.... Much as I adore sparkly strictly season. I can't help wonder if this is going to be one those seasons it's best to forget.

Early days I know, but no real male contender. Too many new pros who all look the same and worst still an obvious flat race between 4 females - Abbey, Sophie, Susannah, Natalie - all of whom have shown strong technical ability early on but not particularly endearing or likeable. 9's already so limited 'journeys'...

You could essentially fast forward to the semi now.

Could not disagree more. IMHO Last year was one to forget, I could not get into it at all. But I think this year is so exciting.

I have supported mostly male celebs in the past (Tom, Ricky, Matt and Harry) except for the year with Kara were I supported both her and Matt.

But this year, I love that there is a lot of female contenders. So many good dancers! All with strengths and weaknesses! Who knows what it is going to happen.

And have you forgotten Ashley? He is quite good and has a chance of winning.

No. I think you're thinking of series 7.

We need a few more weeks, but I do have some favourites.

Maybe I'm just still lamenting the loss of Vincent... The worlds most sexiest man....

Ashley is lovely and definately the best of the boys... But can't seem him getting past those girls.

Last year was a good year so this year's bound to be a bit flat.

There's a serious lack of a good male dancers.

While I don't share the OP's dislike of the 4 leading female dancers -indeed I like all of them - a competition between 4 girls isn't massively exciting.

A joblot of new pros doesn't help. However, I am not complaining about Aljaz!

The lack of decent interesting men is hampering my overall enthusiasm somewhat. Neither Tony or Julien should have been cast, Patrick's an overmarked bore, Dave's one funny dance and a whole lot of scripted parp, Ben's useless and his brain's somewhere orbiting Surrey.

I quite like Ashley, and I'm pro-Mark but I can't think of a series with a weaker male cast than this. (Apart from Series 1 which, as we all know, doesn't count).

I guess with Artem, Pasha and Alijaz ( Kevin too at a push) I really don't need any decent male celeb!

I agree with you, I'm close to giving up this year, but I'm always the same if I have a massive favourite the year before. I missed season 7 due to sulking.

I don't know if they're all average in every series after show 2 and I'm being hard on them, or if it's genuinely a duff year.

Even Sophie, who everyone seemed to love this week, I looked at that charleston and thought choreography was great but was danced quite badly, no swivel and ugly, ugly, ugly lifts.

It's Natalie and Artem that's keeping me watching, plus I think nearly everyone this year, however bad, wants to learn but meh.

By duff year I would agree if the winner does not deserve it. Eg Tom Chambers!!!!!!!

Can easily see a backlash against the female celebs and ensure Ashley an unwarranted win.

Ben is eye candy so hope he improves. The male line up is dire. However, the male celebs is always not as exciting as the female celebs cause female celebs more likely to do SCD.

I am loving this year. No clear winner - lot's of people with potential - thoroughly enjoyable celebrities - the only thing is the calibre of celebrity is lower, but that does not bother me. I am loving the season so far, such an eclectic group. Who doesn't love Mark, Deborah and all the front-runners, plus Dave (the weakest dancer left) is still adorable and I love him! Stellar season, methinks

I agree that the males are quite weak this year, although I think Ashley could improve and turn out to be a contender. I don't think it's going to be a duff year and I'm sure we'll get used to the new pros over the course of the next few weeks. Five new pros is a lot to introduce in one year but I wouldn't say they look alike! The two males look nothing like each other, Iveta is very distinctive and Janette and Anya both have brown hair, I grant you, but facially look very different.

I think Ashley will improve but he is dangerously bordering the Tom Chambers trail, insert "baby" instead of "wedding" and you're there. The public seem to lap this up. I like him but I think it's gonna be a female winner this year.

Dull series so far: I guess .. but means there's only one way to go ...

People say this every year lol. Already this year there have been some great dances (for this stage of the competition). Yes, I agree that the male contestants are particularly week but maybe Ashley and Patrick will surprise us? Too soon to call after just two weeks.

I don't think the similarity between Janette and Anya will be a problem much longer.

I think it has very definitely been cast for a female winner. However, I think that could help push (probably) Ashley and potentially Mark (great potential as a journey contestant) along as people do seem to prefer male/female candidates (I usually find myself more drawn to the female candidates, but it's all a bit too obvious this year).

