is that Poll Results, I spy?

First of all, thank you the over 200 people that responded to my poll, that’s a significantly better response than I had anticipated! Second of all, my commiserations to the 6.2% of you that had Kristian Nairn as their Ride or Die going into this series

so that’s the first thing that threatens the viability of this entire poll because if one thing can throw your results into jeopardy it’s The Buff Floppy Haired Soap Hunk With No Wikipedia Entry™

the second thing that is glaringly obvious in my poll is that my audience reach is extremely specifically The Queers™ – which is mostly telling I think in La Voix being such a dominating force in the Ride or Dies.

Speaking of which! Let’s Break the Ride or Dies down! Despite over 200 votes, there were 3 celebrities that didn’t score a single vote in the question about the one person you were really rooting for:
– Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink
– Ross King
– George Clarke

I think this is an outlier for George, I don’t think I reach his particular audience and most of the people I reach had no idea who he is – I spent 5 days thinking it was George Clarke of Niche Whimsical Architecture Programming on Channel 4 fame. He DOMINATED the “Biggest “WHO?”” poll with 39% and the next highest was Ross “Dead Man Walking” King with 18.5%.
As for Ross and Jimmy – no surprise there, men without an Olympic medal or place in a long running soap will always struggle to get pre-series support and Stefan has already soaked up the votes of anyone who has a thing for high-waisted jeans and devious eyebrows

here’s the full breakdown the “Who Are You Rooting For?” question from most to least:
– 34.4% – Alex Kingston
– 21% – La Voix
– 19% – Harry “Nitro” Aikines-Aryeetey
– 6.2% – Stefan Dennis
– 6.2% – Kristian Nairn
– 3.6% – Vicky Pattison
– 3.1% – Balvinder Sopal
– 3.1% – Ellie Goldstein
– 2.1% – Karen Carney
– 1% – Dani Dyer
– 0.5% – Chris Robshaw

Alex and Nitro being early audience favourites makes complete sense to me – they’re arguably the highest profile contestants and should easily skate by on audience good will alone for a good 5 weeks as everyone else develops an audience friendly persona. I also fully get the support for La Voix – there’s been a vocal contingent begging for a drag queen on the main series, and as the president of the Let Tia Kofi Dance Like a Flamingo In A Stiff Breeze Association, I am delighted.

I do find the centre of this particular group to be more interesting – Stefan has a very good chance of going far because I think the SteFans are going to be an incredibly motivated (read “annoying”) voting bloc. I don’t think he’s budging until either his ankle gives way or he proves to be completely Latin inept and let him do one West End auditioning Foxtrot before bussing him on a drunk uncle at a wedding salsa.

Vicky Pattison I think has a good chance of being a bit of a dark horse – she’s got a decently high profile and very charming personality. I think once people make the distinction that she and Charlotte Crosby are not the same person, she’ll be golden. She’s also got a Podcast with Angela Scanlon who proved to have a reasonably good voting fanbase so I reckon there’ll be a decent crossover there. Her biggest potential rivals for production investment are probably Dani and Ellie. I suspect Dani will struggle to warm herself to the audience, there’s a certain artifice that surrounds her, which is why I think despite being one of the bigger names, she didn’t come up very much, if at all, as a Ride or Die for anyone. BUT she did feature HEAVILY in predictions for Finalists so I think if anyone has to Bottom Two Goddess her way to the final, it will be Dani. And Shirley will never agree that she should’ve been saved.
Obviously Ellie will be a major talking point early on as she’s the first celebrity contestant on the main series with Down Syndrome. And for the feel good factor of it alone, I’m not surprised that she’s an early favourite – even if she doesn’t feature as strongly in the predicted finalists. Speaking of which, here’s your Predicted Finalists ranking from Highest to Lowest:
– 61% – Dani Dyer
– 59.5% – La Voix
– 56.4% – Nitro
– 54.9% – Alex Kingston
– 39.5% – Ellie Goldstein
– 39% – Vicky Pattison
– 32.3% – George Clarke
– 15.4% – