie samba – they really scuppered everyone’s chances of making an impact by kicking off with that.

Scores:
Craig: 8
Motsi: 9
Shirley: 9
Anton: 8
Total: 34

Charity Hope Valentine & Vittorio Vidal-I-Definitely-Didn’t-Have-To-Wikipedia-This-One
Charleston / If My Friends Could See Me Now – Sweet Charity

We are assured that these two were doing Sweet Charity and not the development hell-bound sequel to Wallace and Gromit’s A Close Shave in which Wendolene leaves Wallace for an Italian loverat she met while in Turin for a knitting conference

he pulled the merino wool right over her eyes!

But in order to get to the routine you do have to watch the near feature-length interview with Kym’s daughter in which she and Tess Daly had a rambling anecdote Mexican Showdown

apparently Kym has been super excited to get to do this Charleston (or Charlie Stone if you’re Graziano) because she gets to pull out all of her “Acting Faces” BECAUSE SHE IS A VERY BUSY ACTOR WHO IS IN WATERLOO ROAD! And pull Charleston faces she certainly did

although I’m not sure I’ve ever seen someone doing the “smoking a doobie” in a Charleston before

and then there was the “this definitely means ‘drinking fancy wine'”

that fancy wine obviously being the perfect pairing for the lovingly observed wax lobster

The acting! The sheer unbridled emotion! Nobody’s ever looked at a crustacean like this since Troy McClure visited and got banned from SeaWorld – Graziano merely a voyeur in this Del Toroian tale of ichthyophilia, his plate empty but his eyes full

You don’t get the sexy, sexy lobster if you don’t eat your spaghetti and Dolmio bolognese sauce like a big boy.

This is Graziano’s second Movie Week Charleston in a row, his last one being with Judi Love to “When You’re Good To Mama” from Chicago, which got criticised for not being Charleston-y enough, which might explain why Kym was going at those faces like a theatre kid in a mime exam and Graziano was putting in every Charleston lift he hadn’t been able to do last year

that one definitely working better than this ode to Richie Anderson’s cartwheel

but there was also quite a bit of solo work for Kym to do, which we don’t often see in a Charleston

I do think her confidence somewhat faltered in this moment, I don’t think she quite got the Fosse-style chicken walk right and there was a momentary glitch in the Shirley MacLaine Matrix, so I think Sheridan Smith is safe when they come to inevitably adapting Shirley MacLaine’s bonkers memoir “Out On A Limb” into an 3 part ITV drama, with the UFO bits unedited out.

Scores:
Craig: 7
Motsi: 9
Shirley: 8
Anton: 9
Total: 33

Ranger Hamza & Sadly Not Laura Derne
An Ill-advised Rumba / Welcome To Jurassic Park – Jurassic Park

It was only a matter of time before the ferrets within the Movie Week Pit of Ideas and Concepts eventually spat out a Jurassic Park Rumba – the sort of routine that ought only live in Strictly mythology. While the fabled Jurassic Park Rumba is always thought of as a joke, never in 66 million years did I expect it would be played 100% sincerely – to Hamza’s credit he did reject the 30% increase to his weekly wage and vetoed the idea of at least one of them being in the inflatable dinosaur suit – OH THE RUMBA WE COULD HAVE HAD

Jowita may have been a little disappointed that she wouldn’t be getting the most bonkers routine of the evening but she should at least be relieved she didn’t have to sit through 6 hours of Chris Pratt while Hamza ~got into character~ like Amy did, and instead got to go to Jurassic World where Hamza had a horrible time

and was of course asking the big questions

and while you might be tempted to laugh it off as him being a cheeky scamp of a man, it turns out you absolutely can hide your footwork with the help of a very polite Ornithocheirus (I was a dinosaur kid, let me flex)

Damn the age of the Strictly’s CGI obsession! 5 years ago and this would have been Neil and Luba running around in the background in one of the inflatable dinosaur suits – Hell everyone could have been in on the act, Fleur does a pterodactyl impression the likes of which I haven’t seen since The Apprentice

and if the opening credits are anything to go by, Velociraptor No. 3 is the role Tony Adams was born to play

and of course Giovanni has a reptilian heritage

but alas this was decidedly not a joke routine and disappointingly not Jurassic Park-y enough either with Hamza in his CBeebies uniform which is one way of killing the Jeff Goldblum of it all but most disappointingly was Jowita not being dressed up as Laura Dern and instead looking like the only girl that survived an 80s high school slasher film

big fan of the makeup artists both going a little over the top on the bruise makeup but having to keep the scratches and claw marks family-friendly so it just looks a bit like Hamza lost a fight to a cat in a chimney

and the makeup really makes this routine look a lot more exciting than it was because, like the judges all said, it was just a little too methodical and in desperate need of a little more passion, or in Craig’s terms “a T-rex to come in and set off a bomb” – I know Jurassic Park has had a lot of sequels but the one in which the dinosaurs gain near-human intelligence and set up a makeshift bomb factory on Isla Nublar by bulk ordering hydrogen peroxide off of Amazon escaped my notice. Also, given the arm situation of a T-rex, I’m not sure it’s my first pick for an explosives expert.

Scores:
Craig: 5
Motsi: 7
Shirley: 6
Anton: 7
Total: 25

Cher & Bob Hoskins
Cha-Cha-Cha / The Shoop Shoop Song – Mermaids

Oh this poor, poor sacrificial Cha Cha Cha, it never stood a snowball’s chance in Hell from the moment Johannes proclaimed they had changed the dance language entirely

and apparently it’s a linguistic cipher lost to the ravages of time because GOD KNOWS what was happening here

it’s like an ostrich that suddenly and unexpectedly lost all bone density and then Shirley waited for the whole rather too slow struthioniformic car crash to unfold before declaring to the world that she will from this moment on not accept a single heel lead

which at least gave Amy and Karen enough time to nip backstage and threaten James and Jayde that they’d never see their calcaneus bones ever again if it touches the floor before their toes.
But while Ellie’s feet were enemy numero uno, Shirley did quite like what she was doing from about her waist up with her twist actions, which I think her outfit rather helped with

in fact the styling was probably where the strength of the routine lay

she looked really fun and as though she was enjoying embodying a fragment of Cher’s unhinged psyche and I was a big fan of the fact the two of them just about wet themselves once they had finished

I still can’t quite work out if it was because they realised quite how preposterous it all looked or because they thought they’d nailed it and I would say Ellie has the self-awareness that it was the former but the reaction to the 4 suggests the latter

it was maybe a touch cruel, but it’s still not a particularly damning 3.

Scores:
Craig: 4
Motsi: 6
Shirley: 5
Anton: 6
Total: 21

Maverick & Iceman
Viennese Waltz / Hold My Hand – Top Gun: Maverick

In order to help Matt get over the trauma of being in the dance off, Nadiya took him to one of the far too many RAF museums around the country AND he was allowed to go and sit in one of the planes

and then in what sounded like they thought it was a real treat for the aeroplanes, they danced in front of one (1) of the planes

and in true Movie Week fashion, Matt talked about how connected he feels to the character of Tom Cruise’s Allegorical Masculine Insecurities because he’s a fighter and not because everything he says sounds slightly like something a doomsday cult leader might say

and he was ready to emerge onto the dancefloor, striding out from the metaphorical flaming mess that was his samba, born a new as Matt Goss, call sign: Skimbleshanks

I can’t say I loved the production of the routine, it was just a bit of a beige melange and with Matt Goss being at a week 3 Coral Canyon 1 shade of tanned along with the very tight khaki, it was a bit like watching a Sphynx Cat chasing its own tail and as loathe as I am to wish another leather jacket on anyone, I wish he’d had something to break it up a bit – Nadiya however can keep her fighter jet pilot gown which she pulls off alarmingly well

as she did the moment he swung her into sweeping floor spin and she hit the ground with an almighty whack which he then struggled to get any momentum behind

the amount of trust Nadiya puts in her awkward gangly men is truly astonishing – I’m not sure I’d have trusted either Dan Walker or Matt Goss to get my Starbucks order right – Dan would return with a tea from an independent cafe because the male barista with an earring scared him and Matt would have bought you a Smart Water and written you a poem instead.
The judges were rather damning with faint praise, all except Anton who was apparently watching an entirely different dance to everyone else because Matt’s entire posture and energy is just so awkward, especially out of hold when he has to stand still and he looks like a penguin that’s about to throw itself off a cliff because its wife didn’t return from the 90 day quest to find the one shoal of herring in the Atlantic

and I do feel a little sorry for him because he was so invested in this routine and he described it as “feeling beautiful inside of him” and then Craig gave him a 3 and he looked ready to fly that damned CGI fighter jet into Elstree Studios

I know I am a broken record on how I feel about the CGI, but this is the exception – I spent THE WHOLE ROUTINE wondering where the medium-sized fighter jet prop was, baffled by the fact all we got was a stationary motorbike that Matt and Nadiya were treating to a performance like they were on a Make A Wish tour for written off vehicles

and when that CGI fighter jet came careening through the ballroom, completely annihilating any sort of emotion of the routine, I nearly swallowed my tongue with glee. Perfect execution, I have no notes – do it for every routine.

Scores:
Craig: 3
Motsi: 6
Shirley: 5
Anton: 7
Total: 21

Arthur Kipps & Ann, Just Ann. Female Characters In 1960s Musicals Didn’t Get Last Names.
Charleston / Flash, Bang, Wallop! – Half A Sixpence

In an effort to kill Tyler West, he’s gone from dancing a jive and running a marathon he kind of accidentally signed up for in the same weekend to doing a Charleston the very next – and it was not looking great during the week with him looking like a depressed circus bear shambling its way through a routine

but then come saturday after a night with an espresso drip straight to the veins he pulled off a truly phenomenal Charleston in which he was apparently getting married to a cursed Victorian doll

which does maybe explain the amount of yeeting he did throughout the routine as the bloodthirsty Bride of Chucky tried to claim her pound of flesh before Shirley could

I’m not sure what could really be improved upon in the routine, other than maybe coming out of the aeroplane lift in which Dianne hit the floor with a thud that even made my barely existing HRT tits wince

although I’m not sure there’s a way to make that look elegant, but I hope Nikita and Ellie are up to trying it out. I really did think this was on course for a full 40 though and I can only think that Craig and Anton held back a little because Week 3 does feel too early to declare something faultless.

Scores:
Craig: 9
Motsi: 10
Shirley: 10
Anton: 9
Total: 38

Princess Ariel of Atlantica & Prince Eric of Unspecified Locale
American Smooth / Part Of Your World – The Little Mermaid

Having been roundaboutly criticised for their Viennese Waltz being a little too contempowafty, I was glad that Vito at least played this American Smooth a little more classically – although I do still get the feeling that he’s not a ballroom boy and doesn’t have much love for it and he’d rather be anywhere than stuck in a waltz hold, which is why he did a cartwheel and a truly preposterous lift in the middle of it

I can only assume he choreographed that when the original plan was to have Fleur perform this whole ballroom routine in leggings… In fact both the big lifts they did had a bit of a Samba flavour to them, which didn’t quite read in with the rest of the more waltz-like routine

which is a shame because the final carousel horse of a pose was really rather pretty and showed off the poise and elegance that Fleur is capable of when she’s not being hurled around like the catch of the day

if you can look beyond the vintage screensaver that they’re trapped in that is

but there were some really cute moments in the routine – and both of them were clearly living their dreams, Fleur soaking up every second of getting to be Ariel was very sweet and Vito got to stare at her limbs like his tummy was making the rumblies that only limbs could satisfy

Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling paso doble to Carnivore by Starset for Halloween Week or I resign from writing these recaps. Those are my terms, there are no conditions. I KNOW YOU HAVE THE COSTUME

that Halloween routine is the gift that keeps on giffing and I still think my recap of it is my greatest achievement – somehow I did miss Oti going absolutely ham on some bongos while dressed as Homework-loving Girl Witch Who Is Definitely a Feminist Icon amidst it all though

Scores:
Craig: 6
Motsi: 8
Shirley: 7
Anton: 8
Total: 29

Starlord & Gamora
Cha-Cha-Cha / Hooked On A Feeling – Guardians Of The Galaxy

Every now and again there comes a routine that you just instinctively hate with a completely (almost) irrational ferocity – past offenders include Gorka and Katie’s Uncanny Highschool Jive (2021), anything themed around a Troll Movie, Jake Wood’s Greekentine Tango and James and Amy’s Chris Pratt flavoured Cha Cha Cha slotted very nicely into the genre right from the moment Amy had to sit through an explanation of Starlord’s motives

and then we got to the cha cha cha and it was very much a standard plonk your male celeb in the middle of the dancefloor and dance around him like the handbag he’s dressed as

it just wasn’t a great routine but bless his heart he was doing his best to remember to go toe first, his face contorted into cryptic crossword-like concentration because he knew the meerkat sniper on the balcony Amy had employed was ready to take the shot the moment that heel touched ground first

but I sure did get a kick out of Amy dancing the walkman off the dancefloor because she wasn’t going to risk getting tangled up in it

I’m not sure she has the sense of authority and clout to demand they allow her and James to restart, and I sure as Hell didn’t want to see him Ooga-Chakaing again, despite it being the one part of the routine I think he enjoyed

you don’t have to go the full Pratt, I beg of thee.

