Strictly Come Dancing Show Introduction, Launch Show Airs This Saturday – Guest Blog By Nathan
Hey All!! Give a PureDWTS hearty welcome to Nathan from the UK!! Nathan will be guest blogging for us weekly about “Strictly Come Dancing” this season. Below he introduces himself and writes of the differences between our version and the UK’s version of Dancing With The Stars and what we can expect. Nathan has a unique charm and a UK sense of humor. So, watch out! lol THANK YOU, NATHAN! We’re looking forward to your fun blogs every week for Strictly Come Dancing and here’s to Saturday’s Launch Show!
Nathan:
So, Erm, Hello. This is my first ever blog so treat me well you lot haha. I am Nathan, 21 and I am a dance addict. Oh wait …this is Pure not Dancers Anonymous. haha Although Pure is sometimes as good as Betty Ford’s. Some of you may know me as @thengp12 on twitter or as Nathan UK from the comments section down the bottom. I have been a Strictly fan for what 11 years now, since about half way through series 1. I have been a DWTS fan ever since I saw Jennifer and Derek’s Paso Doble on a channel called Watch. This is a channel in the UK that used to broadcast DWTS from seasons 9 to 13. So I will start giving you a flavour as to the couples I have supported on DWTS over the seasons:
Season 13 JR and Karina
Season 14 Katherine and Mark
Season 15 Sabrina and Louis then Apollo and Karina then Melissa and Tony
Season 16 Zendaya and Val
Season 17 Jack and Cheryl
Season 18 Charlie and Sharna then Meryl and Maks
Season 19 Sadie and Mark and Alfonso and Witney
Season 20 Noah and Sharna
Right onto my real passion…Strictly come Dancing! The only DWTS I get to watch on my TV. Unlike DWTS, SCD does not find ways to make me psychotic haha.
So why am I here, you ask? Vogue has allowed me take over Pure once a week to do a Strictly blog. Ooo how exciting. I plan to do this every on Wednesday or Thursday. This is my final year at the University, but, I WILL MAKE THIS WORK. FOR THAT I HAVE THE POWER. 😀
So what are the differences between SCD and DWTS?
Well Len will continue to judge, and we have a Bruno, total b***h (not really. he is really cuddly and affectionate backstage), and a part time Drag Queen as a judge called Crag Revel Horwood who has issued 1s… YES ONES before. Our resident token woman judge is Prima Ballerina, a woman who had the longest standing ovation in Ballet history and 2012 London Olympics (the best olympics ever) closing act Darcey Bussell.
The show is hosted by two female presenters: Tess Daly (Tom role) is a consummate professional who is virtually infallible although slightly dumb. The other is Claudia Winkleman (Erin role) who is a hoot and so hilarious. She looks like a character out of a Tim Burton film and who would be played by Helen Bonham Carter.
We do two dance styles not seen on DWTS. One is called American Smooth. This is any Ballroom Dance, but, only 40-60% is done in Ballroom Hold and lifts are allowed. The other style is Charleston. When done right, the Charleston is not only a show stopper, but, a complete series stopper. The dances are 90-100 seconds long. We have 15 couples and the season plays out for 13 weeks. At Week 9, the studio will get a rest and we will be upping sticks and moving north to the Mecca of Ballroom “Blackpool Tower Ballroom”. Bar the final and Halloween, this is the best show of the series. A must watch I say. The Ballroom is massive about 2 or maybe 3 times the size of the DWTS Ballroom.
In the future, I aim to do a best of and worst of blog where I show you the best of every dance style and the worst of every dance style. I might do that closer to the time of Week 1 as I don’t want to front load now. Every Wednesday all the songs and Dance styles for the following Saturday will be published in the blog as well. I may put all that dances up also (not just the Gleb and Tristan’s), so you all get a better sense of the greater competition. Also, after Christmas (probably between Christmas Day and New Years Day), I will blog about the Christmas Special and write a closing Blog. I might do power rankings and comments about costuming and music, but, that is if TPTB allow me to.
So, all I have to say is…. have fun on your Saturday afternoons starting on the 25th of September. MARK YOUR CALENDARS! It will be in the evening for me and I will probably be eating a burger, hotdogs, pizza, fish and chips, curry or Chinese as they are the only dinners I have on Saturdays. I will either be pissed off if my football team (Gillingham FC) lose, be elated if they win or indifferent if they draw, but, I digress. I hope I have not missed anything.
REMINDER:
Launch Show
Saturday 5th September
7:15 BST 2:15 ET 1:15 CT 12:15 MT 11:15am PT
Want to watch past seasons of “Strictly Come Dancing”? See Strictly Come Dancing You Tube.
