"has beens, bbc employees, and nobodies" categories are like a version of snog marry avoid.

Odoom he is no longer on any BBC show so he's not a current employee.
He's a working radio presenter so can't be a has been.
You can't call a Saturday Night ITV gameshow host a nobody when that is the most watched channel on Saturday nights, plus I can't find anything to say 'Bang on the Money' has finished.

This system propels Odoom to be a big celebrity signing what with Will Young failing to get his recent songs into the UK top 100.

Will Young is a decent name and Ed Balls a leftfield choice.

The other three are OK. But the full line up has yet to be announced so hopefully there will be one or two surprises.

You won't have the A list stars because it is a big commitment for 3/4 months.

Exactly. Just because he's not had a hit single for a few years is nothing. His album last year went to #1 so Will definitely still has a big following including myself.

If anything, I reckon this years line up might encourage more people to watch. Laura is an MTV presenter so she will be appealing to the younger generation.

I've heard of Will, Ed and Ore. Not the other two.

Having said that, I ended up supporting Jay, someone I'd never heard of this time last year, and he was a terrific dancer.

I'm happy to wait and see with the line up.

It's not that, it's the sheer pointless position of having less than a third of contestants announced we get this very very premature thread, if the OP had the " full facts" of all the contestants and thought it was , to use the technology " pants" well that's thier personal view.

You can see this thread has got many posters back up, mainly as , it's far to early and clearly unjust to make any assumptions at this time, and each year someone dies thus, and then we gave a fantastic series.

We have just had five announcements so far!

Let's reserve judgment until more is known, and as many pointed out, Jay was fairly Unknown, abnd didn't start that well, people made comments on him, and then he won, not just won the series but won many viewers over.

Yes this is the exact point.......


Let's wait.....

Jay was quite Unknown.

I see your point but in fairness the OP said 'so far' and honestly in general I do think SCD fans on here can be quite ferociously defensive of the show which is a little unnecessary.

More like The Man in the Hat if you ask me.
*joking, I love you Trev!*

To be honest, I live in absolute fear of someone I've liked for years doing the show - they might turn out to be a Blulu and that would be terrible

Give me the unknowns every time

To be honest, firstly, the same is in the XF forum, in fact I posted one slightly negative post there, and got DS warning and it deleted, you can't post anything negative there, ( it wasn't rude it didn't offend - it was just with low ratings it's had its time and the show should take a rest) and clearly my post was reported. So they defend their show.

However, secondary, this thread is just wrong, very wrong, just " five" contestants, of 15, 33%, and some very well known names there, and it's described as the highly technical " pants". That is beyond premature, let's get more names out first.

It reminds me of other posts on the UK TV Shows forum, such as, " I gave it five minutes ", that's a regular comment. Do we have such limited attention spans nowadays that a comedy, or drama must impress within five minutes nowadays, - Only fools and horses was a great show, but the killer joke may take 20/30 minutes to set up.

We judge to quickly, to write off SCD 2016 contestants as pants on just five announcements is beyond premature IMHO. OP is entitled to thier opinion but as its posted on a new thread here, the people responding are entitled to theirs, and a thread like this will be provocative in a fans SCD forum.

I havent been keeping up with the confirmed celebrity thread, so far how many celebrities have been confirmed ?

Ed Balls > Anyone is last year's cast

They could give us 15 Hollywood A-listers and there'd be still those moaning that their Granny hadn't heard of all of them . We're not called Whingeing Poms for nothing...

Just - 5.

I don't think I whinge much, but I have to say that if the heavily rumoured (practically confirmed) names are true, then the list does look less than stellar and I do feel a bit of disappointment (for me Will and Ed are the most interesting names on the list). That's not to say that I won't get to like some of those whose names I don't recognise, but I think it is good for the show's profile to have a really big name that is recognised by a fair proportion of the public, ideally beyond the UK.

I think you mean terminology not technology. And 5 contestants is a third of them, not less than a third.

Also, you are basically saying that people can only start threads at times that you think are ok. As already pointed out, the title makes it clear that this thread is about the line up SO FAR, not the complete line up.

I do have to agree with that from a personal point of view if I'm honest. Ed and Will were a nice start but since then I've become more underwhelmed with each one. Melvin from Kiss FM really left me a bit flat. Is that station that well listened to at all?

I understand going for a station like Radio 1 to entice the young (other people might have at least heard of the DJ) but Kiss FM? Really? Hmmm....

Anyway, let's hope that the next to be revealed are a good mix of good surprises.

Series 11 - 2013 was by far the worst announcements-wise

None of the announcements were "wow".
Every day you were waiting for a great name - and none came

Two of them had long quit their professions.
Tony Jacklin had quit Golf before most of the Pro's were even born, and Fiona Fullerton was actually an Estate agent.
Ashley Taylor Dawson and Patrick Robinson were both filming, as well as doing Strictly.
Julien Macdonald is something I have erased from my memory - and would rather never be reminded of EVER AGAIN.

Mark Benton for me was the only "good" signing - and he and Iveta were solid gold.
And once they were eliminated I lost interest

It was only Natalie Gumede being so good, and Susanna Reid's partnership with Kevin that saved the whole series.

I think that's a No for a response here............

Please do not make assumptions that are incorrect.

Sophie Ellis-Bextor seemed like a decent signing.

What assumptions?

Well as a member of the "young" I can inform you that Kiss FM is VERY well listened to by young people just as much as Radio 1, so actually for people my age a more interesting signing rather than going for the predictable, we need someone young let's just go to radio 1

Also to add Melvin has done more than just Kiss FM Breakfast show

I'm young myself (23 in case you were wondering) but have never listened to Kiss FM and only little bits of Radio 1, so it was a genuine question, no need to reply in that kind of tone.

I'm aware Melvin has also done bits of TV work but the fact they're billing him as Kiss FM DJ says how he's being sold to the audience...

Ed Balls is a great signing, in my opinion.

Will Young - OK, I've heard of him but I'm not really familiar with him or his music but he seems nice.*

Haven't heard of any of the others - but I don't really care about that. As long as there is at least one name to grab my interest (and Ed Balls will do that) then I'm eager to start watching and once the show starts, we'll get to know all the people we've never heard of and discover new and/or additional favourites.

* Was really hoping that Joe McElderry would join the line up and I'm not sure if Will being in there makes it more or less likely. It might even the playing field more if two reality show winners are on there.

A v v wise approach- it's bad enough trying to avoid reading baffling stories about Johnny Depp without adding Andy McCluskey, Jessica Ennis-Hill, Beth Tweddle, Claire Grogan and Mr Tumble to the list of figures I want to keep perfect and unsullied.