Do we know yet whether they'll be three or four contestants in the final? If it's just three I can still see an all girl final; probably Natalie, Sophie and Susanna. If it's four one of the males will sneak in but I'm not sure who out of Mark, Ben or Ashley I'd consider most likely.

Don't forget Dave.

I must admit that I'd like to see what Iveta would choreograph for a showdance for Mark.
I must also admit, though, that much as I like him, I don't want him to win.
I think the finalists will be any combination of Abbey, Ashley, Natalie, Sophie and Susanna.
I'd quite like Abbey to win but I don't think she has the fanbase.
I think it's more likely to be Ashley, Natalie or Susanna winning.

I find her a little grating most of the time.
To me her performances always seem like someone who has had too much to drink at the party and is determined to dance on the coffee table whilst telling the bawdiest jokes.

Every dance is a showdance for Mark. I hope Iveta gets a contender next year.

That's why I'd like to see what she comes up with for what's actually meant to be a showdance!

Have you not been watching?

Hmmm.....
Ashley seems to be following the Scott Maslen guide to Strictly, which means he'll be well and truly broken by the time the semi-final hits.

Ben is Gavin Henson mark II - again I see him going far but not all the way. He even did a Halloween paso doble to Muse!

Patrick is good, but bland. There's no *spark* to get you excited about watching him, and you forget him once he's gone. He'll slip away, everyone will be sad because a talented dancer has gone, and then forget he was there like whoever it was that Craig Kelly outlasted.

Dave is following the Widdy/Grant path - and while they both went reasonably far, their time came and they were out. I can see the same thing happening here.

Mark - the good 'older', plus Iveta is creating some memorable routines for him - this partnership is basically a talented Dave and Karen. He might go far, but as the finals approach the younger/sexier/better dancers will overtake him and he'll lose to one of them in a dance-off. Letitia Dean all over again.

Natalie - will win on merit (St Jill, the Holy Dixon, JELOUSKARA), or come second - so either the next iteration of the GODDESS OF DAHNCE (under the 3 year rule the GODDESS OF DAHNCE will win) - or Rachel Stevens/Ricky Wittle all over again. Will win any dance-off she ends up in and make it to the final. Has the dance skills, but lacking a bit in the personality stakes for some.

Abbey - no public support. Will have a sympathy bounce, then be chucked out ahead of her time. Cue the "Cherie Lunghi/Austin Healey" outrage. Another WUZ ROBBED.

Sophie - will turn out a run of decent ballrooms and cruise to the finals. Latin will remain shaky. Might win the final if she does her Charleston (Chris Hollins), or will be summarily despatched in 3rd place (Lisa Snowdon).

Susanna - She'll probably win on a chemistry/partnership vote combined with the BBC Breakfast vote rather than talent (like Chris Hollins). Or, she'll go out third as the older female on the final who lost to two younger and better competitors (Dr Hamela).

Top 5 will be Natalie, Sophie, Susanna and two of Mark, Ben and Ashley. Top 3 will be all female.

The engineering is still going to trump the random factors and give us a female winner. Sophie will suddenly start 'rivalling Natalie' with a string of nice-but-probably-overmarked ballroom numbers, leaving Susanna to fight it out with Ashley for the bronze medal in the final. Though I think Ashley's improving and Susanna's plateau-ing, so perhaps it won't be a fight after all.

Of the potential apple cart upsetting factors, I reckon the strongest two are Patrick seeming to be on the strongest upward trajectory of all in terms of improvement, and Mark's clearly-unseen-by-producers popularity. The former might be enough tokeep Patrick in over anyone bar Natalie if he has a great day and they have a bad one. The latter might present us with a couple of interesting dance off scenarios that bin off one of the big contenders. But neither is really likely to derail this year's M*nge Train.