Welcome Nathan, thanks for taking the time to blog SCD for us!
Welcome Nathan from a fellow Brit, I’m glad Vogue mentioned about your UK sense of humour, because looking at the list of couples you supported over the seasons, you havin a giggle mate, season 15 Melissa & Tony, mate don’t broadcast that or you would be detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure!!!! anyway good luck with the blog, I seriously think you would do a blinder of a job, every thing will be Hunky-dory!!
Oh I’m so looking forward to these blogs. I’ve been watching Strictly online since Series 11 and have always wanted to discuss it with others!
Now I get to watch along with you, Vogue and others so that’s very exciting!
Can’t wait for the launch show. I’m ready to find out who dances with who. Here’s hoping Tristan and Gleb get good partners 😛 I did notice that, from the ladies this series, none of them stand out as “possible bad dancers”. Gonna be a fun season that’s for sure.
Welcome Nathan!!!!! Thank you for all of your hard work for us. Really looking forward to your blogs.
Yay for an SCD thread in Pure!
That said though, not very enthusiastic with the cast this year. It improved with the latter reveals but overall not very interesting tbh. I know Peter Andre the most and I don’t even like him. My earliest favourites now are Helen George, Ainsley Harriot and Jamelia. For the pros, hoping for no more young gorgeous hot ladies for Pasha – give him Katie or Carol! More of a wishful thinking but hopefully the Cliftons both get eliminated on the first few weeks – can’t stand any of them. And last, whoever she get partnered with, I hope Natalie wins!
Oh, and Charleston has been done multiple times on DWTS lol, Nastia even did it last season. I would LOVE to see Derek and Mark’s interpretation of the American Smooth though. Either way, looking forward for your weekly posts Nathan!
Looking forward to your blogs – thanks so much 🙂
Welcome Nathan!!! I’ve been a Strictly fan since series 8 when Kara Tointon won. I’m glad that Pure has given the you the opportunity to give us some insights on to SCD!!!
Super excited to read these blog posts! And if you live tweet about the show, I’ll have to give you a follow on Twitter!
So stoked that i can discuss my second favorite show SCD on my favorite site Pure with all you beautiful people! Thanks mate!
& if anyone willing to know the partnership spoilers {like who is partnered with whom?} please let me know; i can post it here. Looking forward to your blogs, Nathan.
I can’t say my expectations are high going into this series. Been watching since series 2 (when I was probably 10 and nobody else I knew watched) and this cast makes me sad, it really does.
@Daniel I’m with you on Helen George, Ainsley and Jamelia. Helen’s eyes are mesmerizing and she definitely is gorgeous. Ainsley looks like he’s gonna be a hoot and I have a feeling Jamelia may be a great dancer.
I’ll also add that for whatever reason I’m getting good vibes from Anita Rani and Iwan Thomas. Gonna keep an eye out for those two.
Also hoping Natalie can shine with a good partner. She’s one beautiful woman and dancer.
Awesome!
Anita is a very charming, naturally graceful woman, and I have high hopes for her. The rest I either don’t know that well or don’t like much.
You all have me so excited. Thanks for all of your fun comments. Here’s to Saturday’s launch party. We’ll be posting a new post at that time so you can discuss it afterwards if you like.
As always – thank you Vogue!!!!!!
YW and THANK YOU! I’m so excited!! I just hope we can VOTE too? Kind of confused right now for how we vote?
BTW Joanne is out for the season (but not out of ITT which is weird because talking isn’t really her forte from what I’ve seen,) if that’s what you mean by the Clifton’s, but Karen is newly Cliftonised so there are still 2. I’ve never minded Kevin or Karen, but Kevin definitely needs to be challenged this year. Certainly the only major problem with Frankie, her flatline personality, he never really fixed. She started boring but very competent, and she ended boring but very competent.
I could be mistaken but I THINK us Americans cannot vote. At least I haven’t been able to in past seasons.
Maybe there’s a way we can vote and I just don’t know of it but sure would be nice if we could vote.
It sure would be!!
the only dream pairing I have this season (fingers crossed) is Jeremy and aliona and Peter and otlie. I kinda want aliona gone early lol.
You’re right, we’ve seen FAR too much of Aliona over the last two series with her going out first in both…
Thank you for the responces
She is super talented but I can’t get past her attitude. I kinda love how she has had early exits the past two seasons so I see her less on the show. Basically she reminds me of female Val or Louis.
I wasn’t going to post here but I’m going have to stick up for my girl Aliona. She’s been treated with discontempt by the producers ever since she won with Harry Judd. I despise the Clifton’s and they are probably the reason I didn’t really watch the show last series, if I ever saw producers pet Kevin in the flesh I’d have to refrain myself from punching his lights out.
