Week Two in the spectacle that is Dancing With The Stars commences with Candy explaining tonight's dances, the Rumba and the Quickstep and with Jason telling his hoary old jokes that he found in a Christmas cracker.
The quickstep is a quick (funny that) energetic dance whilst the rumba is the ‘dance of seduction'. Let's see who has the winning moves.
First up are Temepara and Stefano. Temepara looks like a mini J-Lo with her cute 1920's bob and flapper dress. She and Stefano trip the light fantastic to the tune of ‘Cabaret' and are rewarded with the best score of the evening from the judges, although Paul urges them to ‘get in there quicker' following a long introduction sequence. Lovely leopardess Candy Lane is thrilled with their performance.
Martin and Lauren are next up to perform the rumba. In their intro video Lauren reminds Martin that his arms should be at nipple height. "Where are your nipples?" she queries. Clearly his nipples are not to be found in the usual place and appear to be located more at waist height.
Can you even say nipples on TV? I thought this was a family show. Martin says that the moves are very ‘Timberlake' and he is planning on bringing sexy back, which makes we viewers at home collectively vomit into our Milos.
Martin and Lauren sway and wiggle in their shiny crème de menthe outfits to a strange rendition of Elton John's "Your Song". This seems like an odd choice of song for the dance of seduction. This is a song that talks about moss. Moss may be sexy to botanists but not to the general public.
I don't know too much about dancing, but the rumba appears to be a very unstructured sort of dance and their performance verges on an interpretative piece. The judges are less than impressed and Alison tries to critique their performance in the manner of a Tui billboard, but get's it wrong by saying "Martin Devlin is Justin Timberlake - NOT". Yeah right, Alison.
Tina and Aaron step up to perform the quickstep. Tina has the crazed eyes of a competitive professional. She shoots to impress with an insane upside down thigh-grip flip that she obviously learnt from a ninja, however the judges feel their performance was strained and that looked like she was holding her breath.
This would explain the crazy eyes; she is suffering from oxygen deprivation. Poor Tina has gone snorkelling without her snorkel. Craig describes the routine as too bouncy rather than springy. I didn't know there was a difference but clearly there is and Craig wants more Tigger and less Kanga.
Miriama and Jonny play out a cringe-worthy fake romance in their intro video, trying to tease we naive viewers into believing there is love in the air. What is with the rumba? It just looks like a made up dance to my non-dancing eyes.
It could be the routine out of Flashdance or some other eighties movie. Craig pronounces that it is a ‘bit square' and that they need to invest in their hip action. Invest in your hip action now and reap the dividends in the future, Miriama and Jonny. Alison asks that there be no brushing of the thighs in the future, please.
Cory and Rebecca front up for the quickstep. They look great and seem to perform well. but the judges are in dispute. Brendan describes them as very competent and finds their timing impeccable; however Craig finds the timing questionable but says the energy is incredible.
Isn't there some kind of dance metronome available so we can determine who is right on the timing front? We need to bring the science back to the dancefloor.
Geeling and Brian are sizzling in red and Geeling is determined to spring (not bounce) back from last weeks disappointing result. Brian has brilliantly used Geeling's talents to their advantage and they do a rumba clearly inspired by the classic 80's movie Mannequin. Geeling even has the Kim Cattral plastic pout down.
There is only word to describe it.......TOTALLY AWESOME. Oh sorry that's two words. The judges' definitely like it better than last week and they get a respectable score of 23.
Monty and the newly engaged Nerida are next up for the quickstep. They are soon trotting away like showdogs at Crufts. Walkies Monty!! For their grand finale, Monty spins Nerida around his head as if he was making a pizza.
Alison says it's not ‘hideously bad' which is the most back-handed compliment in existence, and Brendan asserts that Monty ‘looks great in tails', which he does. Their outfits are a vast improvement on last weeks pink mesh nightmare, however it appears sadly that their dancing is not.
Peter and Hayley are the final contenders, dancing to a tawdry jazzed up version of George Michaels' ‘Careless Whisper'. Hayley looks stunning in her Vegas style gold leopard number whilst Peter does his best Antonio Banderas impression. Poor Hayley dances like a woman possessed while Peter barely moves his legs.
Hayley whips her body around so much that her platinum wig is at risk of separating from her head. The dance ends with Peter giving Hayley a very seedy full body wipe. Peter tells the judges he has a dodgy knee which helps explain his stationery performance, but apparently the dance would have still been bad even with two good knees and they get a dismal score.
The votes are tallied and the dancers nervously await their fate. Geeling and Peter are in the final two and going by Peter's performance tonight it is hard to say who will be going home. Yahoo!Xtra viewers voted a whopping 59% for Geeling in our online poll as the contestant who should be eliminated, and in your infinite wisdom you have been proven correct.
Maybe if Geeling had starred in the video for ‘Let's Dance' rather than ‘China Girl' she may have fared better. Or maybe not. So it is with a sad and heavy heart that we farewell Geeling, no more shall we witness her doing the robot. Let's hope she breaks it out at parties.


