Dianne Buswell, I demand 5000 words about the narrative of this dance on my desk my Monday.

When is it our turn for Shirley Ballas Bloodbath Week?

Previously on Strictly Come Dancing we flipped, flopped and flew through Icons of Varying Degree Week – and that was mostly just Jowita

incredibly Lawrence and the ointment-like paste he reduced Jowita to didn’t have to make an emergency exit from the competition and instead it was Sarah Storey riding off into the sunset with Weird and Hot Julian

hold tight, spidermonkey!

This week is the calm, themeless week before everyone has to return as various members of the undead canon who definitely support the troops – but with Johannes being colonised by an Antiques Roadshow episode’s worth of costume jewellery, I don’t know if he’ll have room to pin a poppy on this Saturday

but before I start talking too much about The Ghosts of Halloween Week Future and the concerns I have for Graeme and Lauren’s Very Respectful Samba to Coconut by Harry Nilsson and the strong chance of highly questionable artistic direction all of that entails

we shall move on to the Big News Story of Week 5: Crash and Burn Week which was that Delta has returned from her Bye Week and is ABSOLUTELY FINE, GUYS! Just don’t pay attention to the fact she’s on so many painkillers her eyes can’t really focus and make her look a little bit like a cat that’s just realised you parked outside the vet

Hot Doctor Darel has declared that she has passed the Delta Goodrem MOT and is ok to perform this week

but only so long as it is the most ginger, sexless Rumba you could possibly imagine!

but if there’s one thing Anton loves, it’s missionary position rumba

Delta visibly clutching her rib in pain after celebrating the 10 is… fine, right?

SHE’S DEFINITELY FINE, GUYS. DARYL HAS A MEDICAL LICENSE, it’s covered in glitter and written in crayon but it’s technically a medical license!
As much as I am relieved that not every rumba feels like you’re watching a pair of flamingos having the worst coitus of their lives, it is a vestige of mid 2010s Strictly that I occasionally miss since it was taken into the Strictly Back Rooms and shot when the YouTube algorithm started mattering and softcore porn wouldn’t fly anymore. So now you get a wind machine on its typhoon setting and ambient_wind_noises4.mp3 over a Celine Dion song while Kai pulls what I assume he thinks are sexy faces which I’m sure is doing it for someone somewhere

the BBC could’ve saved at least £50 if they’d just opened the fire escape door on Saturday night and that’s like one whole Drag Race mini challenge right there!
Importantly this was also the first Rumba of the series that Shirley didn’t want to squash beneath one of her tiny shoes like an ant

Dancing With The Stars made the very wise decision not to perform any Rumbas for Shirley Ballas’s Bloodbath Week. For those not aware, Arr Shirlz was guest judging on the American Strictly’s Halloween Week and the previous week had been Schmaltz Central Dedication Week where nobody scored lower than an 8 (things could be *so* much worse guys) and then along comes Shirley and scores the first dance of the episode a 4 next to The Primordial Drunk Uncle Bruno Tonioli scoring an 8

and if you look at the dance sheet for the evening, you can see the precise moment the producers slipped her a little note asking her to bump up the scores a little because she’s demoralising the entire east coast

the implication that Bruno would have scored an 8 for either Shaun or Lawrence dancing Jives with all of the finesse of a baby eating spaghetti for the first time is kind of delightful

it was a bit of a cursed evening for Jives, I think the best they got was the 5 seconds of frantic kicking Nancy did in her Argentine Tango heels to usher in her and Bethany’s Halloween Jive to Be

although I guess Shaun probably jived about as well as I expected him to which is to say, not at all – he kind of just lurked in the background while Alexis took centre stage and hoped nobody would notice that Shaun was bobbing around back there like Rupert Bear’s evil twig friend

