STRICTLY COME DANCING: FOXTROT TANGO OVER AND OUT

We’re coming to terms with the new format now, and I suppose it makes sense to do it all in one big fat show, just the way it is recorded, than in two shows. For one thing we get fewer silly interludes.

Well, that’s what we thought, then while we were minding our own business, pondering another glass of wine and shifting the cat between laps, we get some middle-aged blokes bouncing onto the stage doing not-very-good tapdancing that wasn’t even in time to the music. And THEN we get Amy Winehouse looking grumpy as she sings backing vocals on some fake-doowop nonsense that even Darts would have thought a bit naff. Amy looked quite healthy, despite the “community service” expression, sang flat, and forgot to wave her arms in time to the music. Her god-daughter had a lovely belter of a voice though – even though her name that nobody remembered anyway has now been changed to “Amy Winehouse’s god-daughter”.

At this point I could digress into musing about Amy Winehouse’s qualifications for godmotherhood (job description: stand witness at baptism ceremony and promise to keep kid on path of righteousness etc…), but to be honest I wish people would leave her alone and let her get on with writing some more lovely songs, so on with the dancing.

BOOBWATCH: we liked Tess’s asymmetric red satin sheath. Suited her.

Brucie did some lame stuff about Twitter (sooo 2008), and then it was straight onto:

TANYA TURNER AND WOLVERINE
OK Producers, enough of the “oooh no, will Tanya Turner be any good this week” nonsense. So what if she stamps on Wolverine’s paws in training? That’s what training is about. Tanya sparkles like an old-fashioned movie star, and delivers a graceful Foxtrot. Lots of walking about and a bit too sedate for my liking, but good.

CHRIS AND OLA
Once again, Ola has raided the handkerchief and haberdashery section in John Lewis for her costume. Chris has to Act Sexy, which is quite painful to behold. He poses self consciously and wriggles his hips a bit. But I’m reminded of John Mills going down with a submarine rather than the sultry streets of Havana.

LYNDA AND DARREN
Lynda’s battle with the costume department has come to an end. And the costume department won. Lynda’s costume theme this series seems to have been “Brothel Madams of Days Gone By”. This week: 1940s Western Brothel Madam. Her foxtrot was very sedate, but NOT ENOUGH. Craig and Alesha voted to save her, but Len saw the agony in her eyes at the thought of another week of looking like a giant salmon with a perm, and said she had to go. I’ve never seen a woman look so relieved.

ALI AND SNAKEHIPS
Bloody good. Not quite a ten, but nearly there.

JO WOOD AND BRENDAN
Brucie makes a lame joke about Jo losing a Stone (geddit). Jo smiles politely. Brendan still hauling the poor old thing around the dancefloor, but she’s getting better

MOOMIN AND CREEPIO
Moomin has worked her Moomin magic on Creepio: he’s now quite sweet and they spend a lot of time giggling and cuddling chastely. Moomin’s salsa is a proper PAR-TAY salsa with lots of jiggling of sequins and tassles flying everywhere. Loved it. Craig wasn’t so sure and earned a Look of Hate from Len.

JOE AND KRISTINA
Oh dear, he’s bringing his comedy dad into rehearsals now. This week there isn’t any belt nonsense, but he still has problems with his timing. The public like him though, and so he clings on for another week.

AMBER AND ANTON
Lots of hugging and kissing and shows of solidarity in the face of hostile media opinion. Yeah, OK we get the message. Laila likes Anton, and he has apologised. We will now move on.

This week’s foxtrot is all glidey loveliness and perfect timing, and earns them a lovely 34. And the great British public decides to keep them in to see if Anton manages to insult another minority grouping next week.

RICKY WHITTLE AND NATALIE
Ricky’s got a big Hollyoaks storyline right now (so that’ll be a big underwear fashion show, male rape, teacher assault or…?), so he’s working really hard, learning lines, doing dancing…doing acting… OK, I’m not a Hollyoaks fan, but he does a lovely little salsa with perfect hips and timing. The judges are slightly disappointed, and tell him he could do better. Ricky: notbothered.

