This is a lie but I believed it for a whole week: I would have been happy whoever won this year\u2019s Strictly Come Dancing.<\/p>\n
Wait.<\/p>\n
I mean, I would\u2019ve been happy whichever one of these particular three won. Let\u2019s not get carried away. Matt Baker, Pamela Stephenson, Kara Tointon, any one of them could\u2019ve won and whichever one pulled it off, I was certain I would be happy.<\/p>\n
Until the gap between the two shows. Twitter scuttlebutt had it that Pamela was doing well: people trying to phone vote for her seemed to be having more difficulty getting through than others. So much for Twitter, but I realised that in fact I would be very disappointed if she beat Kara.<\/p>\n
Then we came back from the break and Pamela was out<\/p>\n
And I was disappointed again.<\/p>\n
But maybe you don\u2019t want me to detail my minute-by-minute disappointments and satisfactions, you don\u2019t want me to count my blessings or alphabetise my woes. Instead, let\u2019s look at the big disappointment of the night.<\/p>\n
The show dances.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve looked forward to these all week and none of them worked. Pamela\u2019s was the best by a considerable way but it wasn\u2019t tremendous. Kara\u2019s timing was worse than mine and Matt\u2019s had great, great and three times great moments but an hour\u2019s wait in between each one.<\/p>\n
You didn\u2019t hear this because you weren\u2019t here but Angela said it first: the show was wrong to make them do four dances. If they\u2019d given us three and padded out the time with more Take That or something, perhaps there would\u2019ve been chance for the show dances to be polished. <\/p>\n
Yet, despite the highlight of the night being weak, this really was the best final we\u2019ve had in years. Now it\u2019s perhaps easy to see and to say that Kara was certain to win but at 7pm on Saturday night, you did not know. More, there was no Christopher Parker, no Ann Widdecombe. There was no one who seemed to be incorrectly favoured: to this day I smart over Darren Gough snatching the trophy from Zoe Ball back in 2005.<\/p>\n
Grief. Five years ago. I should probably get over that.<\/p>\n
I do think Matt Baker was incorrectly marked or perhaps not incorrectly, more unjustly. His opening dance was a rousing, roaring start and it put him right back in the very top of the frame for me. I have no technical knowledge, no technical skill, I do this by what connects with me somehow and I thought he had it there.<\/p>\n
Then Kara had that same thing tenfold so to give her marks that were close to the heavily criticised Matt seemed wrong. I don\u2019t often disagree with Craig but saying she was better than last time and then giving her the same score had me looking at him. Yes, exactly like that.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll let him off eventually: you know I\u2019m not one to bear grudges. I can\u2019t bear them at all.<\/p>\n
And part of Strictly is its friendliness: writer Ken Armstrong commented on Twitter that: \u201cIf I had to say a difference, I would say that ‘Strictly’ is a good-natured show while the ‘Other One’ is not. There was camaraderie and delight from contestants in the friends they have made. It seemed real.\u201d<\/p>\n
He\u2019s right: it\u2019s one of those observations that seems obvious once it\u2019s been made yet I\u2019d not thought it before. Strictly is built on a spirit that seems to extend out to its audience and I\u2019m going to miss that.<\/p>\n
Because it\u2019s Sunday night and there\u2019s no results show. Tomorrow there won\u2019t be an It Takes Two. You\u2019ll be aware that next Saturday is December 25 when there\u2019s some big quasi-religious event, Doctor Who or something, but there is also a special Strictly at 7pm. <\/p>\n
John Barrowman and Ronni Ancona are among the new celebrity dancers. What did they feel when they were asked? It must be fantastic to get the call from Strictly but then to be effectively told it\u2019s a one-off and you\u2019ll never get the main series, how does that feel?<\/p>\n
And while I\u2019m asking you questions, what will Kara and Artem have to talk about now?<\/p>\n
Myself, I\u2019m going back to blogging about what we write and what we write with, when we can be bothered to write. Strictly is out, my own prattling is back in – starting shortly with my Doctor Who audio. But that\u2019s another story.<\/p>\n
Thanks for the comments and the tweets and the nattering. That\u2019s why I did this on my own blog this year when, for production reasons, it couldn\u2019t continue on RadioTimes.com. <\/p>\n
So, altogether now: keeeeeeeeep nattering.<\/p>\n
William<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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