Scores:
Craig: 4
Motsi: 6
Shirley: 6
Anton: 6
Total: 22

Peppy & Gomez Addams
Quickstep / Peppy and George – The Artist

After their very sedate waltz last week, things were being ramped up for the pair of them with a quickstep themed around The Artist, a story about two silent era film stars trapped in the Homebase front door section

and it’s a good thing it was a silent movie because Amy and James were in the next aisle making a real racket as they tangoed out an argument over throw pillows.
I am genuinely surprised that in the 11 years since The Artist became an awards season darling and favourite of every slightly pretentious “Ladri di Biciclette is my favourite movie” film student, that this is the first time they’ve:
A. ever done it for Movie Week.
B. used this piece of music that is just explicitly quickstep music.
and it, naturally, made for a wonderful quickstep that didn’t feel like it was being hamstrung but its theme. Instead it was being slightly hamstrung by Ellie’s hamstrings because there were a couple of moments where she was out of time with Nikita and it got a little sloppy

BUT! The footwork may have been out of time, but she was still very light on her feet and didn’t let it become a panicked mess, picking the routine up again pretty quickly for a truly wonderful gallop down the centre of the floor

and all the judges lavished praise upon the choreography and how it could be a routine that has the potential to be fantastic so if Ellie and Nikita make it to the final, it’s absolutely the one the judges will pick to see again – and maybe by then Nikita will have learned that if you kiss your partner with a pencilled on moustache, it’s going to leave half of it on their cheek

it’s why he had to rub it off for his dance with Carlos.

Scores:
Craig: 6
Motsi: 7
Shirley: 7
Anton: 7
Total: 27

Johnny Castle, A Robot Baby and a Watermelon walk into a bar
American Smooth / Cry To Me – Dirty Dancing

This was certainly a dance of two parts – Will Mellor, a clear Dirty Dancing fanatic, possessed by the ghost of Patrick Swayze

when he scuttled over to Nancy like a well-dressed crab and did a singular thrust, I knew were in for a treat

the other half of the routine of course being Nancy Xu, having only watched a best bits montage on YouTube, clearly having no idea why she was carrying this decidedly not medium-sized watermelon

while also potentially thinking the Baby in the film was an actual baby

and just skyrocketing herself to Queen of Pros in the absence of Oti Mabuse in the process, because never in my life did I think we’d get An American Smooth That Fucks, but that might just be The Essence of Will Mellor

there is just something about him and the way every movement he makes looks like he’s showing you a hotel bed covered in rose petals

PUT HIM IN THE NEW YORK PENTHOUSE OF RELATIONSHIP WOES! Give me the only explicitly sexual 3/4 time waltz we’ll ever see! I know it’s in there Nancy, like the ballroom dancer trying to free itself from within Matt Goss, there’s a ballroom incubus inside of Will, and what we don’t need is you getting sidetracked from this mission of great importance with visits from Keith Lemon

but I am glad you didn’t hold back the sex factor, even if Will’s mother was in the audience – there’s shades of Adam Peaty giving his aunt and grandmother a private performance of his High Thrust Samba

except this time it was Nancy wearing the jeans, in what I thought was quite a clever nod to the outfit while still keeping the skirt within the realms of ballroom

I was a little surprised that none of the judges snuck a 10 in there, especially because they praised it like the whole thing was faultless and Motsi was up and down all over the place looking like a sheet ghost doing burpees

I am however not wishing for more Week three 10s – although Movie Week is usually when the first couple tend to crop up.

