I am glad that Harry won. I would have been fine with Chelsee winning as well, as I think they were both very, very good. I think Chelsee probably had slightly harder routines overall.
I intended to post after every show, but a severe lack of time, and annoyance with the first few weeks results put me off. Edwina should not have been the first to go - Lulu "face like it has been smacked with a lemon" should have gone before her, as should Nancy, who was truly, utterly appalling. And Alex Jones should not have been far behind them. I have no idea how Alex got as far as she did, she was poor technically for most of the dances and, to be frank, looked like she didn't want to be there until about week 6. I certainly felt that Rory and Dan, who appeared to be really trying, should have been rewarded with more opportunities to improve. Russell Grant went at about the right time - just before the public tired of him, and when they realised that as enthusiastic as he was (and boy, was he enthusiastic), he wasn't actually very good.
The Wembley show appeared to be mostly pointless, other than as an excuse to raise money for Children in Need, or more likely, suggests cynical old me, to act as an extended trailer for the forthcoming SCD Tour. Which, intriguingly, won't feature Ola and James Jordan. There seems to be a suggestion that their respective celebs couldn't make it - you can see that Alex Jones needs to be on The One Show sofa every night, and that Robbie has other fish to fry, but you'd have thought that there would have been something for them to do. The suggestions from stupid people on the Daily Mail forums who haven't read the story properly, is that they wouldn't watch the show if Ola wasn't in it, and even though they have missed the point entirely, I do wonder how much of an impact not including two very popular and technically exceptional celebs is going to have.
So, to sum up, I was pleased with the overall result, but disappointed with the elimination order. There is, I suspect, little that can be done about this, other than that the Judges fix their scores to try to put the useless people in the "danger zone" of the middle of the leader board. And I'm not sure the judges would be prepared to do that. Also, there needs to be less of Bruce's awful, awful jokes, and more of Claudia, who was mostly woefully underused this year, and missed out on the last weekend altogether. Also, a "round up" episode of It Takes Two on the Sunday evening, to interview the runner up and the winner, and show some highlights and back stage stuff, as it always feels so rushed in the final results show.
Overall then, I was happy with my "guilty pleasure" TV this year, but felt a few things could be tweaked. And Charlie Brooks was by far the best dancer, and therefore a worthy winner of the Christmas Special. And, for thelove of all that is holy, could someone give Anton someone who stands a fighting chance next year, he must be wondering who he has offended at the Beeb to get this much of a run of duds.
