(no subject)

[canonical_insanity]

-Sleepy semi-finalists are sleepy.

- Ann not being there has already made this the best show of the series.

- I know they're trying to work in all of the running gags through the series, but really...why would anyone sleep in their wellies? Also, is Matt wearing a flat cap? What.

- Kara with the guidebook to Russia...oh dear. *sighs* The remarks about Kara and Artem's relationship have long gone past the point of being funny.

- Gavin's cuddling up to a rugby ball and trying to convince himself that he's still pretty, however, has not. Aww. XD

- Oh dear, the Swing-a-thon looks to be chaos. Epic.

- There's something about Matt trudging on asking for a place in the final while Aliona's holding on to one of his legs that seems strangely symbolic. Don't know why...okay, I'm lying. I know exactly why.

- Oh god. I'm really hoping that they do replace Bruce Forsyth next year (although, not with Anton. Please no.)

- Scott (whom I quite like) and Natalie (whom I don't) are doing the Argentine Tango (which is one of my favourite dances). This should be interesting.

- Matt's chest is on show. I'm sure we didn't see that on Blue Peter...we might have. My memory isn't very good.

- Aww, Artem got rid of his hilarious/evil/sexy (delete as applicable) Tango facial hair. I suppose it wouldn't have been in keeping with the VW, but I liked the idea that the Master was secretly hiding out on a dance-based reality TV show. And Kara would be a hilarious companion. Like Mel only with less screeching. And...somewhat less clothing too. More temperamental though.

- I do not like Pamela's dress. At all. (I also don't much like Pamela, but that's a different thing).

- Katya! I love Katya. She's a little bit snarky and fails completely at DDR/playing the piano with her feet (don't ask) and she's had it rough being paired with Gavin. Granted, he's not that bad anymore (and he was never as bad as Ann) but still...and she's wearing a lovely dress. And Gavin's got his shirt undone. This is not a good sign. It should be, but it isn't.

- No, Bruce. Pamela was overmarked (again), Kara was undermarked (again) and if Anton got a hernia it was his own bloody fault for swinging Ann around like a bag of potatoes.

- Double elimination. Because no-one dropped out due to being injured, there's one extra couple. Personally, I would have had the three at the bottom fight for that place (Gavin Henson versus Scott Maslen versus Pamela Stephenson. Fight to the death! The time is 3:22 pm and you have 24 hours...you can swap Matt or/and Kara for Pamela or Scott if you like) but I am not the person in charge, so that has not happened. Instead, the public are getting rid of two people.

- Yes, Pamela is 61. And she's very good. In her case, being 61 and very good are not connected at all. Therefore, there is no reason to bring it up. Being very good and married to Billy Connelly are also exclusive statements. Stop. Please. I quite like James, though. I do believe that he deserved his first couple of tens this year. I do not believe that they deserved 40 for the VW last week, but that's neither here nor there.

- The dance is not good. I love the Paso, and this wasn't right. They could have done it without the chair. And her faces were weird. Weird even for Paso faces. Her shaping was strange too, although that might have been the dress. Give it an 8, but not a good 8.

- I don't want any more jokes about Len picking up girls. I do, however, want Alesha/Kara fic, but that's an entirely different thing.

- The judges disagree with me. This is normal when Pamela's concerned. Craig agrees with me a little.

- Argh, jokes about Pamela and Billy's sex life. Do not want. So do not want.

- 35? Are you fucking kidding me?

- Fuck yes, Kara! And...more jokes about Artem and Kara's potential relationship. Oh dear. However, it's marginally better than jokes about Pamela and Billy's sex life. Marginally.

- Kara doesn't believe that 'phantasmagorical' is a real word. Artem thinks it isn't English. I suppose it isn't really a word that he'd have come across before. (It is a real word, off the top of my head, I think it means 'illusionary', but I couldn't say for certain without a dictionary.)

- Oh dear. The training VT is supposed to be about training, not the celebrity losing it and storming out while her professional gives both her and the camera death glares.

- Ow. Maybe I was wrong about the 'less screeching' earlier.

- But they hug, and that's apparently it. Okay, that is kind of sweet.

- Marriage metaphors. Again?

- Oh, that is so clearly a lift. There shouldn't be lifts in the Viennese Waltz. Granted, it made it a lot more interesting, but it's still illegal and (since Kara is not Pamela or Scott) they will, of course, be penalised for that by the judges. Lovely dance though. Kara's hands are incredibly pretty. I will give it a 10, as I'm not a professional and therefore will not be penalising.

- I love the fact that Artem always applauds Kara. It's adorable.

- Len's going to flatten them, but Alesha loves the pair of them to bits, so she'll give them a ten even if he doesn't.

