Strictly Come Dancing - A Dig Too Far

One of the many reasons why I watch 'Strictly Come Dancing' is that it's not 'The X Factor'. That's no slight on the quality of the singing, but if I wanted to see the public humiliation of the deluded, pre-planned waterworks, well-rehearsed shock expressions and evolving storylines I'd switch over to ITV. So when I see people who aren't professional dancers getting ridiculed for the sake of a sound bite, as happened on Saturday, it makes me angry.

I have a lot of time for Craig's technical insights and for the bum-on-couch likes of me who knows nothing about dancing, I know that if someone gets a high score from him they really have delivered the goods. But I think that he defeats himself by getting too bitchy with the contestants. Make the point about what they're doing wrong by all means, but there's a way of making it without reducing people's self-esteem to the size of a cufflink.

'Strictly...' isn't all about who's going to win: sometimes the biggest victories are when the people who struggle the most find it within themselves to be the best that they can be. Jo isn't going to be top of the leader board any week, but she's a trier and I think there's better in her. It won't manifest itself, however, if Craig gets as personal as he did on Saturday, saying that she danced like a kangaroo. Man, she's the oldest contestant there and her marriage ended last year, what exactly do you think you're doing for her confidence saying things like that? Brendan can take the intense and broody thing too far, but he was totally right to turn Jo around and escort her backstage. And huge credit to Bruce for calling Craig on it, too. Someone needs to have a word (or another word). For me, Craig's getting a bit too Cowellesque.

That left a very bad taste in the mouth, but thankfully the waltzes improved the atmosphere. I thought Jade and Ricky's dances were brilliant and they both deserved their highest scores of the series so far. In terms of professional partners, I think they both have the perfect people, Ian and Natalie, to bring their natural talent on and they're the two contender couples I'm most interested in watching right now.

As for the jive, it isn't one of my favourite dances - bit too madcap - and I thought that it was interesting that of the seven couples that performed it, four got bad scores, one got a so-so score and two got high scores. Jo aside, it seemed easier to get higher points for the waltz, or is that just me? I think the jive is going to cause problems for people again - not Zoe and James but others - further along in the competition.

I hope next week's dance-off is more of an event than Saturday's - the shock of seeing Zoe and James there aside, it was a complete anti-climax! I really felt for Joe and Kristina having to dance against one of the best couples when the result was a foregone conclusion. Can you imagine if through some freak voting someone like Ali and Brian had to face off against Zoe and James? Now that would be an ending, and one we might get yet.

Harry Guerin