The worrying trend of all this year’s Strictly Come Dancing (BBC One) excitement taking place off-screen has continued as ex-footballer Paul Merson received the inevitable red card and departed the contest after a gallant but flailing stint under the glitterball. His departure came at the end of a week dominated by the fall-out from the Wynne Evans / Katya Jones “wandering hand” row and by a bizarre social media spat between contestant Chris McCausland and Apprentice host Alan Sugar over the latter’s claim that Strictly is reliant on “gimmicks”.
The dance floor, in other words, is by far the least engaging place in the Strictly universe this season. That was the case once again as Merson and pro-partner Karen Hauer lost their dance-off against JLS star JB Gill and pro-Amy Dowden by unanimous judges’s decision. Results night is supposed to be a sparkly pressure cooker, yet for the third week running the experts all voted the same way. Where is the tension?
Merson at least went down fighting. His samba to Car Wash by Rose Royce wasn’t a complete wash-out. Plus, he was lucky to catch Gill on an off-night, with the adjudicators judging his jive to Hey Ya! by Outkast to be full of mistakes. Alas Merson failed to capitalise. He couldn’t keep time with the music and after weeks of poor scoring, was for the high jump – or, as judge Motsi Mabuse put it, “they [Gill and Dowden] were clean and readable, whereas Paul’s timing was off”.