Strictly Come Dancing

Alexandra is one of the better dancers on the show so I can only guess the reason for her being in the dance off twice now is because the public haven't taken to her. Don't think the constant crying, be it real or fake, helps matters much. Now if we were able to vote for Gorka only that would be a different matter entirely.

Major and long running roles in hollyoaks and emmerdale, hardly just a regional radio presenter

Alexandra has a huge likeability problem which isn't helping her with the public. And yes this is a dance competition, but she's not improved from week one in fact if anything she has got worse. I think there are far more deserving winners. Personally I hope Joe wins

Gemma not being in a Dance Off so far is a bit surprising. She has been in Emmerdale fairly recently and was a big Lad's magazine favourite back in the day but it is over a dozen years since she left Hollyoaks. She has 214k Twitter followers whilst the similarly marked Mollie has 923k, so you'd give that advantage to Mollie.

Were they doing a girl power thing with Dreamgirls and Leading Ladies? Nice effort but the dancing was underpowered I thought and the moves very run of the mill. Sorry.
Gemma has Aljaz, a big advantage.. bags of personality. But I thought this week she was poor, footwork all over the place. Again, sorry.

The two biggest voting mysteries this year are where has Mollie's vote come from after those two weeks in the dance off and why is Gemma's vote so high in the first place. Yes she's had decent runs in Hollyoaks and Emmerdale but plenty of other soap actors haven't done this well. Is it just the general feeling that Alexandra and Debbie have too much dance experience so people aren't voting for them perhaps.

Alexandra not helped by that terrible outfit - mystifying decision, why not give her something closer to the sequence from the film - and her earnest reaction to everything. I actually like her but she does herself no favours sometimes. Actually I thought her best moment was at the end of her dance in the results show where she screamed yes and looked very pumped up at having nailed it - it felt a more truthful moment than the whole I'm honoured to close the show stuff.

I'm hoping the final will be Alexandra, Debbie, Joe and one of the others - preferably Gemma as she has been the strongest and we won't have to hear anymore about a Mollie/AJ romance.

Oh and this is the point of the show where Tess goes from mildly annoying to a full on pain to listen to - all her oh we thought you were amazing stuff and talking to the couples like they were children.

I didn't really mean the length but the colour and those horrible boots.

They also, for reasons unknown, decided to make the sleeves 3/4 length. That, alone, makes the whole top of the outfit look weird, and then you get to the bottom half, and it's a whole different mess! The first shoes should have looked like this (these are the original film's shoes - court shoes with a fabric topping):


Giggling Vicky has clearly spent too much time giggling, and not thinking about decent dresses for the show! For most of this series, they have looked like cheap dress-up costumes, instead of the beautiful professional dance outfits they ought to be. The men's trousers are another area I think they've seriously skimped on - no longer well-fitting proper dance pants, but horribly fitted, pocketed (why?!!!) trousers! When you look at series past (Alesha Dixon's dresses were a high point), it's quite depressing!

That Vicky Gill is definitely gill-ty of gill-ding the lily...

Much like Joe and Katya's samba this week, it's most likely 'Money, Money'!! It seems dressmaking corners have had to be cut, to pay for all those extra (unnecessary) dancers, the pyrotechnics and set building for every dance! Back in the day, the celebs danced on an empty floor, with no props, almost ever! I'd estimate it started around 5 years ago, when the standard of costuming was trimmed further and further back, probably to cope with sheer costume numbers (increased celeb numbers, more pro dances etc). Now, cheaper fabrics, shoddy embellishments, and poor design are standard. I believe they used to have Su Judd as the costume designer pre-2012, as well as someone else conceptualising a lot of the performances. It's an insane amount of work that they have to do, but it's absolutely clear that the extra costuming they have to do every week - often 2 full pro-numbers, plus multiple guest performer supporting dancers - has meant the standards have slipped from their previous high. 

The TV schedules have been published. The final starts at 6.30pm and runs straight through, without another programme in the middle, until 9pm. If I'm not to miss a split second, I shall need a Follies-like bladder!!!

Don't forget the excruciating interviews with families,long lost acquaintances and second cousins who's toes were stood on before said celebs learned to dance.