Scores:
Craig: 8
Motsi: 9
Shirley: 8
Anton: 8
Total: 33

A Questionable Pornhub Thumbnail
Samba? I Hardly Know Her! / You Sexy Thing – The Full Monty

Good God. Katya Jones is the sort of Machiavellian genius that only comes around once in a lifetime and she should probably be stopped before she’s tricked us all into erecting monolithic statues of her likeness across the nation (not a good enough reason to use the word “erecting”).
This routine almost defies explanation because it started and I genuinely thought it was fairly alright and maybe we were going to get a Full Monty Samba played entirely straight and I certainly had stopped worrying that the hulking muscle suit wasn’t under his security guard uniform

and then everything changed when the beat drop attacked and the very loose concept of a samba that this show already has went completely out of the window, along with Tony’s pants

the momentary pause as he stood there like an anxious battery hen, seemingly becoming all too aware that millions of people were witnessing this, is when The Ick began to seep in

but it hadn’t fully taken hold as Tony Adams ripped off that shirt and suddenly I had to deal with the world-altering knowledge that Tony Alexander Adams MBE is a little bit hot

and then it all stopped with Tony doing an arm raised salute for some reason???? [I am informed this is a football thing which might have been better done without the hat in all honesty]

and yet still not The Biggest Ick as the judging began and I just don’t like the way Anton is talking about Tony because I really do think Tony is very engaged with the process and I don’t like him being compared to Ann Widdecombe whose only motivation for being on the show was pure spite. My hope is that Tony gets a lovely ballroom routine for next week because I don’t want to see him coming out of a routine, clearly high off the fumes of Katya Jones, and then having to endure a scoring process that is at once cruel and mocking

and is that partially Katya’s fault for going balls to the wall (not a good enough reason to use the phrase balls to the wall) on the comedy nonsense over actual samba content? Yes. But at the same time, they lumbered them with The Full Monty and dangled a very sparkly jumpsuit in front of her, what was she meant to do? She’s only human.

Scores:
Craig: 2
Motsi: 6
Shirley: 4
Anton: 6
Total: 18

Good Sandy and Danny Zuko, The 7th of His Name
Viennese Waltz / Hopelessly Devoted To You – Grease

I was going to say that we’ve bled the Grease well dry, but given the sad passing of Olivia Newton-John, it did only feel correct to have it on the roster (perhaps hopefully for the last time) and I do look forward to Helen potentially playing Drew Barrymore from Scream come Halloween Week

obviously it’s a Salsa to Scream by Usher, or a very avant garde Paso Doble to Scream by Once Monsters, I’ll take either.
Gorka was of course our 7th Danny Zuko, after “Oops, Where’d My Shirt Go?” Danny Zuko, played by Harry Judd who exists only as a 240p YouTube video that some 12 year old girl filmed on her phone in 2011 and no doubt watched religiously

Unwilling To Fully Commit To The Aesthetic Danny Zuko, played by Pasha

Later Years Sex Criminal Danny Zuko, played by Daniel O’Donnell with a supporting cast of Extreme Sadness

Is That A Guinea Pig On Your Head Or Are You Happy To See Me? Danny Zuko, played by AJ Pritchard

Somewhat Being Eclipsed By The Acolytes of Gossism Danny Zuko, played by Giovanni and supported by Neil Jones and Johannes Radebe

and then most recently, Dannii Zuko and Her Fraternal Twin Zany Duko, played by Nicola Adams and Katya Jones respectively

of course there were (mostly) accompanying Sandys but there’s only so much impact a blond bob and a yellow dress can make – so unless you’re Faye Tozer and you insist you’re going to vamp it up as Bad Sandy, I’m not committing you to memory

but of course Helen wasn’t going to be playing Bad Sandy, that would have required acting lessons and apparently the entire VT budget went into renting a whole cinema for James to mansplain Guardians of the Galaxy to Amy in – THERE ARE OUT OF WORK ACTORS WHO HAVE PLAYED THREE (3) SEPARATE CHARACTERS ON DOCTORS THAT NEED WORK!

Where is my king who expertly coached Sara Davies in the art of method acting for her performance as *checks notes* Princess Fiona (Ogre Version) from Shrek?
So in order to get Helen to live the role of Sandy and truly feel like she was in love with he, Gorka, as I Slightly Regret The Buzzcut Danny Zuko, he had given her a hastily printed out photograph of himself like she was meant to go to the hairdresser and ask for the same cut

in black and white, naturally – colour printing? IN THIS ECONOMY? I don’t think so. This photograph did prove to be a constant source of anxiety for me throughout the routine because it had slipped out of Gorka’s pocket after he had magicked himself into existence

and was just lying there on the floor, waiting for Helen to slip on it

it was however avoided and did end up in the very safe hands of the wondrously returning Horndog Tess

