A couple of observations for the OP

1) Why only mention Georgia when they were not the only couple to avoid criticism of an illegal lift from Len by .....errrrrr.......'dragging their feet'

2) 29.65s You timed it with a stop watch? Seriously?

Bonus observation -
Methinks you might be a teensie weensie bit biased

The build up was deliberately slow to contrast with the sudden speed that followed and agree totally with BIB.

To be honest I feel some posters are over exaggerating or even inventing faults where Georgia is concerned, which is a shame.
We all have our faves and those contestants we don't like so much , that goes without saying, but some of the nitpicking I find tedious and taking the fun out of chatting about the show.

Pusher and Crawl?

Lots of the dances had faffing about. Props seem to be plate de jour. Most dances did not need to set a scene with props.

Did you time how long it was before Carol, Jeremy, Peter, Jamelia, Helen and Kellie started to dance? I ask because I remember all of them faffing about before they started dancing tonight and that's without even trying hard to remember. I think Anita did too and Katie, although perhaps not for very long.

Also, as someone else has pointed out, they started dancing after the introduction to the music. And I am not a fan of faffing about, not at all. There was too much tonight, but to single out Georgia isn't fair.

you do know that they have to dance longer each week so there will be even more faffing about as the weeks go on

She started dancing at 29s into the music and finished at 1.42, so overall 18s of 'faffing' in - so more than 2/3 of a dance. I'd be surprised if there's less than 15s of faffing in anything other than maybe the AT tonight, but I haven't gone and checked anything else.

The only two dances with no faffing tonight were Jay & Aliona followed by Helen & Aljaz. All the rest had props and/or faffing!

I think your stopwatch is wrong, I timed it at 29.64 seconds.

So much faffing about from Pasha I thought they were playing pass the parcel!

Yeah, but Carol's never looked better in a dance than when she was behind that screen...

The weaker dancers can possibly be excused for there being a lot of faffing included in their dances... but it's not really appropriate for those who are more consistently at the top of the leaderboard.

Anything more than a few seconds always looks suspect.

All props and time wasting should be eliminated, back to basics. The clue is in the title, Strictly Come Dancing.

I remember years ago Len saying 10 seconds at the start and end was OK, any more was faffing.

Is that because of the clocks going back ?

The speed of GG's dance made up for the faffing about. But most of the dances this week were too prop heavy.

I really enjoyed her routine and as someone has mentioned, she certainly made up for it with a a lot of speed and movement. But it was a bit dragged intro, it felt slightly unnecessary for such a good dancer.
Sometimes if the storytelling requires, I don't think it bothers but it could have been 20 seconds of that and it would not detract that much in the storytelling.

Am up late due to pain so to kill time watched videos and noted time couples actually started and ended dances times below are approx - carols was shortest routine and Jay's had the least faffing

Peter 18s ended 1.29s
Jamelia 25s ended 1.37s
Carol 34s ended 1.32s
Helen 20s ended 1.38s
Jay 5s ended 1.31s
Katie 21s ended 1.30s
Anita 22s ended 1.30s
Kellie 21s ended 1.38s
Jeremy 23s ended 1.36s
Georgia 29s ended 1.40s

Georgia's faffing about was particularly obvious as it was so dull. I was also surprised that Len didn't mention it.

Yeah, can't help feeling a little embarrassed now by use of props and length of time it takes some couples to get into the 'dance'. Never used to be this bad, or have I forgotten? lol

Sorry to hear you're in pain bendy Hope you managed to get a good night's sleep eventually.

I'm not asleep either .. mind's too busy .. mostly with the dancing. Always great to watch the videos back

This seems to be the year of the faff .. so many long intros this season.

While I'm not keen on flaffing about in general and accept that G & G's intro was pretty long....I couldn't agree more with the points you made.

They danced in sync with the song and the contrast between the slow intro and the full on dancing at the beginning added to the dance. And as you said, the speed of her moves thereafter more than made up for it.

[quote=bendymixer;80280735]Am up late due to pain so to kill time watched videos and noted time couples actually started and ended dances times below are approx - carols was shortest routine and Jay's had the least faffing

Peter 18s ended 1.29s
Jamelia 25s ended 1.37s
Carol 34s ended 1.32s
Helen 20s ended 1.38s
Jay 5s ended 1.31s
Katie 21s ended 1.30s
Anita 22s ended 1.30s
Kellie 21s ended 1.38s
Jeremy 23s ended 1.36s
Georgia 29s ended 1.40s[/


Longest to shortest minus faffing <in pain too - drugged up so hope maths is right!>

Jay
Helen
Kellie
Jeremy
Jamelia
Georgia/Peter
Katie
Anita
Carole

Considering the energy Georgia/Peter and Anita used in comparison to the others they fared rather well.

Don't know why Georgia is being singled out by the OP

,

I suspect the length of the intro that the Pro choreographs, depends on how the edited music is phrased. Some routines that I have put together have had a 10 or 12 bar introduction, ( as much as 30 seconds) before you get into the main body of the music. I have not seen last nights Strictly yet, but suspect Giovanni was choreographing to how the music was phrased, which is the correct way to do it.

I have just watched this on the iplayer and the reason for the long intro, in this instance. is not the fault of Giovanni but the way the musical track has been edited. The intro is long and slow ( they should have re-worked that) does not have samba timing so there is no way they could have started the routine then. He had to wait until the intro had finished - when the music picks up speed and vocals start.