The judges obviously have their favourites and it's plain to see the pre-trained celebs Jay, Helen and Kellie are favoured this year over the others.

Jay and Kellie have both had dances with mistakes that the judges conveniently ignore, and don't get me started on Helen getting Adele's 'Hello' for her dance this week...

I really feel for the ones who start from bugger all, being made to look inadequate against contestants with unfair advantages.

Perhaps they should let the viewers have a vote to even things up a bit. 😵

Sorry when did they forget to penalise Jay for a mistake?

Most of them have some form of training and i would bet my bottom dollar some went and hit lessons prior to the show

Not most of them, 4 as far as we know. I doubt Ewan, Jeremy, Ainsley, Carol, Jamelia, Kirsty, katie, Peter or Anita have had any training prior to the show.

I'm sure banking the massive bag of cash they get for doing the show salves their wounds somewhat.

Jamilia and Peter are on stage and do choreographed dances with professionals and are trained by the choreographers ......

Agreed in theory but if you were going on a dance show would you not sneak a few lessons in?

Yes, maybe agree about Jamelia and Peter but no I would not sneak a few lessons in, that would be cheating.

Jeremy and Carol haven't been in the dance off yet. There's a reason for that.

You don't mean that speaking to millions of people everyday about their experience might be an advantage? Surely not?

and being a member of a popular boyband?

Hey I never said he didn't have an advantage being in a boyband, but it's silly to pretend some dance lessons is the only advantage you could ever have in Strictly.

I'd imagine being in a boyband for a few years that's on hiatus with most of the fans having probably moved on is far less of an advantage than being a current pop star and tabloid darling with over 3M followers and a current album in the charts and weekly appearances on the biggest daytime shows if we want to play tit for tat on advantages.

We all know there are loads of different advantages so let's cut out the silliness and just accept, in no way will it ever be completely fair, and that's what the public vote is for and why they tell you to vote for your favourite.

Did Katie not do ballet or did I dream that?

I heard Ian say that she had ballet training on ITT last week.

Even if they all started at zero and got training some would respond better than others, there really isn't a way to level the playing field IMO

Jay does however seem to have all the advantages, what with dance training for 6 six years and then being a member of a popular boy band. He really does have a massive head start over every one else whatever excuses are made for him.

In fairness, I don't remember Carol's weather reports running "there's thick fog all over the south east today and also all these shimmies are chafing my nipples something chronic".

I don't watch breakfast in the mornings anymore, but I'm sure when Chris was on they'd always chat to him about Strictly, do they not chat to Carole about it then?

And why don't you like Helen dancing to Hello. It's s amazing song and number 1. Georgia danced to Writings on The Wall before the film was released

Well someone doesn't pay enough attention to the weather...

It's more subliminal, she does a Jay arm waft every time she points at the weather map

I asked someone on the forum who I respect greatly and know has vast dance experience, if Jay has a big advantage over everyone else and she/he said no because he had not been taught Ballroom or Latin where he trained. So that's good enough for me. I know you will never be convinced as I appreciate that you don't like him and that is fair enough.

It's undeniably the biggest song in the world right now, basically the best you could be given for a slow dance this week.

How long would the programme last if the only competitors were Jereme Vine, Carol Kirkwood, Anne Widdecombe, John Sergeant ....... There might be some novelty value but viewing figures would plummet.

I thought they got around £25k that is not massive for most of them as the likes of Kirsty would get that for hosting 3 company awards night functions. I am aware she made around £8k for one a couple of years ago.