Different dance choices might have given Matt the Glitterball
labasheedy
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I understand why they made the choices that they did, under the banner of showing as wide a skillset as possible, but it just wasn't the audience wowing combination.
He had 4 choices and they choose the:
1./samba
2/ showdance farmer/acrobatics
3/ Paso
4/ waltz
I think if they had choosen this combo they might just have pulled in off:
kick off with,
1/ Charleston The Circus uni-cycle one. Popular appeal and great fun
2/ New Showdance.A slick dark dramatic staccato mixture of Tango and argentinian Tango, with lifts and Matt with eyeliner, unshaven and hair gelled back.
3 / paso as they did.
4/ finishing with theAmerican Smooth New York New York,with same red and white costumes, revising the 5 second dancey bit in the corner that was controversial.
I reckon he would have just pipped it with that choice in hindsight.
At the end of the day, Kara was great, I'm just pontificating
He had 4 choices and they choose the:
1./samba
2/ showdance farmer/acrobatics
3/ Paso
4/ waltz
I think if they had choosen this combo they might just have pulled in off:
kick off with,
1/ Charleston The Circus uni-cycle one. Popular appeal and great fun
2/ New Showdance.A slick dark dramatic staccato mixture of Tango and argentinian Tango, with lifts and Matt with eyeliner, unshaven and hair gelled back.
3 / paso as they did.
4/ finishing with theAmerican Smooth New York New York,with same red and white costumes, revising the 5 second dancey bit in the corner that was controversial.
I reckon he would have just pipped it with that choice in hindsight.
At the end of the day, Kara was great, I'm just pontificating
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I was disappointed with the all of the showdances, but probably most with Aliona's choreo. She'd been pushing the boundaries a bit, when the chance came to do something a bit different, apart from multiple lifts, I didn't think there waqs that much content. At one point, it looked as if they were just filling in and waiting for the next lift. Something that played to his strengths, maybe with a tango base might well ahve been an improvement.
Although watching that, I did wonder whether having a one-off dance where the celeb dances by themselves alone, to a dance choreographed by their partner would work one year, just for fun. That's what this showdance nearly was to be honest!
I think for me their dance choices were fine, but done in the wrong order - which wasn't their fault, really.
Different Show Dance choices might have given Colin the glitterball.
I could go on and on... the fact is, what happened happened.
The fact is the best dancer won
Indeed.
yes yes, Kara won!
but I was hoping for some opinions on Matt's dance choice
(and not just this Kara is the best dancer on loop).
Nothing against the lovely Kara, but I was pondering whether you thought his dances were wrong or right.
VW even suggested dancing on his own for the showdance.
I reckon if he'd done that he would have taken the roof right off.
2. I am in the minority that liked the show dance but they could have reprised their Charleston with some tricks in it. I think everyone was in shock after the showdance - if he had danced last after Pamelas lame offering and Karas less than perfect routine, it would have stood out more, for the right reasons.
3. Paso
4. The VW felt a bit flat - I would have liked either their foxtrot or teh AS which I loved.
Whatever I doubt it would have made much difference - he was never going to get any praise for whet he did.
However if wishing to analyse why Matt did not win I'd look at all his dances not just those in the final. Some of the earlier ones were not quite right IMO and might have cost him a bit of support (or rather, failed to gain additional support).
For some reason today, I kept thinking that the idea of the geeky jive was great, but better faster. I then somehow thought of it danced to the Joe 90 theme. Matt could then still have had fun with it and donned cord pants, blond wig and NHS spectacles (:D) but it would have been quicker and sharper and allowed him to kick and flick to his full capability (as per the glimpse we got of him doing just that in the swingathon).
The salsa just re-confirmed what lots of people thought about his dancing, even if it was not strictly true. It almost became a self-fulfilling prophecy that Aliona's choreography was insane.
Yeah I think it prob does.
And, Its funny because if the Final had been the first time you had seen Strictly (and you hadn't seen how good Kara had been throughout the series) you would be excused for thinking that Kara had won on popularity instead of being a good dancer!
