Con-fusion on the Dancefloor

10/10 for pout

It's Strictly, but not as you know it...it's all gone a bit crazy this week (or as we like to call it 'gone a bit DWTS') with this newfangled fusion malarkey. Will we love it or hate it? Or merely prefer it to another annoying theme week? Let us go on a new spangled journey...

Denise and James

They're in Christmas outfits a bit early, aren't they? Quite like them though, they look like fancy Christmas crackers, the ones where you get something nicer than a plastic fish. Well, we all know Denise can jive with the best of them and it does go with the bouncy quickstep. The choreography was really good, I actually liked the diving in and out of hold, but the execution wasn't actually as sharp as I was expecting. 

Have decided it's perfectly reasonable for someone like Denise to be on Strictly. She sets the pace. Like the guy who runs the race for Mo Farah only to let him win. The joy is seeing others match, nay, surpass her. What's the word for that? Pace-setter? Pacemaker? (she'll never jive alone?) Safety car? Yes, Denise is this year's safety car. Brum brum. 

Lisa and Robin

Cha-cha and tango isn't the best combination, but since she did such an amazing cha-cha hopes are high. Loving the camp-tastic song choice, low-hanging glitterballs and Bucks Fizz skirt moment to reveal the most spangle-tasic of fringes. Again the transitions were managed well and gave a little squeak at the homage to the original week 1 lift! Mistakes and technique issues again, could this night be filled with fusion slips?

Lisa should be in the final purely on the basis of her facial expressions. 

Nicky and Karen

It doesn't look good for Nicky, two weeks in the bottom two and the dreaded samba, plus lifts in the AS, that's not asking much from him! Despite having two dances to combine they still managed the dreaded sitting-on-a-chair interlude. This was a bit of a dog's dinner, to sound like Len for a minute, they had to mish-mash some random stuff together and Nicky didn't seem to be doing much. Apart from flailing arms an offensive shimmy.

I am sorry Westlife fans but Nicky does dance like a duck-billed platypus. This wasn't much samba and it wasn't much smooth and it wasn't much American. Nothing gelled. It was a random mish-mash of plonking about with a chair to running to catch up to moves borrowed from the set of Dirty Dancing. Unfortunately he was less like the wind, and more like he had wind. 

Dani and Vincent

Now Charleston and Quickstep is a perfect combination, so perfect it's almost cheating. But I like Dani and Vincent so we won't dwell on that...Dani also won best dress by a country mile this week, it's Lilia-esque! And this was a bloody good dance, I might even say it was my favourite of the series so far. A-ma-zing choreography from Vincent, it actually had more Charleston in it with some of the Charlestons this series. Plus the quickstep element gave it more control and stopped any enforced gurning. What a delight!

Oooh, I loved this. Very cute. And what a lovely outfit. My favourite dance of the series so far. I would love these two to win. 

Louis and Flavia

Louis was always going to struggle with the rumba, so much that I have my suspicions this whole thing was devised to get him through it. Great choreography from Flavia, which was to be expected, I loved how the routine built with the music. It was better than a plain rumba would have been, definitely, but it didn't wow me. I wanted to be holding my breath with the drama and I was not, which is probably a good thing actually... 

Meh.

Kimberley and Pasha

Despite the concept being about an hour old It's Raining Men is the PERFECT song choice for a cha-cha tango fusion. And this is actually the only time when a mullet dress is acceptable. I actually really loved this in a crazy way, they were both obviously having the time of their lives too. Is there anything more fun than a thunderclap high kick? And crikey that was a good lift. I really enjoyed it, but I was not expecting a 40, egads!

The choreography to this was awesome what wiv hitting all those accents with a mighty kick, ker pow! This was like batman does ballroom. Half expected cartoon speech bubbles to pop up on the screen. Alas no, but this was good. Not sure it deserved 40 though. Seemed as though those scores had been decided beforehand for effect. Conspiracy much?