Honking Box Preview: DanceX

We love a good talent show here at The Sloppy Dog, or at least, until our favourite gets ousted. And even then, there remains the dubious yet undeniable pleasure of heckling the telly when the shittiest option comes on (see Ashley X Factor, Chris Moyles on Celebrity X Factor, Peter Brame on Fame Academy, yadda yadda yadda times infinity).

Yet the BBC's latest project, DanceX, is leaving us sat on a particularly grey fence. It's just hard to muster up anything other than bewilderment at the horrendous use of the English language from Arlene Phillips, whose ever-flowing simile/metaphor fountain grows more peculiar and pornographic with every use.

The whole premise of the show sees Arlene and Bruno Tonioli each heading up a dance troupe. End of. No, really, that's it. Apparently at the end of the series, the winning group will actually become a full-on recording act. But hang on - isn't this about dance? Is this why a random dumpy girl named Claire is positioned at the side bellowing into a mic while her teammates gyrate wildly centre-stage?

Now that's something to look forward to - not just a clone of the Pussycat Dolls, but a cut-price UK adaptation featuring lumpy, misshapen checkout staff from the Wirral. It'll be sort of like if Five remade Lost, filmed on Sark using a PD-150, featuring Todd Carty as Jack and Lesley Joseph as Kate.

Yet even the competition aspect is hard to get into. Having divvied the dancers into two groups, the mix of aceness and lameness is evenly spread throughout two groups. Take Team Bruno, for instance - it boasts Rana, the unequivocal star of the show, yet she's forced to share a stage with the awkward, mincey Daniele and the brutally-faced Phoenix, who appears to have absolutely no bones anywhere in his skull area.

Similarly, Team Arlene carries the charismatic Daniel and the quirky Ife, yet is tainted by Ashley, who seems to have strayed in from an under-10s tap school by mistake.

Perhaps it'll be worth keeping an eye on solely for the pantomime antics of Bruno and Arlene, whose staged, contrived and frankly retarded arguments are worthy of Big Brother's halfway house. Perhaps we may end up with an lively, exciting pop group at the end of proceedings. Or perhaps we'll consume DanceX as nothing more than a mere stop-gap until The X Factor begins. Guess which one we're plumping for?