Ashley is right in the mould for young male contender (cf Gethin, Matt Baker etc.) which usually makes it towards the end.

Well, at the moment I'm really enjoying this year. Great mix of contestants, judges seem relatively sane so far, we had a week with Claudia in the pit, couple of ridiculously good dances for this early, Mark, Dave... It's early days. It's too early for anyone to have had a breakthrough yet (if you can dance well in your first ballroom/latin, wonderful, but it's not, imo, improvement) and seeing people transform is half the fun of the show. (Though to be fair Sophie did surprise me on Saturday and it was great. But it's not the same as seeing someone start wobbly and get better.)

I wondered if maybe some people's flat feeling is not because the serious contenders are all women, but maybe because it feels at the moment like the gap between the good and bad dancers is so huge that we already know the finalists? It's hard to see any of the not-so-good dancers making a big improvement. It's hard to see the good dancers being able to get surprisingly better because they are starting so good. I know for many people on here that doesn't matter, as long as they like the dance itself, but I think for a lot of non-dancers like me, seeing someone change is the joy. And I think someone will surprise us, even if I have no idea who.

I'm enjoying it so far. Moreso than last year's dullfest anyway.

I'm enjoying it but I do think very high marks are being given early on which might take some of the excitement away later on in the series. It's usually well into the series before 8s and 9s get given but already there's been a good scattering of those.

My problem with this year's line up is the lack of strong male contestants and too many (4 out of 7) weak/jokey types ie: Tony, Julien, Hairy Biker and the big comedy actor. Maybe after the success of Lisa Riley last year the producers thought they'd have a male equivalent with the big comedy actor.

By contrast, 6 out of the 8 females have all got potential.

Other than that, I think this year is far more interesting & lively than last year which was full of dull personalities and which didn't get interesting until the last 3 shows.

I argee - there are lots of people who have potential and very few who are really bad - even Vanessa managed to do a nice ballroom dance and her emotion was quite endearing. Julien is annoying but he won't last. I thought a few people were a tad over-marked and Abbey marked on what she could have done had she been less nervous rather than what she did do but it was ever thus and it did prove that even ringers have off days.

I am pretty much interested to see what most people will do next week as they are mostly talented but not ridiculously perfect (Natalie's a obvious ringer but it's still nice to see some real quality and Artem's chereography is interesting enough to keep us watching in spite of knowing she'll probably be good no matter what she does) - and it's nice to see some quality dancing from the middle aged and the overweight - Dave is more endearing than a lot of 'lovable' duffers and it's nice to see a much more fun side of Karen. I thought last year was actually rather dull as it consided of mostly obvious ringers such Kimberley and Denise or no hopers - it was fairly obvious from the start that it was Louis's glitterball unless he completed messed up or Dani pulled something really stunning out the ball.

It really wouldn't like to bet on who will this year - but I think it's going to intruigue me more who improves and what people can pull out of the bag. I don't mind that the men seem to be weaker - we're due a female winner.

I wouldn't have necessarily said Tom was that undeserving and my first series was three which in terms of technical ability was won by the third best dancer and was still ranks as high up in my estimate of favourite/best serieses.

At this point I don't think so. I don't see a clear winner yet, only lots of potential.

I think this year is very promising. The standard on Saturday was fantastic I thought and only Tony and Julien were truly terrible. Everybody else looks as though they are working hard and loving it. Feeling very optimistic about the series.

I think it has a lot of potential.

I was lucky enough to be there on Saturday and the high level for week 2 was really incredible.

We have Natalie, Abbey, Ashley and Sophie as front runners but any of them could dip or plateau.

Susannah and Patrick have some potential.

I adore Mark, want to see how much more he can give.

And I think Fiona has a lot of potential....whatever next Anton!!

When the judges gave out 9's for Sophie's charleston I thought "Noooooo, it's too early for 9's!!!" But on reflection, I think they gave her such high marks because she danced far better than you would expect for week 2. I'm sure if that dance was performed in week 7 ( or later) in exactly the same way, she would probably only have got 8's because there were still a few little mistakes and in later weeks, the judges will be expecting an even higher standard before handing out 9's and 10's.