And the picture of The Queen turned to face the wall.

Karen doing pilates at the bottom of the article.

I am sure Kevin cannot believe his luck.

Which has two matching china potties underneath, and a mahogany wig stand off to one side.

Brilliant. Not forgetting Flashdance leg warmers on the piano legs!


Wow, rapid transformation from Emo Kev to TTF Tefal Head.

He said it on ITT as well. The thing is, it's going to be The Story of the Week. It's going to be done to death with whoever is locuming in khoreography Korner, it's going to be brought up in he Wednesday warm up and it's going to be the main topic of Ore's next ITT visit.

My least favourite Strictly time was tail end of series 6 and series 7 for being so mean spirited, and this one seems to be going the same way with the nastiness of the final permeating through into the new series.

I liked Ore's jive, but preferred Danny's quickstep. It seems reminded me a little bit of Colin Jackson's. For me, that was a dance when everything came together and he clicked with the dance and his partner.

That's true and I made that point myself last night.

I saw it as like in the X Factor when a contestant is singing a song by their idol and one of the judges will say "move over Adele" or whatever.

I'd rather they didn't drag past contestants into it though, regardless, especially not the most recent winner, when the final was such a bad atmosphere.

Just say "Best Jive Ever"

Absolutely agree Aggs. I can only say I loved Danny's dance, I suspect that's is a dance that will be remembered, music costume theming everything fell in place. Why on earth not mark him properly for it? Then there is Ore' s jive, I just don't think it was as good as all the judges said, I can't think it will be remembered as one of the great jives in future. It was overmarked, it was a good dance but it just isn't going to be remembered as a great total, YES, now that's a jive dance.

It's Lisa Snowden all over again, and we all know how that ended. At this rate mimsy will sneak through again.

By the way Loiuse had the dress, Amy, the theming and managed nice, sighs, there is no hope for her.

Bacofoil!!! Hurray!!!!

I thought they could have gone 10s for both Danny and Ore, but I agreed with Len that there was too much faffing at the start of Danny's dance and Bruno pointed out a mistake. Both of these are perfectly valid reasons for giving 9s. Craig was never going to give a 10 this early, so it could have got a patented Darcey Hunk 10 I guess. At any rate, if we're talking about misguided comparisons with other series, Danny's already got a higher average score after 4 dances than Jill Halfpenny, Colin Jackson and Mark Rampantpants did over their entire series, and is easily on course to get the highest average score for a male celebrity ever (he'll be past Matt Baker and Austin Healey at least before Hallowe'en), so I'm sure he'll live.

But everyone but Ore and Joanne will be prepped to say what a wonderful routine it was and how they were completely in sync (they weren't) and how he didn't flag at the end (he did) and how it deserved tens (it didn't... nine's definitely but not ten's) to keep the storyline going about how it's a REAL competition. It'll be the same on the results show tonight.

I'm unappreciating the way the show is being manipulated yet again to suit an agenda. It was bad enough last year but at least Jay helped them by mucking up his Quickstep and following it with arguably a couple of competent but little more routines. I'm not sure if Danny and Oti are going to be so compliant on that score.

I was very impressed though with how in sync Danny and Oti's faffing was, even though for a lot of it he couldn't see her. So faffing, but a higher degree of faffing.

Ahhh, mark inflation. It's hard, because the impulse is to find like dances in previous series ^ see comparison to Colin's QS, as well as the comparison we dare not name, but the more recent the series, the higher the mark. I'm not surprised at his average score being higher than Mark, who aside from a few very good dances had some real shaky ones (from memory) but I am surprised at being higher than Jill, who I remember has being consistently excellent to sometimes exceptional.

Ha! I'm so sorry sofacat, I totally forgot my manners in my excitement to pop back on this thread after aeons - I can provide a sad flagon of gin, if that would be of any help... I can also bring a bottle of cava that needs using up, and some canapés. Is it to early for cava, or do we need it this morning?! I can bring other gifts as needed!

I hope the hype is an attempt to get away from all the bad publicity - Anastacia, Jordans shagging in Bruce's dressing room, supposed racism, Will. I dearly hope it's not some Snowdon-esque/Kellie attempt to force a particular favourite on the viewers, either because the judges have blinkers on (which happens) or the perceived need for a competition.

Actually, the comment that annoyed me last night wasn't the comparison to Jay, that's just trying to hype it up, but about Danny now having competition. Though I like to imagine Oti now cracking her knuckles and saying she was only in 4th gear, choreographically speaking, and now she's moving into 5th.