Like Spence above I won’t spoil the pairings on here in case of people watching the cast reveal, but Vin if you want Aliona gone first then your set to be disappointed I’m afraid. 🙂
The cast is underwhelming tbh but like DWTS it’s hard to find celebs after so long on air. Very male top heavy with a load of middle aged female duffers (Carol, Katie, Anita, Jamelia.) Daniel O’Donnell will be this year’s Kate Garraway/John Sergeant/Ann Widdecombe act. I guess Jeremy or Anita will go home first but I really hope Jeremy can hang in there as I like his radio two show and he’s a nice guy.
She got someone good…..ugh. As much as Kevin is a show off I still like his personality better. In regards to aliona, I still can’t get over her reaction to getting the chef last time. She looked annoyed as hell and he really looked like he wanted to enjoy his time on the show but it just was kinda sad that she was just so annoyed by it.
Thanks Nathan for taking on the task of keeping us informed. I can tell already this is going to be a journey, interesting comments. I have watched DWTS since day 1, but only watched SCD a few times to see Tristan. So it will be interesting to see how it goes, hoping for good partners for Gleb and Tristan. I know Gleb so he will be the one to watch for me, also like Tristan. Gleb is so much fun and loves what he does, he is very passionate and caring. Let’s get this show on the road, time for some serious dancing. I was told we cannot vote here and that makes me sad as I had fun voting on DWTS Russia. Vogue has been a life line for us, she stays on top of all the dancing news….thanks to her, also.
Sorry forgot to ask, where can we watch the Launch Party…Saturday?
Well they record the results show about an hour to 2 hours after the live performance show finishes, so it would have to be quick, but everyone in the UK with a BBC account gets 5 free votes, and I can’t see me using all of mine, so maybe that could be arranged :p
On the subject of pros, Joanne was the only one I disliked last year. Janette proved herself with Jake, although I HATED Jake, while Karen has grown on me consistently since her trainwreck debut, and although Kevin has floated into the last 2 finals on easy mode I don’t remotely dislike the guy. My guess would be that Ola will be getting hammered this year after the asinine decision last year to train for The Jump while still a troupe member on Strictly while Aliona and Natalie need good men to work with after the last few years. The men might well not break their patterns. Pasha will get the best looking woman, as he almost always does, Kevin won’t be challenged, Anton will get a nothing to match his potential and Tristan will be the personality but won’t get a good enough dancer to show his skill.
Awww, thanks Julie!!!xxx
And here are a couple of links that hopefully will work.;
http://tvpc.com/Channel.php?ChannelID=3
http://www.filmon.com/tv/filmon-usa-live-tv
I think I’m going to start watching Strictly now. Too much drama on DWTS from the Fam bam. I guess I have to start catching up on YouTube. Thanks for the links,Vogue.
Nathan, thanks for doing this! I’ve been watching Strictly from this side of The Pond since 2011 and look forward to sharing the experience with some of our friends here on Pure.
I’m thrilled that Gleb has joined Tristan on Strictly. Tristan still seems to be the go-to guy for non-contenders (sorry but I think it’s an unconscious anti-Irish bias). However, I have a feeling Gleb will appeal to the UK audience and the producers might be willing to throw him a contender to see if it leads to anything.
For me, it’s easier to go into Strictly with an open mind since I rarely know any of the celebs. Of course, I have developed preferences among the pros so some bias is unavoidable.
As for voting, it is possible for those outside the UK to vote but it takes some commitment. You have to use a VPN or SmartDNS proxy service to get past the geo-restrictions on the BBC and you have to watch the show live because (as Mr. A says) the voting window is very narrow. So unless you really adore a couple and are determined to give them support, I’m not sure it’s worth the effort. Some series, I vote, most of the time I just enjoy watching the show.
I wouldn’t worry that much about voting either, you can usually trust UK voters to get it right and if they don’t then normally the dance off keeps the good dancers away from early eliminations. Both the last two SCD winners were in the bottom two dance off at one point, so it really is more about how you finish rather than where you start. However there is always one terrible dancer that makes it around two thirds of the way through but they normally go out around Blackpool week.
Is Helen actually known for having dancing experience? She looks like she could be a Pixie Lott-level of ringer to me. Ainsley Harriott is amazing, and I actually see (and hope) Jamelia will pull off a Jade Johnson – magnetic on Latin but sophisticated on Ballroom. They’re my favourites as of now, though I also looking forward to the others, especially Anita (who struck me as a great Ballroom dancer a la Laila and Sunetra) and Iwan (if any male celebs will surprise, my bet is on him).
