Originally Posted by fabulist:
“She was terrible tonight. It's a shame that the BBC are so desperate for the show to be at least slightly competitive that they will have the judges treat the public like idiots. I particularly liked their spin job on her "performance" trying to sell it as a cool and relaxed style. Erm no, she offered nothing, no fun, no effort. Brendan dragged her limp, lifeless body around like a corpse, in between her clumsy flat footed and out of time steps. For me, you could even argue that Dave was better tonight. At least he entertained (or at least tried).
I have nothing against her but when you combine a weak cast with a dance like the charleston (where even the likes of chris hollins and nicky byrne can impress) then there's always the danger of talking yourself into a corner with short sighted praise.”
Way to exagerate dude!

She was a tad over-marked and over-praised but the worst you could say about the dance is that it was competent - a good stab at a dance that didn't really suit her and isn't easy. There was some good footwork - there have been a lot of truly awful sambas over the years - Dennis Taylor, Kate Garroway, Kenny Logan, pretty well most of series six contestants barring Tom Chambers and Rachel Stevens - Austin Healey's was ok but probably still worse than Sophie's, most of the series seven contestants barring Jade - Jo Wood's stands out as a particular horror but I think Craig Kelly had a fairly inept stab at it as well, the Widdy, Scott Maslin doing a good routine pretty badly, and a whole lot of meh from the previous two series - although Pendledrama did a lousy job of one last year which stilcks in my mind.
I completely disagree about it being a weak cast as well - once the inevitable happens and Julien leaves (which I think the writing is well and truly on the wall in six foot high letters for next week) then it will truly be a shame to lose whoever goes next - I like this cast of characters - most of them have potential and Dave is endearing and hiliarious and appears to be having the time of his life.