I must be the only one here who enjoyed Chris and Ola, but granted series 7 was boring.

My favourite series was 9, all the contestants were really relatable and it was a great final, I love Chelsea and Pasha's Quickstep.

Darren did a very good foxtrot and paso, but people's hatred (that he robbed Zoe/Colin) tends to cloud their judgment. Especially that Paso is one of my favourite dances (I still miss tiny Lilia).

Best: 5, 8, 9, 10, 12
Worst: 6, 7

I remember being a full-time viewer for series five. Back then I thought the cast was excellent and a few big names; John Barnes, Kelly Brook, Stephanie Beacham, Penny Lancaster-Stewart to name a few.

I'll always see series eight as the revamp year and of course Ann

Both series six and seven for me were too much. Seven especially, with the worst cast list out of all the years in my opinion.

Darren Gough maybe did 2 or 3 good dances, I cannot think of a worse winner ability wise though. He wasn't rubbish but never looked quite right.

I agree with this. Series 13 was the worst for me. It was a case of sticking it out to the end. The foregone conclusion aspect / praise and fandom of Jay taking over. He was good but not as good as was being made out - imo. The mob mentality on line against anyone who dared to raise their head to give this opinion was shocking. I suspect Strictly has gained some of the XF audience in last few years who take fandom a bit too seriously.

Personally it's the show I love(d). The dancing with my favourite(s) being different each week. It's not until the latter stages that I really start to favour particular couples. I don't mind the dud dancing couples early on as long as they are putting effort in. Wouldn't waste a vote on them but it balances the show well between dancing/entertainment.

Favourite series 4 / 5 / 10 / 11.

I just didn't see that at all. I really liked Jay and he pipped Helen and Anitia to my favourite post. I didn't see any more slavish defence of him compared to anyone else though? Maybe I read the wrong threads!

How about we forget about Jay for a minute.. How about the other contestants did they do anything for you? You do know that Jay wasn't the only contestant that year yeah I know it's hard to believe, and we as his 'fandom' we're enjoying his partnership and dancing for me strictly is all about the dancing but also whether a couple can draw me in obviously last year it was Jay and Aliona, that's why last year was the best strictly for me because it was a different series, I think titling Jay to win as it was a 'forgone conclusion' wasn't his decision it was actually titled by the people who thought Jay was 'overrated' as yourself therefore probably failed to actually enjoy the dancing of other couples because all that could be seen was Jay winning wait for it 'since week 3' my favourite line lol..

Last year was a bittersweet one for me. I agree with what you written but once I could accept it was a foregone conclusion and decided to not mind the weird adoration, I started to enjoy the other aspects of the show. I decided to not let the foregone conclusion we had a runway winner spoil it for me.

It was because of the other contestants that I said series 13 was my favourite.

There's no denying Jay's jive was good. I just think it was a pity it came so early in the series. Had he not done that jive until week 7 or 8 for example, people may have recognised the fact he was not a good dancer. His ballroom was poor, and even some of his Latin dances were weak and his showdance was, at best, disappointing. But the jive was in week 3, and after that - in some people's eyes - it seemed he could do no wrong.

So do you think all the people who voted for him to win last year (and the lion's share of the tour shows) were deluded into thinking he was a worthy winner?

Jay had most of the public vote (in fact he probably won by an absolute landslide) and for that reason he won absolutely fair and square.

The idea of a worthy winner is a tricky one. Do I think he was a worthy winner? Yes. Could we have had 'worthier' winners? Purely in my opinion, yes. Of course I'm going to say that because he wasn't my favourite, and in my opinion there was a better dancer in the competition than him. But there's no denying that the technique he showed in some dances was outstanding, and he was exceptionally popular, and for that reason he was a 'worthy' winner but not the 'worthiest' in my view!

As I think is the general point being made here, what perhaps did make the series not quite as good as it could have been for me was that he was a dead cert to win for such a long time. Though, I'm half grateful for that because as I was resigned to it happening it stopped me from getting too frustrated when the result was announced! So yes, I would have preferred a more unpredictable contest, but he wasn't an unworthy winner.

Only been watching since series 10.

Best: Series 10
Worst: Series 13

To be honest, none of them have been as impressive as series 10. They've all felt a little bit flat and have been missing something, but I don't know if that's just because I came in on a really good series.

