Strictly Come Dancing, week five: 5 talking points, from Seann Walsh's misstep to Danny John-Jules scoring the first 10 of the series

The new category 'Couple's Choice' made its debut as Alfonso Ribeiro stood in for Bruno

BBC Strictly Come Dancing opening dance

Twelve anxious couples competed in this weekend's Strictly Come Dancing, but only eleven will make it through to next week’s Halloween spook-tacular, when the dance-floor will be covered in cobwebs, pumpkins and a criminal amount of face paint.

Tonight (20 October) we saw Danny John Jules nab the first ten of the series, Seann Walsh plummet towards the bottom of the leaderboard, and Charles Venn produce a surprise routine that had everyone in tears. Plus Bruno’s understudy Alfonso Ribeiro was fun for five minutes (and then we all started missing our favourite Italian). Here are the five biggest talking points.

Will Seann and Katya get the boot?

Last week Seann and Katya pulled an amazing Charleston out the bag, protecting themselves from the dance-off – their scores were so high and, with the audience vote only being half the story, it was mathematically difficult to get them off the show. This week is very different. They had a much tougher dance in the quickstep, which always sorts the men from the boys, and it was frenetic and clumsy, a far cry from some of the more polished quicksteps we’ve seen this year. They’re second from last on the leaderboard, so this will be the real test of their popularity – they’ll need a huge swell of public support to avoid the dance-off. Which seems a bit unlikely, given recent events.

Street dancing on Strictly? The jury’s still out.

The couple’s choice category was always going to be controversial. Strictly is a show that celebrates old-school partner dancing, why would it need to showcase commercial street dance and contemporary routines? Plus, how can they justify allowing West End dancers to compete when one of the options is to do a musical theatre performance? Of course, it’s all an attempt to appeal to younger viewers (just like casting Joe Sugg, who has actually proved to be a delight). Tonight was week one of the experiment and it was a mixed bag. Charles and Karen knocked it out of the park with an incredible street routine, which left him third on the leaderboard and surely safe from returning to the dance-off. But Lauren and AJ’s contemporary number was stiff, out of place and confusing to most of us. They are third from last now, and surely it’s a bit unfair to leave them in such a vulnerable position just because the producers wanted to mess around with the format?

We all hate the cha cha!

It used to be the rumba and the samba that the couples dreaded. Now it’s the cha cha, which nobody can seem to get right. Vick and Graziano fell foul of it this evening and ended up bottom of the leaderboard, which could easily land them in the dance-off. Strictly old-timers did enjoy Shirley transforming into Len for her critique as she criticised the faffing around at the start of the routine and then told them they needed to ‘give it some welly’. Classic LG.

Danny John-Jules gets the first ten

There’s always someone every year who seems to be consistently undermarked and can never quite win over the judges. That was Danny. Until tonight. His jive was sensational: Darcey gave him two standing ovations and the first ten of the series, and Craig said it was a dance that belonged in the final. Well done Danny and Amy!

Where’s Bruno? And what’s Carlton Banks doing there?

Don’t worry, Bruno hasn’t stormed off the show, or injured himself jumping from his chair (as far as we know). In recent years he’s been taking a week off to deal with the demands of flying backwards and forwards between London and LA to judge both Strictly and Dancing with the Stars. He’ll be back next week. This year it was Fresh Prince star Alfonso Ribeiro sitting in. We thought he’d be brilliant. He was just OK. But the professional dancers couldn’t hide their disdain at being critiqued by a man famous for one fun sitcom routine to a Tom Jones song. It was like the Alesha Dixon days all over again. Also, he didn’t do the Carlton dance, which is unforgivable.

Catch up on everything that happened minute by minute with our live-blog below.

Strictly Come Dancing results show airs Sunday at 6.45pm.

[20 October 2018 20:24 · emmabullimore]

Final couple of the night, Charles and Karen doing street dance for the Couple's Choice category. I've really warmed to these two, they were gutted to be in the bottom two yet again last week, I really hope they can avoid it tomorrow. They're stuck on 25 too, same score week after week. I hope this is amazing.

[20 October 2018 20:27 · emmabullimore]

This is much more sophisticated than I was expecting, thought they'd go full on music video, but this is much more interesting. Props to Karen for the choreography. I loved it... what will the judges think? GIVE THEM MORE THAN 25 FOR GOODNESS SAKE!

[20 October 2018 20:29 · emmabullimore]

Darcey, the prima ballerina chatting street dance, Strictly gives us everything and more. She says he pulled off the routine, Shirley calls the dance funky and fresh, a major breakthrough. Alfonso is on his feet, 'That is my jam!' he says, nicking Len Goodman's fave catchphrase.

[20 October 2018 20:32 · emmabullimore]

Charles and Karen: Street and commercial scores

Craig: 9

Darcey: 9

Shirley: 9

Alfonso: 9

Total: 36

Just a little better than 25 then! At last, so well-deserved. If there's any justice they will avoid the bottom two.

[20 October 2018 20:35 · emmabullimore]

So that's it for this week! Danny is at the top of the leaderboard, closely followed by Ashley and then - who'd have guessed it?! - Charles! It's Vick at the bottom, with Lauren and Seann also in a vulnerable position. Will be very interesting to see who's in the dance-off tomorrow, the smart money has to be on Seann being in the bottom two though.

[20 October 2018 20:39 · emmabullimore]

Next week it's the hotly-anticipated Halloween special, plus the return of Brrrrrrrrruuuno! But one of these gorgeous couples will miss out... If it's Charles and Karen I'll be furious!

Thanks for hanging out with me in this sequinned corner of the internet, see you next week for some spook-tacular goings on. Can't wait!