CRAIG AND FLAVIA
Corrie boy is starting to grow on me. He’s got an interesting face, and he’s a bit intense. The foxtrot, however, is notverygood. Poor old Craig looks like he’s about to be shot, and the judges tell him to get a grip. Only Len saves him in the final dance-off, but you can tell he’s on borrowed time. Borrowed time!

TUFFERS AND KATYA
Or, the Battle of Phil’s knee. Lots of hip wiggling and a slightly embarrassing solo turn, and plenty of gurning. Phil is getting lean and mean again, which is nice to see (for me anyway).

JADE AND IAN
I wasn’t sure about the red satin ruffles, but Mr P liked them. They covered a lot of floor, both being tall and all, and there was lots of energy and pizzazz. The ending was some odd thing where Jade did a handstand and pretended to be the Isle of Man flag, and popped out of her dress. Not quite sure which bit was accidental. Judges were very nice about it all, but then gave them rather indifferent points. Ian: tight-lipped.

STRICTLY COME DANCING: ROUND UP

Now, I do have two weeks' worth of notes, but there has been so much going on*, this is going to be a slightly hurried round up of how everybody's doing.

BACK TO THE CHANGING ROOM
Early exits for Richard Dunwoody and Rav Wilding. Dunwoody was very sweet, but looked like he'd rather be digging up Shergar and running him in the Grand National than doing a paso doble. Rav gave it a go, but he was too clunky and a bit bland for the judges and the Great British Public.

So, in alphabetical order

ALI BASTIEN AND SNAKEHIPS FORTUNA
After a lovely waltz in the first week, the Hollyoaks/Bill siren seems to be boringly good and sweet-natured, and she gets on well with Brian's weird eyebrows. Brian still looks like the result of a bizarre gene-splicing experiment between Donny Osmond and John Waters, and his hips are still snakey. Though if we're to believe the tabloids, they're doing more than just dancing...

LYNDA BELLLINGHAM AND DARREN
The first of the oldie-but-hottie ladies suffers from the costume department's concept of what a size 14 lady should wear: whole slabs of sequins and then more sequins, and hair marcel-waved to within a inch of its life. Lynda seems to be the most reluctant dancer of them all. She tries her best, but I'm not convinced that her heart is in it.

JOE CALZAGHE AND KRISTINA AGUILEROVSKA
Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear oh dear. Despite this week's crystal-studded championship belt and a lot of faffing around with Kristina's skirt-that-turns-into-a-cape, this man is DOOMED. It's between Lynda and Joe for who goes next.

MOOMIN AND CREEPIO
Creepio is still putting a brave face on the fact that his latest celeb is neither jailbait nor what one might call a natural dancing shape. But then, that's probably because Moomin is a) Strictly's BIGGEST fan, and b) she ain't half bad. OK, the turquoise fringing during the cha cha was probably a bit much, and we didn't like the duenna look she sported this week, but Moomin has plenty of moxie and chutzpah which might see her through to...oh I dunno...the quarter finals?

ANNOYING GARRY AND ERIN BOAG
Now, you know how it is: the actors who play baddies are often utter sweeties in real life, so it should follow that somebody so annoying in Eastenders would be quite engaging when taken away from his screen wife Minty and the other screechers of Walford. I. Was. Wrong. If he keeps pulling those faces, I may have to invade the dancefloor and slap him myself.

CHRIS HOLLINS AND OLA JORDAN
One of the weirdest combinations of the year. We have Ola in her strange clothing choices, partnered with an early morning sports billy who manages to make a tango look like a jolly good prelude to a lovely evening of playing Risk. He's terribly enthusiastic, and tackles the ballroom dances with great vigour. But then he's oddly sedate in the Latin numbers.

JADE JOHNSON AND IAN WAITE
The judges are unanimous in telling Jade to sort out her shoulders, but she's a nice, tall athletic girl who needs to get a bit of confidence.

CRAIG KELLY AND FLAVIA COMINATCHA
Another weird genetic experiment, this time it's Julian Clary's straight lovechild. Craig's off Corrie, which means I have absolutely no idea who he is. But he seems like a nice boy who can dance a bit. Quarter finals, I think.

