Strictly Come Dancing has undergone the biggest shake up in its twenty year history ahead of the 2026 series, and I'm left a bit bemused by it all. When former hosts Tess & Claudia confirmed they were leaving last year, it was obvious that the show had a good opportunity to mix things up a bit, but I wasn't necessarily expecting the number of changes we've seen.

Presenter tense

The speculation went on for months and months, but eventually it was announced: Emma Willis, Josh Widdicombe and Johannes Radebe. A curious mix, no? Emma Willis is a safe pair of presenting hands, I've not particularly warmed to her but have no complaints either, probably my lack of feeling is due to not watching many of her shows. Josh Widdicombe is great, but is he the right fit for this show? Is he a fan? What does he bring to the table? And the problem with a comedian presenter is that inevitably he's not going to be to everyone's tastes.

Jojo, obviously, is an absolute superstar but that means he's not strutting his stuff on the dance floor anymore, which is a real shame. At least we have someone who knows what it's like to be out there and can empathise with everyone participating. We don't know what the three presenter structure will be like, compared to the natural split of Tess hosting and Claudia getting the gossip backstage. How that will look in the new show may be the key to the whole thing, regardless of who's actually holding the microphone.

Meanwhile, the most recent breaking news was Ellie Taylor being recruited as host of It Takes Two. I'm sure I'd seen that the companion show would be moving more towards a video podcast format, but Ellie was excited to confirm she'd be on BBC2 every evening as normal, so maybe that's not going to be such a shift? I suppose we don't know what the format will be at this stage. Still, I love Ellie and again she has the experience of being on that dance floor, so whilst it's a shame to lose Janette (not so much Fleur), I'm very keen to see what Ms Taylor brings to the Two.

Dance, dance revolution

The professional dancers have not been immune to all the changes with some long term participants waving goodbye. Johannes, as mentioned. Karen, the longest-standing professional dancer, is bidding farewell to the Strictly floor. That's a shame, but I wonder if she had given all she had to give at this point. Nadiya, Luba and Gorka are also out, which will have a mixed impact - they didn't always have partners, but they will no doubt have supporters who will miss them. (Love Gorka!) Finally Michelle - a relative newcomer but who gained a lot of respect when she was finally given a partner a couple of years ago.

Five new professional dancers have been announced, and their intro videos and interviews definitely give off the vibe that this is fresh young talent to bring new flavours to the floor. I never have any issue with bringing new dancers to the mix, although it sometimes takes a while to warm to them (the journey I went on with Kai!) and it can be disruptive having to try and remember new names and faces. Five seems to be a lot to throw at us in one go, but if you're mixing things up, I guess you might as well do it all at once.

Meanwhile, the judges are staying the same. Craig, Motsi, Shirley and Anton. I love these four, and have no complaints, but if we're mixing things up are we missing a trick not having new names here? Anton is beloved, sure, but he's not really adding anything at this point. Craig is the pantomime villain, but are we done with that yet? Just questions, I have no answers, maybe the stability behind the desk is at least something we can cling on to amidst everything else.

Star spotting

I often approach each year complaining that I only know one or two of the famous faces taking part. You can see it if you read any of my previous Strictly launch posts. There's usually only one winner in my eyes and a few more names I know, I think I'm going to hate it all, and by the end they are all absolute favourites and I want all the finalists to win.

It was no surprise, then, that when the names started dropping for this year's competition, I was unfamiliar with a lot of them. I know Delta and Melanie and that's it. It feels like there is a shift this year towards trying to engage a younger audience. Where we might have had a token social media star, there is more in that direction. More reality TV and nothing in the way of newsreader or politician or 'sensible' celebrity.

This could be because after quite a lot of high profile controversies, the pool of potential participants was reduced. Or it could be a deliberate decision by the producers to aim for a new audience. We'll probably never know for sure, but we'll definitely be able to judge whether it works or not after just a few weeks.

Scores out of ten

So where does that leave us? I'm sure, if I gave it a chance, I'd be loving all the contestants by about halfway through and wanting them all to win by the final. But at this early stage, it's really not feeling like a must-watch situation.

Strictly over the past few years has become a staple of my autumn weekends, must watch, arrange plans around it, write blog posts every week about the outcome. I'm wondering whether it's going to be that anymore. Maybe that was a thing that happened, but now I'm going to have much more free time in the lead up to Christmas to catch up on other TV and films. Who knows?

I absolutely don't blame the show for shaking things up the way they have - the time was right, the controversies needed to be addressed and then moved on from, and I can see both sides of the argument. I'm just absolutely intrigued to see if I'm worrying about nothing, as per usual, or if it really is the time where Strictly is no longer for me.