I’m super happy that Shaun managed to make it as far as he did. There’s a lot to say for his approach to the show which I do think it was all in very good faith. He wanted to be good and learn to dance, whether he got there or not can be debated but I do feel the show did him and Alexis slightly dirty? Their entire dance card is all very fast-paced ballroom or Party Latin: Cha Cha, Salsa, Quickstep, Couple’s Fandango, Jive. I would have loved to have seen him getting the opportunity to waltz, I think he really struggled with speed, which is why he looks like he’s trying to solve a medium difficulty Sudoku throughout every routine

but I guess this was Alexis’s Mad Scientist Era and you can’t really put keepie-uppies in a Viennese Waltz (DIANNE, THAT IS NOT A CHALLENGE)

the funniest part of this move, other than the general concept of it, is the distinct feeling that Shaun is somehow entirely superfluous to all of it and that Alexis could quite easily have done it without him. I didn’t really warm to Alexis last year, I just couldn’t get beyond The Softballing George of it all but this year, she might be Queen of the Pros for me? I think the only other pro who might challenge her for that title is maybe Jowita just because I don’t think anyone is going to do anything more iconic than this high school biology experiment demonstrating the versatile mobility of a ball and socket joint

but I also think there’s enough time for Maddie to snap and catapult herself into Allstar Divadom – there’s a madness behind those eyes, I feel it

I feel like Maddie only got on this show because she made a deal with a witch and failed to read the fine print. We’ve had some cursed first runs before: Luba getting James Cracknell as her first partner, Dianne with Richard Coles and even Katya dragging the corpse of Ed Balls to week 10 despite never scoring over 27, a perfect display of the mental and physical strength of women. But something about Maddie’s first run feels particularly Faustian. The judges just don’t seem to like her choreography? She and Cach have scored pretty well, they had the joint highest score last week for their lob of a Frank Sriracha foxtrot for Icons Week

but I just don’t get a sense of excitement from the judges for her? Choreographing for Strictly is a bit of a baptism of fire and I can’t blame someone who is very green to the specific environment of having to choreograph for a reality TV show to perhaps not be entirely sure how to play it. Especially with Strictly having a bit of an identity crisis at present and not knowing if it’s entertainment, reality or a Tubi vertical drama. Although I think the decision for next week to have a triple dance off with the judges voting to eliminate as their Halloween Spooktacular Gag instead of Anton showing up like he’s about to be eliminated for a horrible Snatch Game performance as Carol Kane makes it abundantly clear what they’re wanting to be

I really don’t know why we’re doing this

same, divas

the judges are essentially already voting to eliminate but the “vote to save” frames it all in a more positive light and Strictly has spent a good deal of the last 10 years trying to build up an identity of ~Feel Good Television~ with a real emphasis on the positivity of learning to dance and how that allows you a unique way to express yourself – IT’S THE ONE THING GOING FOR COUPLE’S CHOICE. And after last year’s triumphant addition of the Instant Dance: Just Add Nikita showing that what the audience loves about this show is the silly chaoticness, I don’t know why we’re lighting 7 black candles and chanting “Get Grace Out!” into a mirror 3 times to bring back the shambling corpse of mid-2000s reality tv?

all it means is that someone is going out feeling like they were unpopular and performed badly which just feels a little shitty? And I’ve already accepted that it’s probably Bethany that’s going home next week because she’s too quiet a personality to have built up a solid voting fanbase and she and Nancy are struggling to hit a real showmanship element with their routines. I was hoping that this Sapphism 9000 Argentine Tango might be their #Moment but even as the Number One Bethany Defender I am under no delusion that this was anything other than Not Great™

I love that they proudly announced that this was going to be the first WLW Argentine Tango on Strictly and then someone must have pointed out that when they allowed Nicola Adams to perform in the final after she self-eliminated by contracting covid during the Lockdown Series that occasionally feels like a dream someone’s dog is explaining to me, she and Katya performed the world’s least erotic Argentinesque Demi-Tango

so everyone had to pivot to “It’s the first Argentine Tango performed in 2 pairs of heels!” which feels a little bit like we’re setting a precedent for increasingly niche Strictly records. Granted we’re 24 series deep now so if you want to make a name for yourself you’re going to have to be the first to start a dance eating a chicken parmigiana, dance a salsa on stilts or christen those fart noise audio files

