There is no accounting for the voting of BBC viewers
I love the tail-end of Strictly. The voting always goes arse over tit as people get extremely confused about who to vote for. Should you vote for your favourite just because they are your favourite? (This always strikes me as the most sensible and honest route.) Or should you think, “Well, my favourite was top of the leaderboard so I will save 15p and not bother voting”? (A fatal error.) Or should you think, “Oh no, I really like Anita and she’s bottom of the leaderboard. I don’t normally vote. But I will invest 15p in saving her even if it means that I accidentally condemn Georgia or Helen who I also really like!” (Which obviously happened this week.)
This mess-up is evidently how Coronation Street actress Georgia May Foote ended up being in the dance-off against Call the Midwife actress Helen George, despite Georgia being second on the leaderboard with 36 points. It’s the sort of moment that drives people batty because both Georgia and Helen would have been great in the final. But that is the madness of the vote. My prediction is that it will only get worse next week.
The moral of the tale: if you have a favourite, vote for them or face the consequences. The interesting thing is that there is little to choose between contestants now. The winner has to be Jay or Georgia, surely? On dancing. But then, it’s not just on dancing, is it? There’s also the popularity contest to win. And that is much more arbitrary.
It’s not always easy for a judge to explain their judging
Jamelia complained that it wasn’t clear why Peter Andre went through instead of her, going so far as to suggest a fix during an interview on ITV’s Loose Women (despite the fact that she had been in five dance-offs) – a charge the BBC has denied. Since then, producers have asked the Strictly judges to give an explanation as to why they’re putting through one couple and not another. The judges struggle with articulating this, though, as Len Goodman explained to Zoe Ball a couple of weeks ago on It Takes Two. Sometimes you don’t know why it’s one dancer over another. It’s just a feeling.
On Sunday, it was clearly Georgia who had the better dance. But the judges were still all falling over themselves to tell Helen she was brilliant and didn’t deserve to go. Craig explicitly blamed the public: “I just want to remind everyone that it wasn’t the judges who put you here.” We can expect more of this next week, especially if Katie Derham and Anton du Beke aren’t in the semi-final dance-off. (Are people voting for Anton for sentimental reasons?)
There are no Random Hired Dancers left in the London area because they are all on this show
I have railed before about the invasion of literalism on Strictly. Weather presenters are required to dance with umbrellas and cardboard clouds. Chefs must only do dances that reference tomatoes and bananas while brandishing a frying pan. Political reporters must tango in front of a swingometer. Fortunately we have passed beyond this stage now. Just.
Worse, though, the literalism has been replaced with Random Hired Dancers, including a man with a thatched cottage on his head (who portrayed Lumière the Candlestick from Beauty and the Beast) and a large Miserables-ish cast who were so numerous and hyperactive that they threatened to crash into Helen and Aljaz at any moment. The latter abomination recalled the horrific moment last year when a Random Hired Dancer dressed as a Greek goddess collided with Jake Wood during a plate-smashing routine as part of the ill-advised Round the World week.
Please, someone. Lose the crazy props, lose the crazy extra dancers. We came here to see the contestants we love dance. We don’t expect Vegas. It will be too late for the semi-finals and the finals as you will have already hired the crazy dancers and some poor craftsman somewhere is probably manufacturing a giant roulette wheel as I write. But do bear it in mind for next year. Thank you.