ZOE LUCKER AND WOLVERINE
After lots of cunning "oooh she's pretty awful"-type editing and comments from Wolverine in the first week, Tanya Turner (for it is she) turns out to be bloody good at this dancing lark. Even though she giggles uncontrollably when Wolverine tells her to be more sexy.

LAILA ROUASS AND TONY BEAK
Anton's "banter" has got him into a bit of trouble this week (and so it should), and mad Amber from Footba££er$ Wive$ doesn't appear to have gelled with our Tony on the dance floor either. Pity. She's lovely to watch.

PHIL TUFNELL AND KATYA VIRSHILIAS
Whoo! another cricketer! I love Tuffers, but his knees will be the death of him. As will his cheeky chappie charm. The new girl is rather good thoughbut

RICKY WHITTLE AND NATALIE LOWE
Mark's tip for the top is a possible next Lovely Ramps. He's lovely, he's good natured, and he moves like a crawling king snake. He will probably win, and Mark will be a happy man.

JO WOOD AND BRENDAN COLE
Jo is the other glamorous granny, but she readily admits that dancing isn't her thing. She's managed to lean on her rockstar mates to get a couple of half-decent tunes to dance to, but her most amazing achievement is to turn Brendan Cole into a bit of a hero. He's encouraging in rehearsals, and leaps hotly to her defence when Craig Upper-Norwood dares to criticise her fleckles, telling her not to listen " to that idiot from Australia". What is this? We can't have our favourite cockfarmer turning into an alright bloke...

Hopefully, now that the Friday show is no more, and we have the Saturday dance-a-thon instead, normal blogging service will be resumed next week

*(I might be an official Trisha-flicking dolescum these days, but I'm a bloody busy Trisha-flicking dolescum, what with the school run, PTA meetings and house renovations - there's not much room for jobhunting, oh no...).

STRICTLY COME DANCING: SO GOOD THEY HAD TO MUCK AROUND WITH EVERYTHING EXCEPT THE NAME

Autumn's here, and the half-decent tv scheduling has finally kicked off with a new series of Merlin and the TVD team's favourite Saturday night indulgence, Strictly Come Dancing. Woohoo!

Except that if you tuned in on Saturday, you'd have missed half of it already. Because the BBC, in its infinite wisdom, can't help but fuck about with a perfectly respectable format. So now we have...

FRIDAY NIGHT IS BALLROOM NIGHT!!
Yes, that's right. It now starts at 8.30 on a Friday night, when the teenies are tired and fractious after school and couldn't stay awake if you hotwired them to the National Grid. Each celeb now has to learn two dances every week. Friday's dance is a Ballroom number, and the extended Saturday show will be for the Latin dance, several slightly tedious interludes with Brucie's bad jokes and a show dance from the usual suspects. We get to vote on both nights, and then there's a dance-off on Saturday.

NO CAMILLA!
Camilla appears to have decided that sharing a studio with Brendan is not a good thing - well, sharing a universe with Brendan is not exactly a great thing, but poor Camilla has suffered more than most. Maybe she knew that after winning last year's competition, she would have to spend at least five years with a sucession of balding two-left-footed pervs before she got a crack at a decent partner.

We've got two new lady dancers, but more of them later.

ARLENE ON THE ROAD: DARCEY BUSSELL AND ALESHA IN THE HOUSE
The only person who didn't know about Alesha's controversial appointment was my sister-in-law, who spends much of the year in a strict Muslim country with no telly and nothing but a pile of eighteenth century literature for company. Arlene seems to have been sent off around the country searching for dancing talent with Nigel Lythgoe (aka The Man Who Gave Us Myleene Klass). In her place is Former Winner and Goddess no. 3 in Mr P's Pantheon of Goddessness, Alesha Dixon.

Apparently Darcey Bussell (Goddess no. 1 in my dad's Pantheon fwiw) will be joining the judges once they've got rid of all the duffers, so that she doesn't have to ruin her classically trained eyes with clodhoppery.

