Great piece in Saturday's New York Times about John Sergeant, the former BBC chief political correspondent who became a contestant on Strictly Come Dancing, the show that inspired Dancing With The Stars. Sergeant is a 64-year-old guy with a combover and a gut, and as a dancer... he's a hell of a political correspondent. No, seriously, he's the worst dancing show contestant ever, by far. Can't dance a lick. You have to watch.
Except, see, Sergeant is an important television journalist, and he's also a charming, gracious, kinda adorable older man who was just having some fun dancing, and knew he sucked. Still, Bruno and Len (yup, they were judges over there first) were downright scathing in their criticisms of him, saying, respectively, "Your dancing stinks!" and "(that was) more ha-ha-ha than cha-cha-cha." Among other things. Which felt a little too mean, as well as pretty disrespectful to say to a guy who regularly interviewed Thatcher, Major, and Blair. The audience fought back, constantly voting for him to stay, Sanjaya-style, much to the dismay of the judges. And each week more and more people tuned in to watch the show and vote for their favorite doofus, no matter what kind of mess he made of the samba, or paso doble. So this past week John Sergeant took matters into his own hands, holding a press conference to announce he was quitting the show, after one final dance:
The trouble is that there is now a real danger that I might win the competition. Even for me, that would be a joke too far. That is a frightening thought, a terrifying thought.
Awesome. Stay above the fray, get front-page publicity for yourself, and avoid making a mockery of the "democratic process" that decides these shows. Well done, good sir.
-- Jake Kalish is the author of Santa vs. Satan: The Official Compendium of Imaginary Fights
