Strictly Come Yawning

Strictly Come Dancing preview

I'm disappointed. I love SCD and am usually in a fever of excitement every Saturday after eagerly watching It Takes Two during the week. But this year, I'm missing some of those programmes and not bothering to watch the recording. It seems as if SCD has become a little boring.

I think it's this year's celebrities. Goodness they're all so earnest. So dedicated! So self-effacing. Andrew, when dinged over a bad performance, agreed with the judges! Where's the spark? All of them are on wretched "journeys" and there doesn't seem to be any of the usual tension or rivalry. At the start the show tried to manufacture rivalry between Austin Healey and Tom Chambers. But both are too affable. So we don't even have the usual "must-do-well-at-all-costs" aggressive competing from the athletes. Healey seems to do it effortlessly and Mark Foster was as gentle as a lamb.

Zzzzzz.

Even the business of John Sergeant being kept in by the public has been remarkably benign. He hasn't yet put the judges in the position of having to get rid of a good dancer, which really made things hot up last year. And he isn't as screamingly bad as Kate Garraway or Fiona Phillips. Sometimes hie scores are faintly respectable.

This week they're all doing a different dance so I can't remember who's doing what except that Tom is doing a paso doble, Cherie is doing a samba and Christine an American Smooth.

I predict that John and Heather will be at the bottom of the table and the dance-off will be between Heather and Andrew.