Absolutely brilliant dance... she has this in the bag now and deserves the title.. been the best from the start!!

Granted her personality shone through the dance tonight but sorry prior to that, as much personality as a smoked kipper. Yes she's a good dancer but not my winner!

She's the only contestant who's left now who I want to win. I actively don't want the rest to.

Well Chris and Ola and Anton and Laila were both much better tonight, and she certainly hasn't been the best from the start. Surely Ricky has?

Nice girl, good dancer. But about as much personality as a wet weekend in Blackpool.

If Chris & Ola can avoid the dance off I think they will be winners actually. They are the only couple never to have landed in the bottom 2, and very popular with the public.

I think the Glitterball will be going to Team Cola

It's nice to see someone acknowledge that.

I thought she was really bubbly tonight in the dance but hasn't been given any credit it for it on here.

But the Dance Off at the semi final stage could be a real problem for them - especially as only three couples'll be left by then. I can see another Tom Chambers situation in the offing (except the BBC have given themselves a way out this time).

I like Ali as a person, and she is a fine dancer. However, I hate favouritism in any shape or form, therefore the judges have turned me against voting for her. I'm afraid after tonight it's "anyone but Ali" for me.

I saw some personality in Ali tonight - how many weeks into this are we? 11?

Ali was miles better on one good foot than Chris in the Charleston and Laila showed in the VW she could take Chris if came down down to dancing with the right dance in a dance off.

Ricky is looking a bit thin on content and under-rehearsed but he could easily turn that around with the right couple of dances. His position relative to Ali may be crucial to them both - or not. He's got a votes problem

Chris probably worked up the comedy/panto vote and that will take some cutting into. His chances of making the final may depend more on who else gets what marks and what votes than what he does.

Ali has all the challenges. Its not clear if her votes have got better. She needs to pull out a good tango to score ahead next week and a good samba to get her Latin noticed and to underline the gap to Chris. She needs one dance that is better than Ricky's best to survive a possible dance off with Ricky every week till the final.

That's a shame as I don't think the judges did show favouritism to Ali.

Ali shone tonight. Not only is she a trouper she is extremely talented. She deserves to take the crown - a little star.

I think it's wide open who wins but Ali has shown tonight that she can do a quirky dance as well as be elegant. I also now see Laila as much more of a contender.

Marking has nothing to do with favouritism - some people are just better than others. Someone is going to be top and the judges are there to tell us who it is. As it was obvious this week with Ricky w underperforming its not even controversial if the criteria is dancing ability. You can't come top at dancing if you do a panto act that doesn't include the required moves. Nor does Tess saying she is the judges favourite literally mean she is the judges favourite - it means she got more marks.

Interestingly, I don't think she was favourited at all tonight - her scores reflected what I saw, anyway.

Before tonight, I'd disagree with you because I think they had been marking Ali very fairly. However, I couldn't personally believe the points awarded for her Charleston compared to the other Charleston's performed on the night.

i agree, she deserves to win. She has given consistantly good performances, (her worst ones were rocked by injury) and she works hard, didn't complain about her injury and she has personality. I agree that people like Natalie and Chris show more character but Ali and Brian have a brilliant partnership and their chemistry in the training room esp is where we see Ali at her best. She is a beautiful dancer and as a huge fan of theirs i think she DESERVES to be in the top 3 at the very least, I WANT her to be in the final so she can show us every dance and I would LOVE to see them win!

Same. I know Chris's routine was crowd-pleasing but that doesn't mean the judges should mark him higher. I thought Craig undermarked Laila but apart from that I agree they reflected what I saw.

I dunno why people are assuming they are near the bottom in the public vote too. They've only been in one dance off and with only a 15 minute voting window, it changes too much. IMO the results when the show is split in two will be much more telling.

Oh and I also think she deserves to win

Laila with anyone who could do the Latin I think might have been a contender. On the other hand, Anton has probably helped pull out the votes when she has needed them. She's got to beat Chris though and his vote has to decline enough to get him into that dance off.

They reflected what I saw also. Ali's problem re winning though is that she is stuck with the samba probably in the semi final and that could be her undoing. In all the series I have not seen a really good one.

Why? They marked them in an order 7-10 and from what Len said 10 meant best not perfect. Ali had the best previous mark so it would have been odd if she couldn't still do it better. It was simply impossible for anyone at home to second guess what the order should be on the basis of the odd camera shot - to me Nat looked weakest, Ali looked strong on camera - but who knows what the judges were seeing looking at the whole thing or whether Nat looked good at some other point or Ricky had a better stretch we didn't see.

Samba is next week? Chris has to do it too? Her problem is whether Ricky gets a Latin he can do better at and whether her Tango can make up any difference on him? On the other hand Laila has a Latin to do too........

It doesn't matter where Chris comes in the judges leaderboard as long as he tops the public vote each week he will be in the final. The way the system works out is that basically the viewers favourite and the judges favourite will be against each other in the final.

I think you are talking about the group VW ?
I can't argue with the judges there..as you say, we could not see enough of every individual to make any real comparisons. I'm perfectly willing to accept Ali won that fairly and squarely..though the wisdom of having a competitive group dance at all is debatable.

Think you will find the judges scores are panto as well (bit like lens and craigs panto fights every other week)