I dont think Hayley can win as shes too reminiscent of Suzanne Shaw and people will rememeber her. Unlike Suzanne she isnt going on a journey of a half-decent skater, dancer and performer who becomes bettert.

And Danny is too reminiscent of Ray, who was extremely good but never improved, he simply won bacause he was better than the rest, by far. His arrogance would normally have put people off but the public could not justify a bland winner ike Jessica or Donal who had gone on the journey, just not far enough.

Therefore Hayley wont win and with Danny out of it, I believe its between Mikey who has the ability, will go on a slight journey as he gets better and has the personality and public support, Daniella who has surprised people and will go on the jorney and having turned her life around so much may have the public on her side moreso than a Hayley/ Mikey who had already ablity and Gary if he can turn the 1st weeks opinions around. However I could also see someone like Keiron doing it as he isnt as bad as the marks are making him out to be. He was greatly undermarked.

The best performer on the scoreboard , the best on the show hasnt always won, remember Chris Fountain was 100% better than Suzanne and had much more personality, but didnt win due to a perceived advantage, Hayley has the clear advantage of the previous relationship, whereeas the others are 1sttimers, Mikey is clearly very good thererore these 2 have to prove they deserve it more tahn the others.

Can they?

As long as it is a deserved winner I dont care, I didnt believe Ray deserved it as he could skate already, lied he couldnt and was extremely arrogant. I believe humilty, talent and personality must work with the skater also and as long as the winner has this I dont care.

Nice

OOh have to disagree that Chris was 100% better than Suzanne. She skated some very excellent technical moves by the end and her dancing and presentation skills were second to none. Don't get me wrong - I liked Chris a lot but he never really developed the dance side and still skated too much like a hockey player to really look great. Yes CMAR and TW were fab routines but then so were many of Suzanne's.

For this series it still seems pretty open to me with Daniella and Hayley in the running for the girls and Mikey, Gary, Danny and with a bit of work Kieron in the running for the boys. Can't see anyone outside those 6 having any chance.

I can't see Danny having the public support to compete with the rest tbh. And unless Kieron can get the judges on side, then he's always going to be limited in how far he can get, unfortunately.

The only other person I could see doing well is Sharron, if she improves, because she (possibly alongside Kieron) has decent 'journey' (and 'screw Jason') potential. But I don't know whether she actually has enough potential for that.

I suspect the final will be Mikey, Daniella and possibly Gary. With Mikey winning it by a mile, probably.

After the first couple of weeks, I thought the final would be between Mikey, Hayley and Kieron with Danniella fourth.

I'm still fairly happy with that top four although I think Danniella may edge Kieron. Mikey's popularity will get him through and unless his skating suffers a dip in future weeks I'll be surprised if he doesn't win comfortably. Hayley's good and she's got the judges on side; I can see her going through a couple of skate offs but she'll almost certainly reach the final. Of the other two, it's a bit of a toss up. I'd say Kieron may be getting more votes than Danniella right now but she is surprising a lot of viewers and the dreaded "j" word is currently more applicable to her than anyone else. If Kieron's skating stagnates, he could lose out.

Gary might pull something off (ooer sounds painful) but right now he's too samey. Danny doesn't appear to have the fans and people will get fed up with the doc. If Kieron manages to improve on the ice a bit, I'll stick with my original final three; if he doesn't, Danniella may sneak in.

However, I think Mikey has this in the bag unless there are twists and turns we don't know about yet.

Karen may have given the votes away a bit " a la Louis Walsh". She said Mikey will definitely be in the final "group" - and whatever happened last week he almost certainly did very well in the vote the week before. The show seems to be supporting him too.
She also implied Danny was in danger, and was"crossing her fingers" he would be there next week.
So if Mikey's vote holds plus his scores, he wins.

Hayley probably makes the final if she stays ahead, because she seems fairly popular to me (controversial grinning aside) so there's only one place left then. If the "flying" stays in this year that might help her.

No idea who that will be. Hope it's Danniella and people realise she is a good skater, nice person and needs them to vote, but could be Hilary or Gary.
I suspect Gary got a good rebound vote the week before last at least, plus India was so cute and that wouldn't have hurt his votes! Dr Hilary must be getting a big vote, they all seem to keep going on about his huge fanbase.
They will probably try and push Danny back into the contenders this week, but I still can't see any of these winning.

Kieron seems to have been removed from the race.

Oh, and Heather is an unknown quantity.

But, yeah, I still think it's a one horse race, unless they change it by giving Mikey a low score, but then he likely makes it on popularity anyway.

There could be some shocks along the way though.
(Danniella to win )

Chris Fountain was never 100% better than Suzanne - he might appeal more to some females but I don't think he would win a personality contest either. He was a bit better to start with but she came from behind and past him only in week 7 . She clearly won her final and had the journey and the wow factor and I suspect she had the votes by the SF. Gaynor wasn't that far from Bonnie by the end and had a growth story and Bonnie had problems mobilising a vote. Kyran and Clare were almost level throughout and swapped the lead. He started lower and ended the SF higher so had the clearer journey and had a marginally better record - doing better in the final wasn't enough for Clare to win overall. Ray had no opposition.

That suggests journey and being a close enough second, or being best with a journey, or being so far ahead anyone would notice, all tend to work. Ray is the only one to have topped the first leaderboard and still won. Four series is a very small sample though . This series is a bit odd too looking for anyone behind Hayley - Gary and Danny seem to have no votes and its far from clear that Mikey is better than Daniella - she did better in week one, their marks are close, their average is very close and both their marks are arguable

Your proof that Ray lied re skating??? I know for a fact he didn't ice skate before DOI as he said the occasional trip to Deeside as a kid - his spare time was taken up with dancing and competing (at which he reached the highest levels and was always open re his dance experience) and later acting for anything else.

I despair at times in this country when confidence and a determination to win is looked down on and classed as arrogance normally by people who don't even know those in question- most winners in competitive events need it to get to the top.

I hope it isn't a one horse race like last year. I think Mikey & Danniella are probably fighting for the top spot imo, with Hayley just behind them.

I agree... Mikey is a great guy and good on the ice, but not fabulous by any means.... where is all this Mikey hysteria coming from. In my eyes, its Hayley and Daniella who are the best, especially Hayley, she is fab with Dan. I would love to see her win.

Reminds me of Stephen/John Barrowman in series 1. But then Stephen picked up most of John's vote and finished second overall.

I think a lot of the fanatical love for him is for non-ice reasons, really. (Not to suggest that he isn't fairly good, obviously, but he's not amazing yet by any means).

The tour organisers obviously think it's a one horse-race too, going by the fact that he alone has already been announced as being signed-up. I suppose that's just the way it is this year - the fun is probably going to be restricted to who will finish runner-up...