So yeah, I think her not dancing those last two dances but still winning nevertheless showed that she was prob more popular than people originally thought (because even I thought Matt was more popular than her and would win easily because of that).
I think Kara still deserved to win overall because of how good she has been throughout the entire series. And if she hadn't injured her arm after that awful showdance then maybe her Waltz and A.Smooth would have looked more to the standard of how we're used to seeing her dance Ballroom routines. Even though Pam danced the best in the Final, Kara still is a better dancer than Pam overall so I think it was prob right that Matt was left after that elimination.
I think there was just a feeling in the air that it was time the best dancer, and a girl, won. The last three years have seen a a male who is not necessarily the best dancer win. The judges were strong in their endorsements of Kara and Pamela. I think the audience does listen to the judges, despite all the shenanigans, and then decides whether to take their advice. Sometimes the audience says 'no, we prefer fun' to the judges, as with Chris last year or Ann Widdicombe for a bit this year. Other times the audience will say 'we like the fun dancer, but think this time the best dancer should win'. I think that is what happened this year. As a personal example my wife and I in the week Ann Widdicombe went voted for everyone except Ann as a matter of principle, then gave one extra to Matt for my wife.
So unless Matt had been as good as Kara I am not sure the tide would have run for him, and maybe not even then. Kara had a lot going for her - she was pretty, sweet-natured, and very, very, good. She also had Artem who had his own fans. My wife, although she wanted Matt to win, thought Artem was funny and rather sweet with his strange ways, and white teeth. She said he was like George Michael! She also rather liked James this year. I think James made a big effort to woo the female fans because he thought Pamela was worth it.
So I think this year the tide was against Matt for a variety of reasons, and the final dance choices or order would not have made a big difference.
PS As a football fan I have learned that fans of a team always hurl the most abuse at the opposition player they fear the most. The players they do not fear, they ignore. I think a lot of the abuse of Matt and Aliona came from fear that they might win. I think now the abuse is more about Aliona's choreography and a fear that if it is popular it will lead to a dumbing down of SCD to look like DWTS (which I have never seen) and 'flashy' dancers winning over 'better (in classical dance terms in this country)' dancers.
I think he's right to choose the Paso and not waltz, otherwise he would be directly compared with Kara's waltz and Kara would definitely win that hands down (no pun intended), injury or not.
In the minority here that Matt's showdance wasn't as bad as people made it out to be. I thought those acrobatics was his plus point, and showdance is supposed to showcase your strong points, just that it would have been nice to have a bit more cha-cha content in it and that would've made Len happier, but Aliona it appears, enjoys putting her fingers hard and high up Len's ar*se until he groan in abject pain, I don't think she'll do ANYTHING to please HIM.:D
I really, really don't like disagreeing with your posts hun, and I don't want to come across as a stalker
Some thought he wasn't as good as he thought it was, some didn't like him as a person, some didn't like Aliona, some thought there was a lack of chemistry between Aliona and Matt, some got tired of the gymnastics instead of dance content, some thought, like me, that Aliona's choreography was perplexing and some were jealous. It's too easy to say it's just "jellus hatahs".
Even Matt and Aliona fans were quite critical of them at different points in the series.
Sometimes I don't think there is a deep and meaningful reason for everything, sometimes it's just as simple as not liking something.
'Abuse'?!?!?
That seems a strange and rather inappropriate word to use without specific examples.
Aliona's choreography has indeed come in for criticism. But that's hardly the same as 'abuse', is it? :rolleyes:
And the criticism hasn't suddenly just started 'now' - it's been brewing for weeks and came to a head with the 'salsa' (and I use the term advisedly) she devised for Matt that went badly wide of the mark in a critical week and created upset for both Matt and his fans.
A fear of SCD being dumbed down so it resembles DWTS? Er - hello?
Aliona devised some good routines. She also devised some that she knew full well would get the judges' backs up, yet she went ahead and did it anyway, and it backfired spectacularly - on Matt - in the semi-finals. All she needed to do was put her ego aside and play the game, like James did.
Whether or not Matt was as good as Kara technically is a red herring. Last year, we saw Chris, who was less technically able than Ricky, walk off with the glitterball. So Matt could easily have won, had Aliona played her cards right. The smart move would have been to inject some comedy and more traditional 'showbiz' into their showdance - it certainly worked wonders for Tom Chambers.