- Oh! It's Craig that criticises the lift, and Len taking their corner. That's...unusual, since Len's spent the last few weeks basically giving them similar marks to Ann Widdicombe (he did. Everyone in Blackpool booed. It was hilariously funny, although Kara looked briefly crushed).

- Len compares them to Alesha. Again. This is not a fair comparison, since Alesha had no real competition for most of her series and therefore didn't really improve much. Kara, on the other hand, has both Matt and Pamela to contend with, with Scott if he's doing one of his good dances (these are increasingly rare now, I'm afraid to say). As such, both her and Artem are having to raise their game just to keep up.

- In fairness, however, Alesha didn't make as many mistakes as Kara, and Matthew Cutler wouldn't have added Paso steps into the American Smooth. Or a cartwheel-y lift into the Salsa. Or pretended to be the Phantom of the Opera. And I don't think he ever wore evil!Tango!facial hair either, to be honest...I should stop.

- Oh, it wasn't supposed to be a lift. That's a shame.

- Craig penalises, as I suspected. However, unlike Len in Blackpool, he only knocks one point off. Len gives them a ten and Artem cheers (I suppose it's his first ten from Len too, so I shouldn't be so surprised).

- Bruce makes more jokes about his age. Replace him. Please.

- Katya! Last week she did a bit of a victory dance -they got their joint highest score, which...okay, was 33 (in context, as of last week, Pamela's had a perfect 40, Scott's highest was 39 and both Matt and Kara have had 38's), but as it was also her highest score (read: get Katya a good celebrity partner next year, please? She's epic. If Matt had been lucky enough to get Katya, he'd have a perfect 40 by now, but...there's nothing that they can do about it now, right?) that's okay- and Gavin moaned that they didn't rehearse the victory dance. Either he's ridiculously deadpan, or he has a mental age of about six...it's been eleven weeks and I still couldn't tell you which was more accurate.

- And once again, we’re reminded that Gavin’s Welsh. *sighs*

- So, if Kara’s Mel, this makes Katya ‘headache on heels’ equivalent to Tegan? ...I can sort of see that, actually. *bricked*

- Katya pulling Gavin away from the mirror is funny.

- Oh fuck, they're doing the Samba. This is the dance of death for most celebrities, as it's a bit rubbish. And requires happy facial expressions. Gavin...cannot do happy facial expressions. His attempt at XD turns into a barely passable :) somewhere between his brain and his mouth. As opposed to Katya, who's :) turns into a grin vaguely reminiscent of a velociraptor from Jurassic Park. In the nicest possible way.

- I loathe the Samba. It’s my least favourite dance anyway (by a long, long way), so I’m already biased against it. Matt at least brightened it up with some (barely legal) back flips...and it was still pretty tedious. This was not that good. He didn’t seem to hear the music at all, he bumped into Katya a couple of times causing her to trip...

- Katya’s dress is really very nice though. Flowers aren’t my thing, but they look good on her. And, in any other semi-final, it wouldn’t have been that bad, but here, with at least two people that would have won practically any other series, it looks worse than normal. Sorry. 7, I think.

- Len, don’t compare him to Kara! It’ll make him feel worse. D:

- Every dance is ‘the most challenging for a male celebrity’. Next year, I’m going to start a drinking game. D:

- I love the Tess’ area bits. The other couples usually do something funny in the background.

- Mostly right. :D

- Scott’s wearing a hat. The Argentine Tango is clearly about nice hats.

- Scott can’t lift Natalie. We did already know this (hello American Smooth), but it’s always nice to have it reaffirmed.

- Lamppost. Unfortunately, despite the fact that it’s winter, he does not lick it. [/Dragon Age reference]

- They’re dancing to the theme of the Finish dishwasher tablets. Nice one, whoever decided on that. *sarcastic clapping*
- Ooh, he lifted her...and it didn’t look bad.

- This is...alright. Not much flicky action with his feet, but there hasn’t been much of that this series. D: 8?

- Craig has picked up on my problem with Natalie: she makes herself look good at the expense of her partner.

- Everyone mimics Bruno when Scott (no, sorry Ssssscott!) enters Tess’ area. Nice.

- Scott may need some sabotage if he’s going to win the Swing-a-thon. Just saying.

- Scott should be less worried about James and more worried about Artem. Just saying, it isn’t Pamela at the top of the leaderboard.

- Ouch, mental image of Bruce topless. DO NOT WANT!

- Matt...Matt is either lovely but breaking under the pressure, or a thin veneer of niceness being cracked to reveal the mean and vicious bastard within. As he was a Blue Peter presenter, I’m thoroughly inclined to believe the second explanation. He’s a good dancer though.

- Argh, grinding section. Do not want. *shivers* My childhood!

- No, really. The salsa shouldn’t have lifts, much as they were good. And the grinding was terrifying. The rest of it was alright, though. 8 from me.