Alesha did...OK. I mean, I don't think I was the only person in the world who got irritated by Arlene's shoutiness and inept punning. But it would be nice if Alesha didn't bang on about how she knows what the poor slebs are going through, because she felt the same WHEN SHE WON THE SERIES, and got on with some actual judging. Right now it looks like she's been brought in giggle with Bruno.

BOOBWATCH: Motherhood really suits our Tess. She's looking gorgeous in a 1970s Farah kind of way. This week, she's rocking the off-the-shoulder look in pink and purple.


So...the dancers

RAV WILDING AND NEW GIRL Aliona Vilani
Oooh...look at that torso! That's in the Mark Foster league, that is. He's the ex-copper chap off Crimewatch, I believe. Seems nice, if a bit bland. New Girl seems to have played safe and reduced his part to standing still while she drapes herself all over him in an interesting fashion. Len don't like that, and says so. We didn't like her nicking her nan's tablecloth for the rumba either.

ANNOYING GARRY + ERIN (FACE OF) BOAG
Well, his name is really Ricky Groves, but he will always be Annoying Garry to us. He was alright for the waltz and actually had a good pair of feet, but Craig called him a spare part. He tried harder for Saturday's chacha, but "trying harder" seemed to involved making lots of angry goldfish expressions. But it kept them in for another week.

CHRIS HOLLINS AND OLA JORDAN
It's another happy chappy from Breakfast TV. The BBC Breakfast males all seem to be middle-sized men blessed with average good looks and an abundance of perkiness. Chris gets bullied by sports stars for a living, and looks and sounds a lot like my mate Nige. This makes him equally endearing and annoying. He and Ola tango to Sharp Dressed Man by ZZ Top (we did the pointy finger wave on the sofa). It was good, but you really didn't feel that he was going to drag her off to a seedy hotel for a damn good seeing-to after the dance was over. Len criticises his hands: "Man Hands, not GURL Hands!"

JADE JOHNSON AND LOVELY IAN WAITE
After a bit of "who?" we remembered her from the Olympics. She's definitely an athlete with those shoulders, and seems like a nice girl (Chivalrous Len: "Look at them thighs! You could crack walnuts with them!") She says she's only here for the bling, but turns in a good performance for both dances.

MARTINA HINGIS AND MATTHEW CUTLER
Mr P doesn't think she has aged well, but I think he's just saying that to keep me sweet. She can't stop with the goofy grin. Enough of the smiling, Martina! She was quite graceful, but screwed up a few steps and even Mr P stopped drooling long enough to admit that it was a bit on the boring side. Craig gets his first mega-hacky look of the series from Len as he awards her a 4 for the first dance. She did well enough in the dance-off for Craig to vote for her, but it was all in vain. Mr P: gutted. Me: gloaty. Never mind dear, I wonder if Kim Deal could ever be persuaded to do Strictly?

LYNDA BELLINGHAM AND DARREN BENNETT
This year's oldie-but-goodie is the Oxo Mum. She dances the tango to Under Pressure, and judging by the ever-changing looks on her face, it's all a bit too much for her already. Her slightly off-time chacha is not helped by a dress that makes her look like a salmon. I don't think she'll make it to the Bussell rounds, somehow.

ALI BASTIAN AND BRIAN SNAKEHIPS FORTUNA
Never heard of this one, but she's from that bastion of Great TV acting, Hollyoaks. Though she's probably a bit good for Hollyoaks now, and has moved on to The Bill. Really rather good. She's got the right combination of sweet scattiness to win over the Great British Public, and she can dance a bit too.

JOE CALZAGHE AND KRISTINA AGUILEROVSKA
I noticed in my mum's builder's copy of The Sun that tabloid journos are all over these two. Judging by the state of his dancing, I'd be inclined to ask a few questions about what they've been doing for the past few weeks.

Even though there were loads of dancers this week, there are another eight to get through next week, including Tanya Turner of Footba££er$ Wive$, and the lovely Phil Tufnell. Mark hates Tuffers, but his Test Match Special turns make me laugh, and he was a genius spin bowler (shame about the rest of his game, but you can't win 'em all, especially if you play for England).