SUCKS TO BE YOU DIANNE, AMY GOT THERE FIRST SIX YEARS AGO

Dianne Buswell really has all the subtlety of a sledgehammer Jowita hitting the ground at mach 5 speed

so of course because Will has just become a dad they’ll be dancing to Daddy by Della Reese and there will be both pramography

and whatever fresh hell this is

I woke up at 3am on Sunday asking myself “Did Will Best nurse a baby on Strictly?” and the answer is somehow “yes”. I know, not all of this can be pinned on Dianne because Strictly will latch onto your one identifiable feature and ram it so far down the audience’s throat it potentially violates the new strangulation and suffocation laws

and yes I am perhaps Dianne’s biggest hater, but you *have* to admit that this is one of the most turgid routines we’ve been subjected to IN A WHILE. And maybe you feel different about it if you’ve had or want a child – personally I’m signing up to the life as The Cool and Distant Aunt who offers sage advice when they decide their parents hate them in their teens. Although the fact my niece is apparently destined to call me “Pork Beans” perhaps shatters that illusion a bit.
For as much as Dianne’s routines feels like a sensory video for 3 year olds, I think she is very good at putting in the right steps and amount of content to stay on the good side of the judges (MADDIE.), she takes the teaching side of the show very seriously which I have to appreciate. Although I would dispute this getting over even 25

I would maybe have stretched to 27 if he lobbed that fake baby burrito into the audience like a rugby ball? But I guess they want to… Protect The Dolls

After several series of throwing hats, the projectile rate of this series is severely in the deficit. Although I think even if Cach was meant to throw this hat at Seat 18A, he would have kept it on because he needed something to help not look the tiny shoed Medusa directly in the eyes after this Cha-Car-Crash

I felt so bad for him because it goes wrong almost immediately when he slips and somehow eats more carpet than the Genetically Modified Lesbian Argentine Tango

and from then on is just a deer in the headlights running on sheer adrenaline and bad decision making. You can just about hear Maddie hissing “what the fuck are your feet doing?” as the concept of a toe-lead goes out the window and the gentle tapa-tapa-tapa of a ghostly Victorian Orphan running across the judges’ desk fills the ballroom

and I’ll be honest, I’m actually shocked this scored 5s from both Craig and Shirley

because with the slip and subsequent mistakes, it’s bad, but to me, it also seemed to *really* lack any substantial Cha Cha Cha content? A LOT of this routine is just Cach competing in an ANTM shoot that feels like it has a lot of grass skirted weirdness going on

my favourite is when he just stands there like he needs to tell his mum he threw up at 4 in the morning

and I think this is where Maddie’s greenness is really showing, she is only 21 and I’m not sure how much experience she personally has in choreographing routines for genres outside of her specialities, which I believe are ballroom? So I guess it’s understandable that when it comes to some Latin routines, she perhaps leans quite hard into what Cach already knows, which is basically Tiktok reinventing the Cha Cha Slide.
It’s a real shame that Strictly now frontloads a series with Latin and the more high impact Ballroom like Jive or Paso. I suspect it’s because they perform better on social media algorithms and catch people’s attention more but I do wish they’d have a little more faith in the waltzes and American Smooth. If Delta hadn’t been medicated out of her mind last week, she would have already performed all three of her Party Latins and it was only Week 4 so really it’s no wonder that her rib gave out! On Halloween Week Graeme is doing a Samba which means he’s the first to complete Salsambacha Bingo and gets a free briefcase of identity protected biscuits

#ProtectTheFigRolls
This week however, he and Lauren were doing a Tango in which Graeme was playing the roll of The Local Park Flasher

this was very Forbidden Musicals Week, I don’t think A VERY IMPARTIAL BBC really wants to engage with the labour dispute plot of The Pyjama Game, so this time they’re spies! Or in so far as that they take off a barely passable disguise and then dance a Tango

and while most of it is good wonderfully passable tango, something about it all did really remind me of Ainsley Harriott and Natalie Lowe’s camp as tits Tango to Voulez-Vous, which is a complete work of art