<3 <3 <3

Did the producers actually say they wanted a woman to win this year? I don't get it, why is it presumed a woman winner is wanted? Is it just becasue there were three over weight mature men this year? Each year only has about 2-4 contenders on average anyway, so just becasue three overweight men were included in the starting lineup doesn't mean that the other thinner or younger men were out of the running alongside the younger or thinner women (as that is usually the criteria for the favs before they have even danced isn't it, young, thin/fit or both).

If it is presumed that only straight women and gay men watch the show and vote (which I don't think is even accurate statsitics, imo) then wouldn't the producers be wanting a male winner every single year (if men lovers are the only avid and majority audience). I mean, what would the point in putting females in be if the straight women and gay men are going to ignore them amid the salivating over the males each year. I mean really, this notion that the producers desperately want this or that to win and will orchestrate it from the off is just wild imagination bum fluff. The previous winners of this show have been a mix of males, females, actors, singers, presenters and a sport person, so any type person can win this show on any given year (apart from maybe very mature). So why would the producers push specifically for a female (or a male) to win when the British public have proven to be such a varied bunch of viewers on the whole.

I thought you might like that. Although I suspect it'll be one of the very rare times you've admired m*nge

Dunno, but series 3 was virtually subtitled, 'Its harder for the men'

By the time they'd finished drilling in how the men have more inhibitions to overcome and have to lead (somewhere Lilia chortles to herself) a can of worms had been opened that lasted for series 3 and got Matt Dawson into the final the following year.

Well exactly, Lilia and most (if not all) of the female Pros can do so at the notion that the male celebs lead them through the dance (even when while trying, sometimes struggling, to remember a dance, do the steps right and perform on top of it). The female Pros don't have their own contained muscles from nothing.

We've had two male winners on the trot, none of the men this year are under 30, and so far three women have topped the leaderboard (including one week where they all managed to come joint top) and no man has yet topped the leaderboard - in fact it took week 4 for any man to manage to come second! And the most likely bet for a male win this year is currently facing a schedule that frequently sees him not getting to sleep until 2am and doing a dance on ten hours' training (and is from Hollyoaks to boot).

I agree Susanna has overtaken Sophie.

Not so sure about Patrick. The quickstep was impressive but maybe the dance just suited him or maybe he has turned a corner. Ashley is steadily improving. So too guy isn't decided on yet.

I think its great that its the first time in what feels like years that we havent known the winner from week 2!
I have no idea who will win this year but Dave wont - Karen has seen to that with her 'row' with Ola. Mud sticks not matter who or what apologised. Mark wont win either. Abby being in the bottom 2 has thrown me a bit as i thought she was safe being 2nd on leaderboard so i dont really know how popular she is. She has no solid fanbase like some of the others. Fiona wont win. So that leaves Patrick, Ben and Ashley for the boys and Sophie, Susannah, Natalie, and for the girls.
I'll go with Sophie, Natalie and Ashley for the final 3 but i'm not one bit sure about that!

I think in the event that Ben or Ashley got into the final two with Natalie, then it'd be similar to Kara vs. Matt three years ago; even if the male celeb had a sizeable fanbase (and even if, unlike Kara, Natalie had had a few appearances in the bottom two by that point) the clear difference in ability and points would lead said fanbase to surrender.

I'm not sure why the guys are being written off as such bad dancers. I seem to remember that lots of guys in previous years did start out very shaky. A lot of them lacked confidence, struggled with leading, and were self-conscious. I'm pretty sure that one of the guys will get to this year's final and then anything can happen with the voting.

It could be like series 5, you never know. Although hopefully with less perfect waltz/ dance off controversy.

Starts off with 4 obvious female front runners plus a couple of younger men who look pretty but don't seem to be that good.

Mid- to late-series and suddenly we've got Gethin vs. Matt rivalry, three of the four female frontrunners falling by the wayside, finally getting rid of the hopeless one (Kate) but still stuck with Kenny Logan (still not good but apparently funny and "improving") all the way up to the quarter finals. By quarter finals the female runner up ends up being the middle aged lady who everyone thought would be out weeks before and it seriously looks as though one of the men will win.