I get why people don't like a predictable outcome, but I don't get why that singles out series 13 as the worst. I would say there have been about four series out of all of them where you couldn't see who was going to win going into the final, the rest have all been pretty obvious. Particularly in series with a dance off - when some of the finalists have been in the DO multiple times it kills a lot of the suspense. I don't think Jay was any more locked on as a winner than Harry for example, so surely it's just about not liking Jay as a winner than not liking the fact that he was a 'sure' winner (although weirdly it seems to be only people who had others as favourites who felt he was sure to win). After Abbey won when everyone was sure Susannah had it in the bag, I don't view anyone as a certain winner anymore.

Not necessarily; people vote for the person they like best, and after that jive, that became Jay. I'm just saying if that jive had been later in the series, he might not have become quite so popular.

To be honest, The Jive wasn't even my favourtie dance of Jay's let alone the series. I actually preferred his Charleston, Paso or even Tango.

I think Showdances are generally disappointing anyway. I can remember Katie's and Jay's but struggle to bring to mind the other two at all.

Edit : Never mind, I thought the numbers were more dramatic than they were...

I certainly don't think the predictable outcome singles series 13 as the worst - I've watched Strictly for about 5 years, and last series was easily the best for me!
Though I've watched Strictly since 2012 and up until last year I don't think people could predict with any confidence who was going to win during any given series! In my book, Jay was an absolutely 'sure' winner - winning every online poll by a huge marging (he still does now), the only contestant in that series never to be in the dance off, winning the vast majority of the tour shows, an appreciation thread on here which had a post a minute, the shortest odds ever for being a winner ... though in fact all you had to do was listen to the mahoosive cheer he got from the live show audience compared to the others! It didn't spoil the series for me, but it could've been better if I hadn't been so sure of the result.

Plus, it doesn't seem that weird to me that only people who had others as favourites were sure he would win. My normal modus operandi is if I want something to happen, I'll be sure it won't happen ... and if I don't want something to happen, I'll be absolutely resigned to it happening!

I wasn't a great fan of Jay's ballroom or latin dancing either. His jive was very good indeed though. Difficult to say what would have happened if the jive had been danced later in the series. I think there were other factors: his personality, Aliona as a partner.


Sorry Lou, but we can only apply our own judgment. I don't always agree with the public vote, in both Strictly and other areas of life.

I think most of those things were also true of Harry Judd and Louis Smith. Also, although you weren't watching then, in series 6 we were actually told that Tom had received the most votes in the semi final, with people still voting despite it being obvious he could not be saved. He was then put into a final with the same two females he had just beaten, who had been dragged there by the judges through multiple dance-offs so it couldn't have been much more obvious he was going to win. I just don't think Jay was any more of a sure fire winner than a few others, but I can agree to disagree .

Admittedly I wasn't watching it when Harry Judd won it, and Louis Smith won in only my first series watching so I didn't really have anything to judge it by - so perhaps there have been other winners who were basically certain to win! Though my main point was that Jay was sure to win, not that he was anymore sure to win than people like Tom Chambers or Harry Judd - so we're not really disagreeing!

Darren Gough could have cahm ahhht and done The Dummy Dance in the final and still won. Heck, he could have come out and sat on the floor and still won.

Jay and Alionas Jive was the best jive for me to have ever been performed on strictly let that be performed in week 11 I couldn't and I'm sure everyone else wouldn't have cared any less, that routine was perfectly choreographed and performing that at a later stage wouldn't take away that factor. I also loved jays tango, paso, that waltz and many many more, so to say that Jay wouldn't have been that popular if he had performed that jive at a later stage is taking away from his other ingenious routines, some actually prefer some of his other routines over the jive again personal preference.

For what it's worth in terms of the "most predictable winner", every series since Series 6 I've polled people on my blog as to who they thought was going to win in the run-up to the final and the results for the winners were :

Jay - 88%
Chris - 84%
Harry - 81%
Louis - 74%
Tom - 72%
Caroline - 52%
Kara - 44%
Abbey - 16%

Pretty much all of the recent wins for men were pretty obvious to most people watching by the end of the series at least (NB : the polls in S7 were actually in the run up to the semi-final, so when it was down to two people, Chris' win was possibly even more predictable than Jay's was).

I think a Digitalspy Forum is not necessarily representative of the public as a whole, so I don't think in reality, things are just as certain as on the Forum.

Something unexpected might happen over the last few weeks of the Series, and there is always the potential that the producers want a result that suits them. They can influence things quite a lot if they want to.

I agree to some extent with BIB. However, I think as we have moved to Internet voting, I think DS, as an internet forum, has become more representative of the voting section of the viewers. Before that, internet usage was not so likely to lead to a vote, but it's easy and cost free to vote now. So I think Monkseal's stats are slightly deceptive.