On Thin Ice

On Thin Ice features Posh Totty Ben Fogle, Posh Sporty Totty James Cracknell, and another bloke called Dr Ed.

Dr Ed replaces Sick Boy Jonny Lee Miller, who wimped out after running the London Marathon with a feeble excuse about acting commitments or something. You haven't been in anything decent since before you were married to Angelina Jolie, Sick Boy. Don't pretend you still have a career.

What are they doing thoughbut? Well, it's officially one hundred years since Scott's catastrophic expedition to the Antarctic, and some weirdo has come up with the idea restaging said tragic catastrophe. As a race. Against the Norwegian equivalent of the SAS and other national teams - probably also full of their national SAS types. Honestly, you'd think there wasn't a war on.

Actually, maybe the fact that our SAS boys are a bit busy right now is why the BBC thought it would be a bloody good idea to send an ex Olympic rower, a TV presenter who likes dogs, and a bloke called Ed instead.

At the start of the "journey" (two weeks ago), Jonny Lee Miller issues the feeble excuse and hops off, making way for an X-factor style call for nutters volunteers to take his place. They whittle it down to two very fit and slightly odd blonde ladies and Dr Ed. Dr Ed wins, possibly because he is a) a doctor and good for emergency frostbite amputations; and b) because the chaps are already married to slightly scary-looking blonde ladies, who also happen to be pregnant. James and Ben probably didn't fancy explaining that one.

Dr Ed is put on a gruelling training regime to catch up with the other chaps, which seems to involve camping in a giant fridge and pulling tyres across the Highlands. Ben falls ill. James thinks he's a big girly wimp. Ben discovers that he has picked up a Flesh Eating Bacteria that is currently chomping through his arm! James says: "Huh!" and strides off into the Scottish twilight, tyre bumping behind him. Ben grows a beard and sits sadly at home while Dr Ed and James become best friends in the big fridge.

Ben gets better again, and rushes to catch up with Dr Ed and James. James growls and points his chin at the horizon. They have all grown beards. Perhaps beards are a good idea in the Antarctic because they trap the air around your face and make it less cold? I don't know, but there don't seem to be many razors down there.

At the start of the "race", we get to see what they're up against, but only the Norwegians are introduced. Yes, that's the Norwegian special forces, from Norway, where it is cold and it snows a lot. The Norwegians seem bloody nice chaps, and Ben gets on famously with them. James growls.

The chaps set a blistering pace for the first day: though I'm not sure how they can tell how far they've come without GPS. How did Scott et al do it? Didn't they just walk around in circles until somebody said: "I'm sure I've seen that iceberg shaped like Lily Langtry before..."

Antartica is cold, white, and appears to be flat, though GIANT CREVASSES can APPEAR SUDDENLY with VERY LITTLE WARNING, which could be DEADLY.(NB: this is the general tone of the narration throughout: it's like Masterchef with snow).

Blistering pace is the correct term, by the way, for it turns out that, while Dr Ed and Ben were very sensible about their feet, stopping and adjusting their footwear when their feet start feeling a bit tingly, James snorted derisively and strode through the pain. At the end of the day, his feet are frozen balls of pus, and poor old Dr Ed has to get busy with the penknife and Savlon. But it means that they have to slow down a bit.

The Norwegians catch up with them on Day 4 or thereabouts, and Ben's delighted to have a lovely chat with the lovely Norwegians. One of the Norwegians says he's going to propose to his girlfriend when he gets home. Ben says "Ahhh!" James scowls.

I fell asleep before the end but apparently James's exhausting pace leaves him...exhausted. By the time they get to the halfway point, it looks like James can't carry on. Oh noes!

Now, I thought this was a three-ep special, but it turns out we have another three episodes. Three episodes of snow, ice, gruesome closeups of blistered feet, red tents against the midnight sun, Ben being lovely and stoic and James howling at the moon. Can't wait...

CRAPPARITIONS

Apparitions is a new high profile BBC drama about an exorcist priest played by Martin Shaw, and it is jaw-droppingly awful and hilarious; mixing the kind of dated Satanic/Catholic horror tosh that went out of fashion with the Omen, with laughably clunky dialogue and every TV cliché you can think of.

