Dates
Sept-Dec 2014 (13 weeks plus a launch show, 15 couples).
That time period in context
The peak of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa was in October of this year. In May, Glasgow School of Art was damaged by fire (this happened again in 2018). In July, the 2014 Tour de France started in Leeds (West Yorkshire). In September, Scotland voted in the independence referendum (the nos won by 55.3%). After the referendum SNP leader Salmond resigned and was succeeded by Nicola Sturgeon. Many independence supporters stopped paying the BBC licence fee because they felt its news coverage was biased in favour or the union. The Lego Movie was released in this year and Happy by Pharrell Williams was the biggest song of 2014.
Judges
Len Goodman (head judge), Darcey Bussell, Craig Revel Horwood, Bruno Tonioli.
Plus this series had guest judge Donny Osmond in week 3. As well as his musical career, this Osmond had won season 9 of the US Dancing with the Stars in 2009 (pic below).
Presenters
Bruce Forsyth appeared at the launch show but then did not present the main shows for the rest of the series (he just did specials – Children in Need, Xmas). Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman presented both main and results shows (though Zoe Ball replaced Claudia for a few shows when she took absence for family reasons). If the audience already loved funny, fringetastic Claudia (and they did), the family reasons in question made us love her more than ever (friends for the life).
Zoe Ball (It Takes Two).
Addition to format
Around the World week.
A Waltz-a-thon.
Dancers
(celebrities first, professional partners second; couples listed in order of elimination with winners last)
Gregg Wallace and Aliona Vilani
Jennifer Gibney and Tristan MacManus (new pro)
Tim Wonnacott and Natalie Lowe
Thom Evans and Iveta Lukošiūtė
Scott Mills and Joanne Clifton (new pro)
Alison Hammond and Aljaž Škorjanec
Judy Murray and Anton du Beke
Steve Backshall and Ola Jordan
Sunetra Sarker and Brendan Cole
Pixie Lott and Trent Whiddon (new pro, replacing injured Robin Windsor)
Jake Wood and Janette Manrara
Mark Wright and Karen Hauer
Frankie Bridge and Kevin Clifton
Simon Webbe and Kristina Rihanoff
Caroline Flack and Pasha Kovalev
Celebrities we had heard of before the series (and how we knew them)
Scott Mills (radio DJ), Judy Murray (tennis coach and mother of Andy and Jamie, pic below with Anton), Sunetra Sarker (Brookside). This must be the shortest list in this section so far – I was over 40 in 2014, didn’t watch soaps anymore, and I have never watched much food or daytime TV so I didn’t know many of the contestants this time.
Who did we vote for?
I think we chopped and changed a bit and I can’t remember voting for anyone regularly. I think I mainly voted for TV presenter Caroline (and Pasha) and Simon (from the band Blue, pictured below with pro partner Kristina). Both those couples were great to watch.
Celebrities we liked more after the series
Really everyone was likeable (except maybe Gregg Wallace – though we barely saw him he was gone so quickly). In the lower part of the table Scott Mills was this series’ good sport (lobster samba), very funny and had a lovely partner (new pro Joanne). I didn’t know TV presenter Alison Hammond before but she was great on the show (in the Ali and Ali partnership, pic below). Judy Murray was another good sport, aptly enough (but people in Scotland knew that already). All the top dancers (and there were quite a few this time) were impressive and made for a lively competition. We liked them all in one way or another.
Was it obvious who was going to win?
No. It could have been Simon (that Argentine Tango). It could also have been pop star Frankie (that Gravity) or Eastenders’ Jake (that salsa) or even Mark Wright (he seemed popular… he does something on TV, I’m not sure what, and they talked about his famous wife a lot). TV presenter Caroline was amazing from week 1 and certainly we noticed her, though the judges somehow didn’t at first and Caroline and Pasha only got three 7s and a 6 for their cha cha that first week (we’d have given it far more). She was a brilliant dancer and a very worthy winner. She became the first celebrity to score the maximum 40 from the judges in all three of her dances in the final.
Were there articles in the papers moaning about one of the celebrities being good because they’d danced before?
I think Pixie got hit with that particular stick in 2014. The couple did well early on (lots of 9s in the first weeks) and that often sets the whole business off. Also the blonde on blondeness of her and new pro Trent (pic below) did make them easy prey for Barbie and Ken type comments, and worse in Around the World week when their Tulips from Amsterdam costumes where a little verging on the lederhosen (you can imagine where that might lead, in terms of quips about blonde people).
It’s not just tabloids that write about Strictly either – the show became so huge over time (from guilty pleasure to just pleasure, perhaps) that newspapers of all kinds were featuring plenty of Strictly content too. The Guardian, for example, has a hugely popular live blog (that started in 2009). Its comments sections are enormous and as close to a blog party as you’re ever going to get. Its captain, Heidi Stephens, is funny, and a superfan, and writes a fair bit about the clothes on the show, which I like because I am fairly in the dark about fashion (I don’t even know the terminology – so many kinds of sleeves). My only quibble would be that she has a tendency to be rude about Hit List (a music quiz show often on just before Strictly) and we will not take criticism of Hit List, or its presenters Roch’n’Marv, in this house. We love a music quiz (see 2020 – the year that Popmaster saved us) and we love Roch’n’Marv too. Rochelle can be very funny – making them, potentially, the Lucy and Desi of early 21st century British TV. And no, I’m not kidding.
