EPISODE ONE:Eight new celebrity’s danced their first waltz's and cha cha's on Saturday night past (August 5th) when the second season of Strictly Come Dancing premiered on SABC2.
A couple of Season 1’s dancing partners are back, all four judges have returned (sitting in exactly the same positions) and the same two creepy hosts somehow managed to wangle their way in too.
From the first moment I clapped eyes on Ian and Sandy in Season 1 I’ve been convinced that their shiny, grinning faces are waay better suited to starring in a horror flik (possibly about a couple who own a motel that nobody ever gets to book out of).
There you have it though, they’re back so I’m obviously the only one who’s as freaked - haha! - that’s actually not strictly true - I just remembered - dancing-celeb Dingaan was very creeped out, yelling out "liar", when Ian said he was brilliant.
Despite this rigour in between I had an enjoyable, chilled time seeing the couples do their thang for the first time and thought they all managed quite well considering there’s no gimme-gimme million bucks up for grabs for the winner.
Everything twirled off with schmodel and cheerleader Babalwa and her partner Thabo doing the waltz after introducing themselves. At first I thought Babs needed a slap for the way she went on about how gorgely hott and blonde she is but then I changed my mind ‘cos at least she wasn’t being fake.
I thought this extended into her dance and that she did a good job – looking too balletic at times for my liking, but she gracefully succeeded in showing up just how clunking past schmodel Claudia Henkel was.
After them was Feeesh and his partner Hayley who couldn’t stop rubbing her hand up and down his chest, both during their dance as well as when they were talking to Sandy.
If you ask me he was so useless and did hardly anything only because it's the way he wanted it - out of stress about what his soccer cronies would say if he’s fab. I don’t for a moment believe that a soccer player can’t both dance and act like a pro so I reckon he needs to get over whatever jock image troubles he’s got going on pronto.
Kwaito singer Tamara Dey who followed him with her hyperactive partner Brandon had a good communion with the audience I thought and Freedom and his Mary Martin’s Cha Cha was defs the best dance of the night.
I wasn’t surprised that Freedom did so well – that slight, twiggy body of his looks as if he’s a born dancer and he’s got an excellent partner in Mary.
The way she snap-snaps her head and different body bits around as if she’s in the middle of a dance even when she’s not dancing is hysterical and I’m pleased she’s guaranteed of going further than she did with Baby Jake.
Speaking of whom – I found it fascinating how both Ian and the judges felt it was fine to make fun of the Jakester now that he’s not around to knock them out and also how this contrasted with their response to Grethe Fox who did nothing too.
I couldn’t believe the way they all embarassingly went on and on about her age, rubbing in how “mature” she is when nothing about her dance had anything to do with how young or old she is. They obviously weren’t paying any attention to the lusty-raunchy stare her partner Harold kept giving her.
Grethe and him (he partnered Michelle last season) danced fifth and from what I could work out the obstacle she’s facing is about her being a perfectionist who needs to get things so right she spends too much time trying too hard and doesn’t just let go and trust herself.
Next up, dancing the Cha Cha, with his partner Hayley II, was Riaan Venter who surprised me most. The way he’s such a splitting image of James Dalton, wearing his hand-me-downs had me convinced he’d be as un-coordinated but he managed really well considering I thought.
His 14 kg loss he’s got going on could have something to do with it and hopefully by next week he’ll have a waist line to do more jiration types of things.
I was also quite surprised by Jeannie D. For some reason I thought she was gonna be very butch – it’s the whole big deal about her husky voice but she was quite good and seemed sure about what she was up to.
I liked that she insisted on her own wrong music and that her partner Anthony has no say in matters. I think she needs to look at the way she puts her head out and back sort of thing though - she did that a lot.
Finally, dancing the Cha Cha in eighth was Dingaan who was permanently annoyed in between glancing over at his partner Phemelo in the quick moments to check out what exactly was going on.
The pair of them ended up not doing too badly though, getting a final score of 25 which put them in second position together with Babs and Thabo.
If you’d like to check out the final overall results for the episode you’ll find them on the Strictly Come Dancing Showpage which you can access
here (opens in new window).
Each weeks leaderboard will be added to the page to keep you updated and also as a record of who did what when in later weeks. As you’ll see all the voting numbers are there too in case you need this info and I’d recommend adding the page to your favourites so that you have easy access to it when you need it. This you can do by clicking the link directly beneath the title. You have to be a TVSA member to do this – if you aren’t one yet, signing up is free and easy.
When you go down the show page you’ll see you can also access all of the dancers so be sure to go crazy rating them according to how good or useless you think they are and of course don’t forget to
rate the show.