I think it’s possibly because they both had a tendency to hunch over and look a bit like Humpty Dumpty from Puss in Boots trying to give you his number in a nightclub

Graeme only really does it towards the end of the routine because he clams up after going to taken Lauren’s hand with his wrong hand and just dithers there for a bit like he’s waiting for someone to verify his age after scanning Paracetamol at the self checkout

and from there just lacks the conviction to really sell the dramatic beat it ends on so it sort of fizzles out like an SNL sketch that nobody knew how to end. I also think maybe Lauren struggled to properly form a narrative beat for this supposedly spy-themed dance to satisfyingly end on because you can’t *really* end a routine with shooting your partner or crunching down on a cyanide pill no matter how much you want to, Lawrence

if Strictly has taught me one thing, it’s that Lawrence Robb’s Emmerdale character has been in so many kidnapping and hostage situations because that’s just how Lawrence experiences life. I don’t think he has yet performed a routine that doesn’t feel like he’s holding a copy of today’s newspaper by his face and assuring his family he’s ok, but can they *please* wire across that £600k that Jowita wants for his release

the man just has resting hostage face, he’s even gone and practically invented The Safety Hostage Grimace and leads us into The Monkseal Safety Sex Face and Whatever Lawrence Is Feeling Gallery

I was relieved, if quite surprised, that the Turbo Lesbian Argentine Tango that could only be gayer if a confetti cannon full of carabiners had gone off at the end of it had actually survived. Less surprising is Jaime Winstone firmly fulfilling the prophecy of her being The Bottom Two Goddess of the series

her only real sin was opening the show with a foxtrot themed foxtrot and immediately being eclipsed by Lawrence jiving like a cockatoo with behavioural issues, which was distinctly more punk than the collection of Kidz Bop iron-on patches they’d covered him in

Jamie is at least the fun kind of Bottom Two Goddess because you don’t have to sit there knowing that it’s a bit of a race issue. It’s kind of just because she’s not particularly likeable, which you can’t go and say on It Takes Two so instead you have to posit that the audience suffered from mass scale short term memory loss

I will be very interested to see how the Halloween Bottom Three situation shakes out because Jamie does have Salsa which I think could land her at the top of the leaderboard quite easily as they just reheat Dani Dyer’s nachos with Redemptive Salsa

but it does also depend on which side of the absolutely wild hot take bed Shirley wakes up on

Shirley, be so fucking for real right now – I fear you are never beating the allegations

and the only other couple that has landed in the Bottom 2 before and still in the competition is Bethany and Nancy, who I think are the likely eliminees, so GOOD LUCK WITH THOSE OPTICS. I have suspicions about the strength of Lawrence’s voterbase and the Ghostbusters Tango feels like a set-up. Especially when you’re directly competing with John Nellis wearing a latex suit for his Tango

although, I am honestly tempted to call a priest just to give Will and Dianne their last rites because what do you *mean* these two are doing Couple’s Choice to Nu Flo by Big Brovas?

beyond the levels of near radioactive caucacity these two emanate, good luck to anyone doing a Couple’s Choice directly after Tabby and Mark basically got crowned during theirs

I fear that it is SO over for everyone else at this point – she’s hot, she’s nice, she’s a Gladiator-to-be, he’s… Canadian! I truly don’t know who could possibly beat Tabby at this point? *Maybe* John depending on how mobilised his pre-existing fanbase is, I think he and Tabby may well be locked for the final already. Best bets for the third is either Dani or Graeme for me, I’d prefer Dani I think. I’m struggling to warm to Graeme and feel the show is overly protecting him having rushed through his Latin early on before it becomes an issue in the latter weeks. But, I’m sure this Halloween Torment Nexus could throw things for a bit of a loop if it wants.

And I shall see you next week for #ProtectTheGhouls Week.