Anyone who has been around me for long enough will know that I love Strictly Come Dancing and have avidly watched each series since the reboot in my teens.
This year, I want to put down some of my predictions for the rest of the series.
It’s already an unusual one due to the coronavirus pandemic, with only 3 judges due to Bruno not hopping between the US and the UK as usual. We also had the first same-gender celebrity/professional pairing (briefly) until one of them tested positive for coronavirus and they had to drop out.
Despite all that, here are my headline predictions:
Audience Faves
- Caroline/Johannes
- Bill/Oti
I think these two pairings will get decently far - they’re both at least middle of the table and I reckon they’ve got a good audience vote (though I can’t prove that).
Unless they truly mess up a routine, I think they’ll both carry on until the competition tightens - maybe quarter-finals, or a bit earlier.
Top 5
- Ranvir/Giovanni: strong showing so far, and Giovanni’s choreo is always great
- Max/Dianne: fun to watch, plus Dianne has a huge existing fanbase
- Maisie/Gorka: very strong from the first show
- HRVY/Janette: very strong from the first show
Wildcard:
- Bill/Oti: I’d had him pegged as one of the “comedy” entries when the line-up got announced, but I retract that now - he’s been surprisingly good, and I think he’s popular.
Finalists
- Maisie/Gorka
- HRVY/Janette
- Ranvir/Giovanni
I don’t think Max/Dianne or Bill/Oti are currently finals material, but I’ve been wrong before!
Winner
- Ranvir: 40%
- HRVY: 40%
- Maisie: 20%
It’s a hard one this year, as the top of the table is already pretty strong.
My personal rank for “how interesting are they to watch” is Ranvir > HRVY > Maisie, but I’d be happy with either Ranvir or HRVY winning.
This would be a bit sad for Gorka, because it would be the second time he’s been paired with a VERY strong partner (Season 15’s Alexandra Burke) only to finish as a runner-up, and that’s on top of some absolutely stunning routines like their jive to Proud Mary.
We also don’t know at this point what the voting public think of the high-performing couples. It’s been seen before that strong partnerships can start getting into the dance-off as the field narrows because they don’t have a strong viewer vote.
As the show advances, I’ll come back and edit this with results that were either wrong or right!
November is National Blog Posting Month, or NaBloPoMo. I’ll be endeavouring to write one blog post per day in the month of November 2020 - some short and sweet, others long and boring.