I really like Ashley. I'd like him to win!

This is slightly off-topic, but I think that it is incredibly rude that Tess refuses to pronounce Ola's name correctly, especially as she's been told numerous times. It's disgusting. It's just basic manners to say somebody's name correctly. Everybody else on the show manages it!

I think Darcey's scores of Ashley are quite high as she's never really scored him less than 8 since week 2 so it's either been 8 or 9.

If you were to believe her then he hasn't quite made the progress or captured a style as well as others.

I think also as she's after Craig, he'd scored Ashley at 7 or 8 also when she as the others have scored him 8 or 9 which is relative whereas with other couples (particularly Abbey in QS @ Blackpool) she was scored 7 by Craig and 10 by the others impacting on opinion who's right and who's wrong. A difference of 1 point between the harshest and most lenient judge isn't going to get people talking.

I'm an Ola fan, so Ash is part of the team I'm supporting.
I was hoping Ola would get a chance to show people just what she could do this series and Ash seemed to fit the bill until his training time limitations became obvious.

Ash has more potential to learn but you need the time and preferably a fresh (not tired) celeb to teach.
Ola is back in the same situation as with a lot of her celebs with less potential - there is a limit on how much Ash can learn each week.

So Ola has to make the most with less ingredients to cook up some choreography - hence it is more likely to look repetitive.
She was smart enough in the first 2 weeks to sacrifice the CCC and produce a very good AS in the second week in case they were in the dance off.
She actually does work things out very well and has got her celebs a long way. She also gets along very well with them.

My main disappointment is that once again she hasn't had a good chance to show what she could do with a good celeb and full training time. I think she can choreograph interesting and entertaining routines. eg. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8l32jpqzIxU

Maybe next year?

In the meantime she is doing a very good job with Ash's help.

Can Ashley's time limits though be asserted as a credible argument? As others have said, he and his agent knew the rules and amount of training that was required so a bit of greed starts to slip in here; hence no sympathy from this quarter. Having said that, and from a completely irrelevant viewpoint, I do think the guy is beautiful and it is a shame his training hours are limited because he has the natural tendency for dance as does Patrick.

I don't think it's terrible at all. Not even taking into account Ashley's baby, Bryan told him that SCD would be a lot more work than he thought it would be, and made it clear that Hollyoaks wouldn't be making any concessions for him. The storylines are planned months in advance, Ashley knew what he was signing up for. It's a shame to see someone so exhausted and frustrating for everyone that he can't get the training time, but people have been saying to him since the beginning that the combination of a new baby, a full-time job and SCD (which is basically also a full-time job if you factor in the training, the Friday rehearsals and the Saturday show) was a bad idea. I mean, the guy looks physically ill - he's lost two stone and he didn't really have any to lose to begin with.

I get what you're saying and at the start of the year I'm sure he, Jessica Fox (Nancy) and Anna Passey (Sienna) were sat down and advised that they'd be in the middle of the same storyline which would hot up towards the summer. Not sure SCD was in the pipeline but certainly he probably would have found out that his fiancee was pregnant soon after that.

Maybe 'terrible' was a poor choice of vocabulary on my part but it must be a difficult position for him to be in. For me if he's doing Strictly despite all what's going on around him he could want to explore different avenues i.e. roles and raise his profile high enough to leave his current role and pursue another whilst his family is still young and he'll get to enjoy their formative years.

I also understand about the weight loss and the exhaustion. It isn't ideal for him at all that this has happened. For sure he's a bit more toned but he could have done that losing 10 pounds to a stone maybe less. The other stone has probably come from sheer exhaustion and eating when able to do so which isn't necessarily when your body wants you to be eating.

I can see him giving it all he's got on Saturday but the problem is :

a) has he got enough?

and if so ...

b) will it be enough?

Poor Ashley look completely exhausted on ITT. I don't think he's going to be able to keep up the pace.

Ola looked wiped out too.