So Strictly week two and I was still up for it, despite being subjected to four and a half hours of its US counterpart, Dancing With the Stars, the previous night. Anyway, after the group dances of last week, I had little confidence in the female contestants, but, after seeing a fair bit of their training footage on It Takes Two during the week, the only one I’m still worried about is Gillian Taylforth…

For all our Strictly news and review, go here.

Bruce introduced Jessie Wallace as “Jelly”. Good grief. I don’t watch Eastenders, but that “You ain’t my muvva!” clip makes me laugh every time. Her salsa – she’s dancing with Darren Bennett – was okay. Not horrifically embarrassing – and actually quite good in parts – but at other times she looked drunk. Oh and Bruce made a good joke (well, a good joke for Bruce, anyway)! He apologised for calling her “Jelly” and said it was because she was shaking in her dress. Heh.

Christine Bleakley’s partner is Matthew Cutler, who won last year with Alicia Dixon, so the pressure’s on her. Their foxtrot was the first dance so far to make me well up. It may have been the music – The Way You Look Tonight – but it was just so pretty and romantic. I loved it.

There’ve been such high hopes for the third couple – Lisa Snowdon and Brendan Cole – but their salsa didn’t exactly work for me. She’s clearly going to be really good, but at times she looked a bit clumsy (or “goofy”, as Bruno put it) and there also didn’t seem to be much chemistry between them (but that may be because I was expecting it to be sizzling hot). They got fives and sixes which seemed very low to me. I think it was easily as good as Tom Chambers’ cha cha cha last week and didn’t Len give him an 8?

I expected Jodie Kidd (partnered with Ian Waite) to be clumsy and awkward (mainly because she’s 6’2″), but I thought the same about Zoe Ball in series three and she turned out to be one of my favourites. Jodie’s foxtrot was okay, a bit clumsy in parts and the choreography didn’t excited me, but it was much better than I expected.

I’d heard great things about Heather Small’s dancing before the show even started (insider information, don’t you know!). She’s partnered with an American, Brian Fortuna, who’s been on Dancing With the Stars. Their salsa had the most attitude so far (I love that they both had their bitch faces on at the beginning) and the choreography was great… but it didn’t make me want to dance. She’s going to be really good though.

Oh blimey, Gillian Taylforth and poor Anton du Beke. “I’ve danced in all six series,” said Anton, ruefully. “You’d think they’d let me win.” Indeed. Or at least you’d think they’d let him have a break between humiliations. Although, I haven’t seen Gillian dance yet, I might be speaking too soon. Wellllllllll, it wasn’t the total carnage I was expecting, but she’s certainly not much of a dancer. Anton is very good at making bad dancers look good. I think she could be out though because she’s (so far) not bad enough to stay in out of sympathy, but not good enough to stay on merit.

Can I just say the scores have gone AWOL again. Len gave it a 7. And he gave Lisa a 6. There is no way in the world Gillian’s dance was better than Lisa’s. Ridiculous. (And judging by Brendan’s face while Tess was talking to Gillian and Anton, he was thinking the same.)

Rachel Stevens is another one everyone has high hopes for and her partner is Vincent Simone, who I LOVE, so their dance was probably the one I was most excited to see and I really enjoyed it. Good chemistry and great choreography, plus she can really dance. There were a few missteps, I thought, but it was a really great first dance. And the judges RAVED!

I’d forgotten all about Cherie Lunghi; I was thinking Rachel was the last out. Cherie is partnered with James Jordan and they seem to get on incredibly well, which should translate well in the dancing. I didn’t notice anything wrong with their foxtrot – she’s elegant, classy, confident – but it didn’t do anything for me either. The choreography was a bit dull, I thought. Len, however, said it was the best dance of the night and then Bruce said “You’re my favourites.” Nooooooo! I was hoping we’d get through one episode without that nonsense. Anyway, they got the highest score of the series so far. Yes, higher than Austin Healey (by one point). It was good, but I wouldn’t say it was the best dance so far…

So at the end of the show, Cherie was (obviously) top and Jessie was bottom. Hmm. I think Jessie was better than Gillian, but who can really say?

Finally, we had a group merengue from the men. I was expecting it to be a car crash, but I LOVED it. It was my favourite dance of the night; it made me howl with laughter. And I never thought I’d see John Sergeant doing a merengue. Even Gary wasn’t bad (I didn’t have to hide my eyes). When asked who was the worst, Len said Mark and, while Mark did look terrified, I thought Andrew was worse – his shoulders were higher than his ears. Plus I thought it was a bit unnecessary to single out poor Mark.

All in all, I enjoyed it, but perhaps a little bit less than last week. It was a bit… bland. Still, next week should be good!

Strictly Come Dancing Results Show, BBC One, Sunday 28 September, 8pm

Strictly Come Dancing Week 1 | Results