- ...Disappointed!Matt is disappointed. As am I.

- In Tess’ area, Scott and James are fighting and Artem’s trying to knock them both over the couch. OT3?

- Gavin has a plan. It’s not subtle or cunning, but it does have a diagram...in which Aliona is done in red ink and Natalie is about three cm taller than Scott. Nice.

- Everyone’s fighting in the training...okay, mainly James, Matt, Natalie, Aliona and Scott.

- They’re looking for clever lifts and tricks? This is Kara and Artem’s dance to lose, then.

- Starts quite slowly. The camera’s not being very friendly...and Gavin and Katya are gone. Someone still needs to tell them that they’ve been eliminated, though, since they didn’t hear the narrator.

- Scott and Natalie...really? Pamela was clearly flagging first, although James can actually lift her, so I suppose it was more interesting.

- Artem’s cunning plan may involve Kara’s feet touching the floor as little as possible, which was predictable. Funny, but predictable.

- Oh dear, Len’s face as Pamela and James were eliminated. Aside from being the two couples that clearly have an advantage in a swing dance (due to Matt’s gymnastic background and Artem’s familiarity with swing dancing), they are the two couples that, judging from most of his scores, he least wants to win. And now they’re going to take 5 or 4 points and climb up the leaderboard (or, in Kara’s case, widen the gap between her and second place). Good.

- And Kara wins it. Artem fakes a coronary on the dance floor and Kara ignores him to go hug Matt and Aliona instead. Yeah, I can totally see the romance there. Interesting, but less bloodshed, stumbles or tears than I was expecting. Shame.



- Flashback to last night (or Friday night).

- As we’re all aware, Kara is at the top of the leaderboard, and has a six point lead over Pamela, with Scott, Matt and Gavin following. This is how it should be, since Kara was a ridiculous amount better than the other four couples on Friday, and the swing-a-thon didn’t change the scores all that much.

- Skipping past Bruce and Tess. No Claudia on the results. ;______;

- I must be the only woman in Britain that can’t stand Take That. Granted, it isn’t like Enter Shikari would ever do a gig on Strictly even if they were asked, but ugh.

- Scott is wearing a sailor outfit. Oh dear.

- Matt, unfortunately, has forgotten that the Tango requires evil facial hair and just looks like he hasn’t washed this morning. Like Aliona’s dress though.

- Kara has hair extensions. They don’t look that bad on her actually, although my attention is drawn by the fact that Artem has forgotten to put a shirt on under his jacket. Again. Unlike Gavin last night, Artem sans shirt is a good sign.

- Pamela’s showing her legs again. Yes, I know that she’s got very nice legs, even for someone half her age. That still doesn’t mean that I want to see them. James is wearing a top hat. Not sure why.

- I like the colour of Katya’s dress. The shape’s a bit...odd, though.

- Double elimination reminder. An FTD would still have been better, though. Make up for the disappointing lack of bloodshed during the swing-a-thon.

- I don’t much like the Charleston.

- Eastenders Christmas joke. I do not watch Eastenders, but I have seen enough to know that Scott and Kara are better hiding out on Strictly until Christmas is over.

- Scott flashbacks. Craig defends his 6 for the Samba. Len goes on about male celebrities being bad at the Samba. They note that Scott is inconsistent.

- The training VT is done to the music from Kara’s Charleston. I think someone at the BBC ran out of music there.

- Bit bland, to be honest. And he stumbled a bit. Give it a 7, with a question on whether he’s got enough stamina to take the four dances of the final.

- Judges liked it, but they’ve already proved that he gets nines just for turning up.

- Of course Kara’s popular. She wouldn’t be in the fucking semi-final if she wasn’t, as the final say goes to the public.

- In Kara and Artem’s flashback to last night, Artem is literally bouncing down the stairs (barely avoiding the ceiling, actually) and Kara is doing that little flailing movement that she does whenever someone gives her a ten. Artem whispers that Len gave them a ten in the quietest voice possible, as if he’ll take it away again if he finds out that they’ve told on him. They then proceed to scream and run around like a pair of five year olds in front of what appears to be a faintly unimpressed usher. Aww.

- The judges note that any mistakes that Kara makes during the Rumba will be massively amplified and hope that she gets it right. Kara claims to be a wobbly person (which is fine, since she’s also got remarkably brilliant hand movements, good footwork, her choreographer is several kinds of crazy awesome and she looks, basically, like the Essex version of Audrey Hepburn).

- The rumba always makes me uncomfortable. It’s like...seeing your best friend get a boyfriend/girlfriend and having to listen patiently while they talk non-stop about how great said boyfriend/girlfriend is and how you should get one too. That’s the image I get whenever I see someone doing the rumba.