Father Martin is, of course, a maverick priest who bucks authority to Do The Right Thing, and plays his character in an identical fashion to every other maverick cop, lawyer, judge, surgeon or consultant on any other TV drama ever. He is supposed to be in charge of filling in application forms for new saints or something, but his old exorcist pal in the Vatican (who you just know is going to die horribly in a couple of episodes time) keeps phoning him up and going “Ooo! Demons, etc!”

Father Martin Shaw also has a nun sidekick whose thankless role is to be the sensible one and make dull, badly written speeches about how he has to stop messing around saving little girls from evil demons and get on with his saint forms. Ten minutes into the show I am thinking of her as Sister Wetblanket. At one point a senior bishop or cardinal or something turns up to tell Fr Martin to stop messing around with his maverick exorcisms, and I half expect him to tell Fr Martin to turn in his badge and his gun cross and his bible.

The plot of the first episode combines LOL’s and Cringes in equal measure. It starts off with Mother Theresa dying (yes, that Mother Theresa!), and there is some talk of her being possessed by demons – wow, way to be really offensive in the first five minutes. At the moment she dies, a little leper boy in her hospital starts spazzing out and having fits – fast forward to the present and he is miraculously cured of his leprosy and has grown up into a hunky doe-eyed trainee priest who hangs around with Fr Martin and Sister Wetblanket. Everyone thinks his cure is a miracle, but HDETP thinks that demons made him hot so he could have lots of sinful gay sex! Occasionally a homeless looking bloke magically appears in his bedroom and talks to him in a growly voice in a foreign language, because as we all know - foreign = SATANIC!!!! The demons tell him that unless he starts getting some hot man2man action, they will repossess his non-leprous complexion. HDETP is thrown out of Priest School for being a gay and sits in a gay bar being tempted to have gay sex, because as we all know TEH GAYS = SATANIC!!!!

Anyway, while all this is going on, an annoyingly precocious little girl appears at the Fr Martin Cave and whines that her dad is possessed by demons. What a bitch, you just know she would have grassed her parents up to the KGB in Soviet Russia for making an unwise quip about grain quotas. FrMartin goes round to the house and finds a copy of Jerry Springer the Opera and a Dawkins book, Gasp!! Because as we all know – atheists = SATANIC!!! There is a failed attempt at an exorcism (with the Vatican bloke on speakerphone LOL – couldn’t he have just txted the prayers to Fr Martin or something) but Evil Atheist Dad starts speaking Satanic Foreign, throws Fr Martin’s stunt double at a wall and then goes off and weeps blood on a bench for a bit.

After a lot of bollocking around, it turns out that Evil Atheist Dad conceived his annoying ingrate brat of a daughter whilst queueing up to pay his respects to dead Princess Diana, to celebrate the fact that he just heard that Mother Theresa had died. Yes, read that again. I’m not making it up. WTF??? What it all boils down to is that the Dad is all Evil and the girl is all Saintly. Whatever. He’s about to kill ingrate child at that very spot in Kensington Gardens, when Fr Martin appears out of nowhere and starts with the exorcising. Foreign Growly Voice Demon Man tells Fr Martin that if he exorcises Evil Atheist Dad, then the “Indian Sodomite” (nice) will cark it. But what is our favourite doe-eyed Indian Sodomite up to? He goes to a gay sauna to get it on – ruh roh. People are always punished for having sex in shitty horror films! He sees some naked bloke in a steam room and thinks he is up for it, but the nekkid man turns out to be Growly Foreign Speakin’ Demon Bloke, who promptly skins Doe Eyed Indian Sodomite alive with a cut throat razor. Ouch! That’s what you get for not wanting to have leprosy! and for not being repressed! and for being a gay character in a shit program!

It is all “to be continued” and next week there are swarms of evil flies (yes, I’ve seen Amityville too, you hacks). I will be watching again, of course, as it is completely hilarious. Meanwhile, the first episode has managed to offend Catholics, gays, atheists, people who liked Mother Theresa, and people who like watching TV shows that aren’t rubbish. Score!!!