Tonight’s results show began as always with a review of last night’s performances and was then followed by professional dancers Hayley Holt, Kristina Rihanoff and Brian Fortuna performing a stunning dance to Walk This Way, originally by Aerosmith. Being newcomers to the show, it was interesting to see them performing individually and without their amateur celeb partners, and they certainly can dance!

Soon after, we learned from Tess that next week, the boys must perform either a jive or a tango. As a yardstick by which the couples should measure their performances next week, Jill Halfpenny and Darren Bennett – the winners four years ago – showed us once again why it is that Jill became the first contestant to get a score of 10 from all four judges and why she won!

Despite having had a baby in the intervening time – Harvey Reece – Jill’s jive was a joy and every bit as great as the performance that saw Jill crowned the winner. The couple danced to Elton John’s I’m Still Standing and at the end of the performance, the couple received a standing ovation from the studio audience and judges.

We were then treated to a further display of ‘this is how it’s done’ by all the professionals who danced a tango to the tune of Michael Jackson’s Beat It. They were truly impressive and moved like they were being remotely controlled by precision robots!

After that breathtaking dance, Bruce caught up with a couple of the celebs supporters; Sally Lindsay – ex-Coronation Street actress – was there to show her support for Christine who she says between bouts of the giggles and extreme concentration is having a great time on Strictly. There to support John was newsreader and presenter Dermot Murnaghan, who reckoned that John’s having a great time too. He’s certainly getting a lot fitter! Since starting the show, John’s lost a stone in weight!

We then saw the male celebs performing the merengue again and according to Len, practice makes perfect and though he felt they were by no means perfect yet, he did think Mark had improved greatly upon his performance from last night’s merengue.

The Sugarbabes were up next, performing their new single Here Come The Girls, and it was then decision time! As always, Tess and Bruce announced first which couples were safe and definitely coming back next week, and as it got to the remaining three couples, the tension was almost palpable…

However Gillian and Anton and Jodie and Ian were the couples with the lowest combined scores, taking into account the public vote and the judges’ scores from the night before, so they both faced the dance-off. Len told the couples that he felt it was a shame that two of the foxtrot couples were facing the dance-off because it was a dance without the glamour and excitement of the salsa but which nonetheless required a high degree of technical choreography and he felt that as such, it’s a very challenging dance. He wished the couples the best of luck and first, we saw Jodie and Ian perform their dance again.

Jodie seemed to be more relaxed than she was last night and seemed to flow with more grace throughout, so perhaps her nerves had been spent the night before!

Gillian and Anton performed second and unfortunately, the nerves that Gillian’s suffered with all along really showed tonight. She seemed rather wooden and ‘stiff’; it looked like Anton was dancing with a cardboard cut-out at times.

So it was time for the judges to vote for who they wanted to save…

Craig voted to save Jodie and Ian and said that their performance had been ‘dynamic’.

Arlene then also voted to save Jodie and Ian and said that her reasons for saving them over Gillian and Anton were that Jodie had improved a ‘phenomenal’ amount on last night’s performance.

Bruno then cast his vote, which again was for Jodie and Ian because he felt that to come back and deliver a performance that ‘literally made me gasp’ was amazing.

So, Jodie and Ian have survived to dance another week while Gillian and Anton received heartfelt commiserations from the judges. Len said that he loved the fact that as Jodie and Ian were dancing again tonight, Gillian and Anton had been cheering them on along with everyone else and he thought that showed real sportsmanship on their part.

Anton said that Gillian had been ‘a joy to be with, an absolute joy’ and the two then danced their last dance to the Carpenter’s classic song, It’s Only Just Begun and were eventually joined on the dance floor by the other contestants who seemed genuinely sad to be saying goodbye to Gillian and Anton.

So, was it the right decision? Were you as surprised as I was that Jessie wasn’t in the bottom two?

See you next week!