I was really impressed by her tonight. Not too tall and with great but sturdy legs. She also looks strong in her core. Seems to have natural rhythm and is expressive in her movements. She looks like she can control her nerves and enjoy herself.

Sure she went wrong and didn't recover, but that was just lack of experience. The first half was damned good.

She lacked any hip movement to me. Though I do agree that her nerves probably won't be a problem.

Oh yeah your right, there is a load of work to be done. I wasn't really commenting on tonight's dance, more her potential physical tributes that she displayed.

She has a lot of potential. She has musicality and, as Bruno commented, she placed her arms and hands well. She's definitely 'a contender'.

Here in Cambridge there has been stuff in the local paper about supporting Caroline from her old dance school, Bodyworks Studio - I think it said that she did a 3 year course there. I'm also pretty sure it said that it was a full-time course, so it was more than just ballet aged 5! It's very well-known in the area and have lots of dance professionals training there, but wouldn't have been Latin or ballroom.

But best of luck to her - she looked great!

Caroline was a celebrity partnering a wheelchair user in BBC's Dancing on Wheels, with Brian Fortuna, a couple of years ago.

That series, which I think she and her partner won, featured the 10 standard Latin and ballroom dances, so Caroline had a pretty good training then, so should look good'ish on Strictly.

I thought she was OK, but expected better.

In terms of "ringers" cha chas on week 1, I think Natalie's was better. Caroline was good though!

Did anyone else utterly hate her dress? Normally I am a BIG fan of gold fringe but I think it would have looked better without the long gold fringing at the top. It moved quite nicely when she was spinning (but so does shorter fringing) but I don't think anyone would look good in it. Also made it hard to see what her hips were doing...

Regardless of previous experience Caroline's dancing feels to me much more 'organic' than Pixie's did. Caroline has the natural rhythm and performance ability that you can't teach. Will be watching her with interest..

Yes this is what I was seeing as well. It's early days obviously, but she does look like a natural dancer.

I would actually be interested in the crossovers and unlearnings and relearnings and advantages and disadvantages of translating having learnt to partner and dance ballroom with someone in a wheelchair to learning to partner and dance ballroom with someone not in a wheelchair. IIRC she and James went on to compete in a proper wheelchair ballroom dancing tournament (albeit not doing terribly well), so she obviously took it seriously to a degree.

I doubt they'll ever mention she did it though.

Loved the dress! She looked like she'd swallowed an emu.....

What's really interesting is how difficult it is to find any records of her previous dance life on the internet - missing links on Google hits etc. Someone has really been taking advantage of the new EU rights to delete inconvenient publicity! Given it's the same for Frankie Sandford's previous dancing too, one suspects the production team/Beeb are a lot more sensitive about 'ringah' stories than in the past.

Oh goodie,a conspiracy theory

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dancingonwheels...caroline.shtml

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1BpZOp-DWo

I loved Caroline! She was fantastic. She definitely kicked the show off to good start.

The advantages of having learnt to partner someone in a wheelchair is that she had to learn what the dances are about and a lot of the steps, plus of course the all important timing.

Can't think of any actual disadvantages!

I thought she was great. OK it wasn't perfect but then it's only show 1. I LOVED her dress 45 years ago I had a similar one for a Disco. .

I really enjoyed her performance, love Pasha anyway and I'm thrilled he has a contender this year

She and Pasha look good together like Kimberley and he did. She draws the eye and was my favourite last night. Jake is good but seemed a bit lacking in personality to me and Pixie was too pop-star poser for my taste. The others are really just cannon fodder but loved Anton in his kilt!

Caroline was my favourite of the night. It just seemed so natural and she was enjoying herself. Pixie has talent but I kept expecting more. Jake was good but after the launch show I thought he would be OK. As long as these 3 make the second half of the series I will be happy.

I agree. I preferred Natalie's cha cha. Also I thought her heels were very very high, but that may have been an optical illusion associated with her long legs. Maybe she could cut off some of the heels and donate them to Allison.

She has quite a sweet nature which makes her confidence non offensive at all, think she may become quite a favorite of mine

I thought she was great - very watchable, highly effervescent. I'm surprised she didn't top the leaderboard, but I guess going first may have had an impact there.

In contrast, I found Pixie a little lacklustre.

I thought her performance was great last night, and despite the mistake, I'd give her 7 but if you could give .5's, I'd give it 7.5!

I thought Pixie did well technically but she seemed a tad stiff to me.

Caroline is this year's ringer.