As for Pixie, we saw her in Leeds in 2016 starring in a stage show of Breakfast at Tiffanys (our daughter will try anything with a Strictly connection). The show was pretty dire (it was advertised to the musicals/Strictly crowd but it only had 4 songs and a good chunk of the audience actually walked out, loudly, before the interval). It was stilted and based more on the book (which is a bit grim) so it wasn’t a huge surprise that the show wasn’t exactly a feel-good fiesta but that wasn’t Pixie’s fault. She sang her 4 songs beautifully and we liked her.
But back to 2014. Caroline Flack (above doing that Charleston) had danced before (studied dance even, I seem to remember) but somehow the nasty press either missed or chose to miss all that at the time I think. Sadly, that same press turned their focus on Caroline at a later date with properly tragic consequences. Anyone who buys those papers or magazines that continually lay into people for their looks or their private lives, shame on you. Liverpool’s campaign Don’t Buy the Sun has the right idea about this subject. Don’t buy ’em, don’t click on ’em either.
Did it matter?
The stuff about Pixie probably did affect her chances in the competition but it pales into insignificance compared with other press issues (see above and elsewhere in this series of posts).
Was there an obvious “shouldn’t stay in long but did” contestant?
No. Though Mark Wright did better than expected perhaps. His pro partner Karen is another long-term favourite in this house so we’re always pleased to see more of her.
Shock exit?
I actually wrote the words “shock exit!” in my diary when Pixie went out (but maybe I was having a wee joke with myself about how every year they use the same phrases and sometimes they’re apt and sometimes they’re really not). She got pretty far and there were lots of good dancers that year. You could say “define shock”…
We were surprised when Jake went out as we had thought he would make the final (pic below with pro Janette).
The story of the series
The Scott Mills’ lobster routine and the arrival of la Clifton (sister of le Clifton, she beat him to the trophy, coming soon…). Here they are in less watery wear.
Judy Murray flying at Blackpool. She wasn’t a great dancer but she really tried and she wasn’t one of Anton’s disarsters because she was laughing with it all, not being laughed at (nobody laughs at Judy, eyes of steel).
As already mentioned, there were a lot of great dances this season and many of those dances turn up regularly in “best of” shows and lists.
Finally, Caroline and Pasha doing some absolutely amazing dancing and, like Louis Smith in Series 10, a really impressive showdance (there have been some limp ones over the years). Caroline was a joy to watch in those last weeks – a total star on the dancefloor.
And our family - what was going on with us at the time?
Around the time of this series we were still fostering – though our longer term “placement” (the second wee boy mentioned last time) moved on in early October. Mark’s Dad, Allan, had died earlier that year so we took a little time after that to (a) catch our breath and (b) give some time to his Mum, Isobel. We had a little autumn holiday in Edinburgh with her, where she and Heather saw the stage show Top Hat (though Strictly’s Tom Chambers from Series 6 wasn’t in it by that point).
Heather, now 14, was in another local panto (playing the mirror in Snow White, wheeled on in a wardrobe, clinging on for dear life, see below). She got another (charity shop bargain) dress for another school Xmas dance (these dances are a big thing in Scotland). She had one new lovely friend (always her favourite set up really) and that friend (and some great teachers) made high school totally bearable, even lovely at times (she could have done without all the dodgeball and shouting though to be honest).
We did some respite fostering (a weekend here and there for other carers) while we thought about what the future held for us. In amongst the now obligatory Strictly, Mark and I watched some other things. We had the “do we stop paying the BBC licence fee” conversation referred to earlier in this section (we voted “yes” to Scottish Independence) but I argued to keep paying (and we still do, just, even though their Brexit coverage, their immigration coverage and their Tory pandering, have all tested our commitment). I mainly use the BBC for radio but Strictly has been a big factor in continuing with the licence fee (plus, on my part, a feeling that the political right have taken over so much of the BBC precisely with this in mind – to destroy it, never mind all the great programmes it has made, and still makes – leaving us culturally adrift, which is their favourite situation of course). In 2014 Netflix’s Orange is the New Black was still a favourite of mine and I watched it again recently when I had covid (so much great acting, so many great characters and, my favourite detail, the baggy prison underwear, which is so unusual for TV where most women characters wear perfect matching sets of catalogue-ready undies, no matter what kind of giant drama they’re meant to be involved in). OITNB made stars of many actors, not least the tremendous Laverne Cox who played Sophia (and something I only learned getting all these posts together was that Cox has an identical twin brother, M Lamar, who portrayed the pre-transitioning Sophia, as Marcus, in the show). And if you haven’t watched the documentary Disclosure: Trans Lives on Screen (featuring and exec. produced by Laverne Cox) I would urge you to head that way (also on Netflix). Watching Disclosure made me very glad I’d never seen the film Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. My goodness, Jim Carrey has been in some right old shite.
If you want to read any of the previous posts just click Older Post below till you get to the one you want. Or use these links: Series 1, Series 2, Series 3, Series 4, Series 5, Series 6, Series 7, Series 8, our Dancing with the Stars interlude, Series 9, Series 10 and Series 11. Back tomorrow for Strictly Family – Series 13 (and that is autumn 2015 so we are into the last quarter... nearly...).
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