You can tell that Len is fed up with all the faffing around, props and bar a few, very little in the way of proper dance steps and actual time dancing together in hold.
The whole of SCD has deteriorated so badly and perhaps subtly over the last few seasons, it would be an eye opener to watch earlier ones when props were not de rigueur.
Anyway, what were we doing with a themed evening so early in this series? And in the main (a few exceptions, granted) the chosen music is dire and out of character with the dances. The Rumba is nonsensical but the Paso and Cha, Cha Cha are going the same
way.
Time for the axe I feel.

I was wondering last year with the "all stars" Xmas show - which is the highest rated show on Xmas day, whether Louis Smith had "asked for" Aliona.

In that instance you would want to ensure an early exit for Aliona, hence the dreaded Gregg.

Good News.... Aliona - you will be the star of the Xmas day show,
Bad news... you see that Greengrocer over there.....

I agree it was superb. Brilliant choreography by Aliona, she captured the mood of that iconic scene perfectly. I would have given it a 10 even though it's only week three, I think it was probably the best jive ever by a male celebrity on Strictly.

Has any dance in previous years got similar hits?

I'm not sure, but I see that it's already above 160,000 views on YouTube (for comparison, Anthony's dance hasn't even got 2,000).

At least 15 of them are mine.

No, they haven't.

I would imagine the closest thing would have been Sophie s Charleston or jakes 's salsa. Not sure about their numbers on Facebook.

Can someone tell me why the bbc hasn't made it available to other countries like it did the other weeks The number of views on youtube would have definitively been even higher .

This jive might be the most watched strictly dance on Facebook at least .

Sophie's Charleston has over 700k views on YouTube (two years old and it's on the BBC channel) as does Jake's salsa.

Unfortunately it looks like one of the side effects of the recent BBC charter review has been that they've had to clamp down on region locking the Youtube content (to domestic countries covered by a licence fee) and impose content blocking on other countries.

Feel free to blame the government

(I genuinely wish the BBC was allowed to sell iplayer in the same way as netflix - month subscription to overseas folk - that should fix some of their money issues...)

Louis and Flavia's showdance has the most YT views of any SCD dance in recent years but no idea how many FB views it would have got. I remember there was thousands and thousands of comments for it though so imagine it would have been pretty high on FB views too.

It definitely feels like people are going more mad for this dance than usual - deservedly so! It was a trending news topic on facebook last night/today that Jay had performed a pulp fiction themed jive which must mean that people are also talking about it and sharing the video a lot.

Yes, I forgot that one because I was terribly bored that year. It has just little over 1 million. Which is huge.

Ok to put it into context;

Videos weren't posted to FB for Sophie's Charleston or Jakes Jive the videos seemed to start half way through Jays series. (I've looked) so unfortunately we can't compare like for like.

This series they feature and share the highest scoring dance, on FB after the show, so obviously this dance will get many more shares and views than the others.

In week 1 and 2 Peter Andre was featured as he topped the leaderboard (even though Jays waltz scored higher than his QS)

To date having been available for viewing sharing for two weeks the Cha cha has 180k views and the QS with a week since posting has 120k views and Jays Jive with just about 24 hours since posting has had 2.5M views.

So yeah, in that context the dance is pretty much huuuuuuuge news on FB

ETA looking at all the vids available on the FB page the highest are:

Just under 500K for Caroline's Salsa
420k for her Charleston
860k for Jakes Samba (not Salsa)
900k for Caroline winning


Oh and 2.5 mil for Jays Jive

On strictlys Facebook what I could find was a still from jakes salsa and it had19.9k likes and 1.4k comments.
Sophie's Charleston has 26.6k likes and 4.4k comments. There isn't any for Louis show dance.

Jays still (photo) on the facebook has 90.1k likes and 10.9k comments in just 24hrs.

Jay and Aliona has 2.5 Million on FB alone. After 1 day!

I am not 100% sure if Facebook views are verifiable as YouTube are though.

I think FB videos automatically play on your timeline unless you have the function disabled (or at least this used to be the case) - for saying that though I would think Jays jive would still have a massive amount of views even without the automatic playback. I *think* YT is a much more realistic viewing figure though.

She was given the cold shoulder by Len, then the PTB dumped her, but were in a pickle and were obliged to get her back - all in all, shabby treatment, and if she becomes the first double-champion, it will be a well deserved consolation.


Well, she can (and does) do faffing choreography, but I think you're otherwise spot-on with your analysis.


Yes, we get it - you didn't like the dance, and you probably don't like the couple.

The "odd" things with his left hand were undoubtedly choreographed as part of the characterisation (it's a themed week, remember?).

For all the judges to be unanimous in their praise says a lot. But perhaps you know better?

I am bit worried people will get bored, too much of a good thing.

I'm in complete agreement!

Totally agree - Jay is technically fabulous - he just has to work on his performance - facial expressions etc - the Charleston could be challenging for him in that respect or it could be where he crack that element. Aliona is a great choreographer and glad SCD revised their decision and brought her back to be recognized as the great asset she is to the programme

The journey for Jay will be seeing him relax and show more of a personality through the dances. I'm excited to see that. He wasn't in the shyest of boy bands!!!! so I think it's there and Aliona is definately the one to bring it out.

I hope she gets him to close his mouth more. He can look a bit gormless with his mouth gaping open. Maybe he has sinus issues.

Aliona's Christmas quickstep with Louis was fabulous. She seems to work best with a talented partner when she can pay an attention to small details, because the basic technique is mastered relatively easily. Len still seems to look through her, but at least he acknowledges that Jay is doing great.