- ...Was that song on a coffee advert? Oh dear. *sighs*

- Another illegal lift. Honestly, Artem, illegal lifts should be Brendan’s thing. Your thing is wandering around topless and wearing awesome hats. Still, it was a very good routine. I’d even go so far as to say that it was better than the professional rumba last week. 10 without penalties.

- Artem applauds Kara, Bruno thinks that she could go pro after Strictly and believes that it would be unjust if she didn‘t make the final, Craig notices the lift and is sorry that he has to penalise for it because he really wanted to give them a ten. Len remarks that the Rumba is a hard dance (it is: there have never been any perfect scores for it in the history of the show: the top score was Rachel Stevens and Vincent Simone in Series 6 with 39/40) and she shouldn’t be able to dance it that well. Len has apparently regained his senses this week. No-one mentions the fact that Artem’s almost topless, as they’ve become rather used to it at this point.

- Kara’s shocked that everyone’s being so nice to her this week. Aww.

- Another 39. Not only does this give Kara joint top scores for the Rumba, it also means that, in terms of her average score, she’s now the fourth best celebrity to ever dance in Strictly. Average score of 35.1, well above six previous winners (all but Alesha, if you must know).

- Artem does a victory lift and Kara’s idea of a plea for votes is basically ‘...I want to see what tricks Artem’s got up his sleeves for the show dance. He won’t tell me yet, but I have the feeling that it’s going to be terrifying’. I’m paraphrasing a little there, but that is roughly what she said.

- Mention of Take That and Artem has to sidestep rather quickly to stop Kara’s applauding arm from catching him in the face.

- Ouch. Venison joke. There are definite boos in the audience.

- Matt is ridiculously shaken by the fact that he got his lowest score ever in the semi-final. Though, the storming off might also be because he had to get changed for the swing-a-thon directly after his original dance.

- The judges note that Matt is so competitive that he overdoes it. Personally, I’m almost glad that the series is over. If it had gone on for much longer, Matt might have ended up smashing someone’s knees in with a hammer in a fit of rage, which would have some minor consequences as to his career at the BBC.

- The Tango is really quite good. I decided to be kind and not penalise him for the lack of suitable Tango hair, but Aliona’s choreography is still pretty weak compared to...well, everyone else‘s, so I’ll give it a 9.

- I didn’t notice a lift, but Craig did. Lifts are legal in the Tango (I think?), but he didn’t think it fitted in with everything else, so he’s irritated. Len liked it.

- Four dances in the final? Please let that be favourite ballroom, favourite Latin, judges’ choice and showdance. I know that they’ve all got a couple of dances missing, but I’ll have to sit through two sambas if we’re doing it that way. ;_____;

- Len gets his ten out again. Bruno doesn’t (which is unusual, but if he was comparing it to Kara’s Tango last week then you can almost understand it), leaving Matt with 38 points. Yay!

- Gavin and Katya’s turn. During the flashbacks, Katya yells ferociously that they’re going to kill the Viennese Waltz and looks genuinely scary in her short flowery dress.

- The judges admire the paradox of Gavin: a person who is so vain and self-centred, and yet so shy and timid at the same time. And say that his dancing’s improved a bit too. And that Craig was unfairly harsh to him. Pot, kettle, meet Len...but I digress. Craig concedes slightly: he shouldn’t have said that Gavin could give Ann a run for her money.

- Notes about Gavin topless. Alesha likes it. I prefer Artem, James, Robin or even, if he ever does it, Matt. Moving on.

- The Viennese Waltz is fantastic...for Gavin. Give him a cheerful 8 with a notification that he outdanced Scott (again). Craig says they were out of time for a bit, Katya claims that part was her fault because she didn’t want to crash into some unexpected lamps. Craig doubts her story, Katya challenges him to come dance the Viennese Waltz sometime, noting that she’s seen him do the Cha-cha and it wasn’t that good. I can see why she was partnering Brendan for a while.

- 31. Not bad. Still means that, if the judges were scoring consistently, he’s at the general standard of Week 1 Matt or Week 2 Kara, but they aren’t, so that’s okay.

- Gavin becomes tongue-tied when trying to solicit votes. Katya laughs at him.

- Pamela next. *groans* James is biting his nails.

- A claim that the teetering was choreographed.

- Bruno notes that she gets younger by the day. This may be because she’s draining Scott of life.

- Quickstep was...okay. She slipped a couple of times, but the judges won’t care. Bet you that they won’t. 8, possibly a 9 if I’m being kind.

- No. No. That totally did not warrant a perfect score. She made more mistakes than Kara and Matt put together. Fucking hell. It doesn’t matter, because the previous night means that Kara is still at the top of the leaderboard (because of the swing-a-thon marks, even if Pamela had aced both dances, she‘d still have only tied for first place) , but still...I am not impressed.

- Another VT of how much everyone wants it, and I’m going to fuck off before Take That come on.