Ola Jordan: she's my favourite
I gave up watching Strictly Come Dancing halfway through this seventh series, for a variety of reasons, not least my lack of time to write a post with so many embedded videos every week. But I'd also grown tired by how the behind-the-scenes turmoil had overwhelmed the show, thanks to a run of bad luck (injuries, 'flu, arrest), controversies (ageism, racism), and preventable mistakes by the program makers (Alesha Dixon replacing Arlene Phillips, the insufferable runtime, bad scheduling to compete with X Factor.)
Recently, things were compounded by the addition of ballet dancer Darcy Bussell to the judging panel for the last few weeks of competition. Her arrival as a "special guest judge" throughout December sounded like a stupid idea when it was first mentioned months ago, and so it proved true. Dancing With The Stars only has three judges, the British original now needs five?! Really? No, it doesn't. A fact proven when only four of the five judges were asked their opinion, in rotation! Even worse, Darcy has the opposite problem to Alesha -- she has a laudable dance background and expert knowledge, but lacks any palpable charm or enthusiasm. Plus, she rates the dances too highly. Or did someone tell her to whip out 9's and 10's to make it seem like the celebs deserved to be in the semi-final?
And that's been another problem this year: the celebs have been a weak bunch (fame and talent wise), and they've all appeared less interested than past contestants. I'm sure Ricky Whittle and Ali Bastian aren't exactly slouches at rehearsal, but compared to previous series they don't look anywhere near as committed as their predecessors have been. So, it's been a bad year for SCD, and the usual salve of seeing Ola Jordan shimmying around the dancefloor hasn't been enough to keep me tuning in.