I cannot wait for them to start doing Argentine Tangoes and every routine being met with a round of applause and Tess having to try her best not to act like a Tex Avery cartoon. But she wasn’t going to full shebang after this very sweet Viennese Waltz in which my favourite part may have been the skirt

a Viennese Waltz in a big voluminous skirt is one of my greatest pleasures – I love it, we don’t get nearly enough of it and I was pleasantly surprised by Helen’s outfit considering the It Takes Two reveal on Thursday

and I’m glad she got a glamorous frock because the routine was beautiful and she just looked much more comfortable so I hope with her ballroom improving we’ll begin to see her confidence grow which will bleed into her Latin – because I did pick her as the winner from the cast announcement and I would like to be right for once.

Scores:
Craig: 7
Motsi: 8
Shirley: 8
Anton: 8
Total: 31

Duelling Jennifer Bealses
Cha Cha Cha / Flashdance… What A Feeling – Flashdance

So Jayde absolutely submitted a long list of things she would like to happen for her on this series of Strictly:

1. Dance with a woman.
2. An outfit reveal.
3. HIGH DRAMA LESBIAN TANGO IN NEW YORK.
4. Some Adele, as a treat.
5. A Pony.
6. Lift Karen Hauer.
7. Only Green M&Ms in the dressing room.
8. Flashdance Movie Week Closer.

The medium-sized pony may be yet to show up, but boy oh boy was she getting her Flashdance routine and then some! The routine also being tied into a body positivity message, naturally soundtracked to a Lizzo song, because she and Karen would both be wearing black leotards

but only Jayde had passed her NVQ in welding, Karen was only there because she read it as “wielding” and was disappointed by the lack of swords involved

and while Jayde changed out of her Gromit from A Grand Day Out costume

there was an extended solo presentation from Karen which reminded me a lot of Biscuit Tycoon’s show dance in which he descended from the ceiling like Magneto from The X-men and then while they got him out of the harness, Karen vamped harder than Karen has ever vamped in her life

but when Jayde did join her, it was fun to watch in a bit of a “this probably should have been a Couple’s Choice routine” kind of way – Jayde was clearly having the time of her life but I do think we lost a lot of Cha Cha Cha to the Flashdance of it all and it would probably have been a stronger routine without the section on the floor but most of all I REALLY wish she was in a cuban heel rather than the jazz shoes, it so improved her footwork in the tango, that this felt like a slight step backwards, but you could see she was trying really hard to remember not to do a heel lead and certainly managed to look more like she was enjoying it than James who was stuck on 5 down in the Guardian’s cryptic crossword

but the big focal point of the routine was the iconic chair scene and I love that Jayde, as a big Strictly fan who is loving her moment in the sun, got to be Jennifer Beals No. 1

it’s a great shot, it’s fantastically lit, the confetti makes it look magical and she was living for it. But my favourite moment was Karen skidding across the floor to come and hug her

they could have cut to the wide shot while Jayde picked 7 weddings’ worth of confetti out of her mouth, but they didn’t and they will be hearing from her lawyers because of it.

Scores:
Craig: 7
Motsi: 8
Shirley: 7
Anton: 7
Total: 29

And that’s it! Movie marathon over, now to our Scoreboard

1.	Tyler West Must Die! (2006)	38
2.	Molly Didn’t Do The Required Reading	34
3.	The One And Only, Charlie Stone!	33
	The Only American Smooth That Fucks	33
5.	Grease No. 7	31
6.	Fleur East’s Shattered Childhood Dreams	29
	A Fight To The Flashdance Death	29
8.	A DeviantArt MSPaint Erotica Samba	27
	What’s Black and White and Moustachioed All Over?	27
10.	A Completely Sincere Jurassic Park Rumba	25
11.	A Chris Pratt Flavoured Cha Cha Cha	22
12.	Cher Cher Cher	21
	Matt Goss’s Villain Origin Story	21
14.	Katya Jones, Nobel Prize Winner	18

And there we have it, I hope you enjoyed the recap – I’m hoping to be back to Monday publications from next week but we’ll see how that goes and I’ll have this week’s results show up on Thursday!

And if you’ve enjoyed this recap of Strictly Come Dancing’s Movie Week and would like to support the blog, you can leave a small donation via my Ko-fi HERE.