Am unappreciating off the scale knicker flashing from Pwincess Jwanne. Why? Just why?

Yes I thought that was unfair too, but not to Danny particularly, but to all the other contestants who appear to have been written off, especially the other men (Greg, Rinder) who aren't awful themselves.

Can't be fun for the rest to not only know, but be told in as many words by the judges, that they are also rans in Week 4

I like that image of Oti. However, I fear Kevin may be so incensed at the apparent dismissal of Louise having any sort of chance of winning that he dials up the saccharine twee to levels that result in spontaneous tooth decay across the nation and a crisis in dental services across the land.

Well the good thing about the whole DannyvsOre thing is everyone has stopped talking about Will. Yay!!

Seeing her knicker flashing instantly put me off their routine why indeed...

First thing that came to my mind when I saw Toss Dailys dress this week. Although to be fair I thought she looked good this week.

Never too early for cava, we can consider it the start of brunch. I can donate a large bottle of prosecco left over from my birthday celebrations. With any luck we'll all be nicely pickled in time for the results show

Although unfortunately not in a good way.

For me the issue is - which dance will I remember? Which dance will stand the annals of time due to it's class, it's motion, it's design, the way it was sold? For me, Danny's Quickstep will last longer in the memory than Ore's Jive.


Just to make clear - you think she looks good as a Christmas Day turkey?

Which, was probably the whole point. Move on from all the crises and show how wonderful and sugary and so happy everyone is!

Or how it's becoming as manipulated as the The X Factor (not for the first time).

Still unappreciating if you hadn't guessed.

Yes I would agree with that. Frankly I couldn't put a gnats whisker between Ore's dance and Danny's dance. They looked equal to me from a marks point of view. But I don't know anything about Quickstep apart from what we pick up from the show and I don't like the Jive much (my second least favourite after the Charleston).

However as a piece of entertainment I preferred Danny and Oti. The stage styling was perfect and she looked just like someone from the era, although I can't quite put my finger on who - Billie Holiday maybe?. They inhabited a style and an era that worked with the dance and the dance enhanced the setting, in sort of self fuelling cycle. So as an all round piece of theatre I loved it to a 10 level.

I also liked Ore and Jowaan and had the set design made a stronger 60s reference on a par with the period staging of Oti and Danny, it might have pipped thenm to top spot.

I feel much the same. Last night my initial reaction was that Ore and Danny were probably about equal but that I preferred Danny's dance to Ore's. Having watched them both back, I think it's because Oti and Danny seemed to match each other better than Joanne and Ore did, which I think is partly down to style and partly to choreography. I still have in my mind that part of the quickstep where Ore and Danny are travelling down the centre of the floor and do a little leap followed by a hop with their back legs at just the same angle off the floor, almost seeming to hover there for a moment. And that bit at the beginning where they have their backs to each other and are mirroring the hops and kicks perfectly. For Ore and Joanne I mostly have Ore doing kicks and flicks and then some different kicks and flicks and then back to the first set again and... to be honest I prefer the dance when I just watch Ore without Joanne there (or vice versa) - I don't think they're particularly complementing each other. And I don't mean that as a slight against either of their dancing in general, it's just that for me personally they didn't seem to gel as a couple quite as well as they did for Singing in the Rain last week or as well as Danny and Oti have done the past few weeks. It was still a really good jive (up there with Chelsee/ Pasha and Scott/ Natalie for me) but I generally prefer routines where the partners spend more of the routine in sync with each other and where their styles match a little bit better.

(And if we're talking about historic jives, then I do think Jay and Aliona were perfectly matched stylistically the week they did that jive. It just suited both of them down to the ground. This week I felt like Joanne might like a cleaned up, shiny Disney version of the 60s to dance in whereas Ore might prefer something a little cooler and sexier.)

On the plus side Danny's quickstep reminded me of Harry's, Colin's and Ricky Whittle's, which I've just gone on youtube to rewatch. Such good dances!

Unappreciating the sense that the judges have deliberately set in motion a re-run of the Tom vs. Austin storyline from series 6. I found that boring the first time around, I'm not really looking forward to reliving it with new characters.

Speaking of Tom, I can absolutely see Joanne adoring Tom and Camilla's showdance and aspiring to giving something similar to Ore. Most likely with added props. And preferably danced to a Disney song.