I'm afraid this year's crop of SCD celebs are only a pale imitation of previous years.
If someone such as Mark Ramprakash was in it this year he would walk it by a million miles.
Also Alesha was far better than this lot and some of previous non winners would beat the contestants from the present bunch.
Final between Ricky and Ali seems obvious.
Lets hope next years celebs are better.

They should bring him back every so often to do the AT and Salsa. Show em how it's done!!

If only Jade was in it this year

The problem is that Ali and Ricky are so much better than everyone else so unless they are in the DO together it is certain that they will be in the final. I prefer the show when there are 4/5 people who could potentially win, it makes it a bit more exciting.

The most disappointing thing for me this year is the lack of any real all round improvement.

Ricky is about as good as he was when he started - yes, that's quite good, but is it what Strictly is really about, Chris has seen improvement, certainly, but not in a consistent manner, Laila always was great at ballroom and carp at latin (and still is).

Ali is, possibly, the main one as she has come out of herself quite a bit and her technique is probably a bit better than it was at the start but Ican't say she ever blows me away.

It's made the whole series a bit of a damp squib.

Looking back I do think Jade was the one who could have ticked all the boxes by the end of the competition. I didn;t realise I would miss her as much as I have.

What a brilliant thread. Mark Ramprakash should be in every series of Strictly. It would keep all of us happy, even when the other contestants are rather underwhelming.

At a recent party when the subject of Strictly was mentioned not only had all the couples there watched the program but also had really loved Mark when he was a contestant.

As well as the AT and Salsa, Mark and Karen were also excellent at Cha Cha, Tango, Paso, Samba, Waltz, VW, American Smooth and I liked everything they did!

Never really took to Mark myself...Good latin dancer, not that special in the ballroom.

Of course the one thing the BBC has no control over every year is the talent; they have no idea when they sign people up how they're going to progress. Just the luck of the draw.

Please, I had enough of Mark that one year. All that OTT fawning over an average looking man with a bland personality.

Are you blind? Or didn't you want to see.

A man has to do a bit more than just look good (and he didn't even do that very well). The art of conversation is what gets me, coupled with a good dose of (visible) personality.

I assume you realise that different people have different tastes?

I perfectly understand some found him attractive. Personally he did nothing for me and I found his personality a little 'meh'. Biting back because someone doesn't fancy who you do should be left to teenage girls.

I didn't mind HeidiB's comment. I'm pretty indifferent to Ramprakash, he's certainly not ugly, but I do enjoy the freedom to be able to say my real opinion about him, compared to how stifled I felt on here in Series 4 when he was an untouchable God.

I have been unleashing plenty about him since then.

He wasn't even that good. His Ballroom certainly wasn't.

yep that rubbish waltz and VW that both scored 36.

He was fine at ballroom just not as good as Dawson and Bunton

his worst scores came in 2 latin dances - rumba and jive

Then why did he dance the Tango in the final and only get 34? 36 is hardly a high score. His Argentine Tango and Salsa were legendary but his Ballroom really wasn't that great.

Hear,hear Shappy!

What I liked about Mark was that whilst he was fairly shy and reserved behind the scenes, he set the dancefloor alight.

I thought he was sexy as hell.

If that's bland and average, where do I get one?

Inside any old pub down your local high street.

It used to be...before the world went mad and inflicted unrealistic (and in some cases undeserved) 10s on people.

I suppose so...

I'm setting up home in my local flea pit then.

I'm not trying to pick an argument TylerTango: I accept that any of the contestants are going to potentially polarise opinion. To put this into context, back when Mark, Matt, Emma, Louisa and the rest were dancing there was rarely a 10 to be had. If you got nines you were doing pretty darned well. The 10x4 dream seemed almost unreachable and had only been achieved once.

A score of 36, or 9x4, was regarded as excellant. So for anyone - not just Ramps - to get that score in a dance, was hardly a case of being 'not very good'.

Are the dancers/dances better these days or purely overmarked? To be honest, my money's on the latter.

*also agrees with the original poster regarding Ramps*

Bring a paper, there won't be much conversation.

an irresistible combination imo

and, yes, me too

Suits me!

It is such a lottery for the bbc when they choose celebs for the show. There are some that will probably excel at the dancing aspect but will they connect with the public?

There are some that the public will love but will they really click with the dancing?

Problem this year is that nobody has really done both. Jade was the only personality who really could have ticked all boxes and she went before her time unfortunately.

I look at previous series and can see several personalities who missed out on their own show but who, quite possibly, would have done well this year. Any one of (in chronological order) Colin Jackson, Louisa Lytton, Matt di Angelo, Gethin Jones, Austin Healy (and possibly Zoe Ball or Denise Lewis) may well have walked away with this series.

On the other hand, they may not.