Speaking about pros, yes mate I’m talking about Kevin and Karen. I actually think they were adorable at some point (Kevin – first few weeks with Susanna, Karen – with Dave) but now literally everything they did annoyed me. Janette is adorable but I’m tired of seeing her hurled/thrown in like every single group dances. Natalie is amazing and was still robbed for the win with Ricky, end of discussion. Surprised Ola, Brendan and Aliona decided to stick around considering they barely give a flying fuck last year. The latter’s choreography is sometimes questionable, but she did choreographed Harry’s Quickstep and Viennese Waltz so I’m cool.
Yay! Delighted to see a Strictly thread here. Thanks Voguerista! Hope Gleb and Tristan have good years. I still can’t believe they got Gleb too! Though I’ll miss Trent. I really liked him a lot – so sweet and laid back. But Gleb is delectible and sweet as well, and Trent joined a road-show Puttin’ on the Ritz that has Robin Windsor with either Anya Garnis or Kristina Rihanoff, so maybe that will work out for Trent and his wife.
I love the lineup as much as always and also all the judges, including Len. I even like the two female hosts and hope they stay with that, unless they promote Anton (to either host or judge.) I even like Kevin, Aliona, Anton, and Kristina (mostly)! And most of the pros, though I’m not that keen on Janette or Karen but maybe they’ll grow on me. Last season, I didn’t think Joanne did too well so I’m not surprised they dropped her as a regular pro, though I feel sorry for her. And after Brendan’s lousy behavior he does NOT deserve a good partner – but guess he’s just one of the favored ones, what can you do?
On with the show!
Wow, so happy to see a SCD thread at Pure! Welcome Nathan, and many thanks to the Pure mods as well. Looking forward to the start of both SCD and DWTS.
Brendan’s lousy behaviour? What happened?
Those pairings are actually decent (they revealed them) and all I can say is: Jeanette has a really good shot this year and pasha has a challenge for once.
Hi Mr A – last year Brendan had a lovely lady named Sunetra Sarker (I think that’s right) – who’s on a popular medical-type show called Casualty in the UK. He wasn’t happy with her and it showed, because she wasn’t one of the front-runner women – there were 3 ringer types: Pixie, Frankie and Caroline (who won.) It appeared he wasn’t happy that he didn’t get one of those three, and lots of people noticed. He’s been on every season and has gotten a bit too entitled imo.
I was so gutted with Brendan’s attitude last season that i have started to dislike him now. He looked uninterested most of the times as he knew he will not win with Sunetra and thus was not even trying. I felt bad for poor Sunetra who was such a sweetheart, if she was partnered with someone else (maybe Robin?), i am sure we could have seen more growth from her as a dancer. Brendan got a great partner this season, but i am so not over his last season’s attitude yet.
How do you guys know the partners already? Can you fill me up please?
#Jamie just search “scd pairings” on Twitter search and you’ll find em. I won’t post the pairings here since it’s a huge spoiler, but if anyone wants to go ahead then. I love spoiler so I don’t mind lol.
The pairings are surprisingly the ones I’ve hoped – nice one for Aliona, this instance, and Brendan still get one that could excel here and there. The new pros are also paired accordingly, and I’m beyond happy Natalie got him – please let this be her win! She has never won before and I know how much Strictly HATE to have the same pro winning more than once 😛
About Brendan – he is my second favourite pro ever (behind Ian Waite), but I too will say that he was just so… distant, to say the least, with Sunetra last series. I feel bad mainly for Sunetra because she seemed to be so eager to have the experience – only to have Brendan clearly wishing he had gotten Frankie/Pixie/Caroline instead. No matter when he is at his most evil (and picture perfect at the same time) with Kelly, disgusted with Lulu or surprisingly sane with Sophie, Brendan has always been a joy to watch for me, last series was the first time I wasn’t feeling him much. Hopefully he’ll bounce back this year.
Oh, and I actually love Ola’s reactions when her partners were revealed – I’m wondering her reaction this time getting him.
I read somewhere ola was not happy with her partner and wanted someone else. And the entire time I thought James was the one with an attitude lol.
Hi Nathan,
Thanks to you and Vogue for organising a place to discuss the strictly buzz. As a UK resident and fan of Strictly since Series 1, I am so excited to have a chance to discuss the show with people on pure!
Will post my reactions to the launch show on the other thread – but just wanted to say hi to everyone – whereabouts are you a student Nathan? Like you I discovered DWTS on Watch – started watching Season 5 and fell in love with the glitz and glamour of the US show.