Final remaining female frontrunner wins anyway. <3

I do wish Deborah could have stayed in to be Letitia though. I may cast Mark instead as a combination of Kenny (the parts where he was meant to be funny) and Letitia (the parts where she wasn't amazing but could be a solid dancer with a good sense of performance). Ben and Ashley can play Matt and Gethin - does either of them still have a Waltz to come? And Kelly Brook doesn't have to pull out this time (*fingers crossed*) so we get a three person final, preferably with Natalie in it (who can play either Alesha or Kelly, depending on how strong her public vote turns out to be). Then I'll take Abbey or Sophie as the other Kelly/ Alesha and maybe Susanna as the other Kenny/ Letitia?

Anyway, my re-make of series 5 aside I think it's impossible to call for now. I would be surprised if Mark won and I think Dave will go the usual route of the comedy contestant/ worst dancer - in for a few more weeks and then gone before the semis. Ben I think is the biggest threat to a female winner right now. Susanna I find interesting because she's not as graceful as female winners tend to be but she is sort of in the Chris Hollins/ Tom Chambers mould (good in a slightly messy, very enthusiastic sort of way). Sophie I think could either have a comeback and win or gently putter out in the next couple of weeks. Abbey seems like an unlikely winner right now and I'm not sure what to think about Natalie's chances at the moment. Ashley seems like he ought to be considered a threat but people with workloads that heavy do tend to have problems towards the end one way or another.

Successive male winners is a coincidence.

If the girls this year hadn't topped the leader board it wouldn't have made sense anyway, they're better than the boys overall (so far, imo), so are there deservedly, not by design. So what if the men haven't made way on the boad, it makes sense to men that none have yet topped because Natalie and Abbey are there.

The younger females are still not spring chickens, even if under 30. And besides, there's not much between Ashley and Natalie in age, really, c'mon.

Ricky Whittle had a heavy schedule like Ashley but he still got high scoring dances and got to the final based on being good. If Ashley was on par to Ricky, his talent would still shine through despite the hours of training. But he's not the same level of talent, so needs to try harder if he wants to top the board. And Scott Maslen was deemed a top 4 fav during his year quite early on (alongside Kara, Pamela and Matt) and he had a heavey schedule like Ashley did and was prob older than him at the time too. So Ashey's predicament is nothing new, and others that shared it managed it. I dont think Tom Chambers, Darren Gough or Chris Hollins were spring chickens when they won, so just becausue there is no male at the age of Harry or Louis this year, doesn't mean an agenda has been put in place to give the girls a helping hand to break the run of two young male winners.

Really, this conspiracy theory of favouring women over men is beyony daft. It's actually insulting to the female celebs, as they danced well enough to get their places on the leader board. And how could the BBC know that Abbey and Sophie would be as they were in the opening weeks (when at the precise time of ringing them up to be on the show).

Right now if I could half the celebs based on performances so far I'd get rid of Dave, Ben, Fiona, Mark and Partick. The men aren't great this year by coincidence, and their markings have been accurate (apart from if by Len or Bruno when marked high for effort).

BIB Makes it even more exciting . We just reached the halfway of the competition, anything can still happen from now on imo

I think this is a pretty acurate analysis and I'm surprised that Monkseal hasn't picked up on the parallels to series five where all the moment bar hopalong Katie were all full of potential and the guys all deemed to be hopeless.

I personally cannot wait.

I saw the parallels at the beginning of the series but I think we've lost them. We've still got our Gabby (whoever that is) and whilst Ashley could be a passable Matt, we don't have a Gethin (Ben is precisely the Kenny if we're analogising, except less of a git and substituting kilts for shirtlessness) and we definitely don't have a Letitia.

Our women are, if anything, at the moment Ricky Whittle, Louisa Lytton, Kimberley Walsh and...well...Susanna is her own creation but the nearest I can come up with is Dr Pamela minus 20 years and about 5 points per dance. And none of them were winners.