I know many people who watch Strictly and, by the end of the series, an awful lot of them made unprompted comments to me about Aliona's choreography that echoed many of the concerns aired here. So I suspect you may find that Aliona is, in the eyes of many, responsible for Matt not claiming the glitterball trophy.
So why did he finish second, and not third? Or fourth? Or fifth?
Because he was the strongest male contestant after Scott went into meltdown and Strictly has a female-skewed audience demographic, perhaps?
Despite Aliona's choreography and not because of it. The young, fit guy who has a bit of rhythm is always going to do well and I think it might have been a very different show if Scott hadn't have got so tired and given up. I think Matt or Pamela would have missed out on the final if Scott had kept up his earlier potential.
Matt for me was only ever ok, he had the potential to be great, but for a number of reasons never fulfilled that potential. He took the show too seriously, he was too competitive and lacked a bit of humour for me, couple that with Aliona and there was not a lot of lightheartedness coming out of that couple, but that was made up by the fact he was unthreatening and obviously tried really hard.
Also the GBP like to vote against the judges (just look at how long Ann stayed in), so when he's getting a perceived battering from the judges, millions around the country will pick up the phone to vote for him.
I agree - and I voted for Matt every week until the quarter-finals when I started to vote for Kara as well.
I loved their Samba, didn't like the Showdance at all (but then I didn't like the other two either!), liked the Paso (though not as much as the AS) and thought the VW was OK. I really enjoyed Aliona's chorography; maybe that puts me in a minority.
I just feel that the final result was correct. Kara is an exquisite dancer and for her to lose would have been a travesty imo.
I can only agree.
I still maintain that the SCD8 glitterball was Matt's to lose for all the reasons you give in your first paragraph. I agree with your second paragraph also but believe that if Aliona had been more intuitive with her choreography in the way Artem was with Kara, James was with Pamela and (pre-meltdown) Natalie was with Scott, he could have won.
It's frustrating as I think he had the potential to be one of the all time greats. He blew me away with his Cha and his Charleston and I loved a few of his other dances after that, the VW springs to mind but looking back now the dust has settled and we can be more objective I don't think the partnership worked 100%. Aliona obviously has a very specific choreographic style but she didn't tailor it enough to Matt's own style to make them a seamless unit. Added that many of his expressions, I'm thinking specifically of the Paso, looked uncomfortable and forced. It was curious because on the more up beat ones like the Charleston and Jive he really acted fantastically. I think it was the more 'downbeat' dramatic ones he failed more with the exception of the Tango which was very good.
He danced what he had to do pretty well, but he never got a real handle on how to express more and do the steps with passion which as we all know can cover a multitude of sins.
I don't think different dances would have made a difference. Aside from the general feeling that the best dancer should win this year, the fact was Kara and Artem were a great partnership, and the public obviously liked what they saw of the relationship and empathy between them and they clearly also responded to Artem's choreography. Some small vox pops I took in the last couple of weeks all mentioned his routines.
It was absolutely the correct result. The public were very wise in voting for the overall series, not the final, which clearly was poor compared to the finalists output on the whole thing, so justice was served very well I think, which should be remembered if there are any tedious whines about the public voting in future.
Oh I totally agree, Matt and Aliona lost it, but that doesn't mean to say I don't think Kara and Artem didn't deserve to win.
Matt is usually the sort of contestant I go for.
There was something quite ugly about his dancing, I don't know if it was his frame or his arms or the fact he seemed to have to try too hard, it was all a bit manic, like he was remembering his steps a split second before he was dancing them. The dance never seemed to flow through his body, I think he had gymnastic ability but not much musicality and so his dancing could appear robotic and cold.
This is why Aliona was the wrong partner for him, she's very much the same, she's very acrobatic and flashy but she doesn't seem to have much musicality or feeling for the music. So she couldn't see what was missing in Matt because she didn't have it herself.
All just my opinion, of course.
I agree again! :eek:;)
And yes, it was absolutely the correct result.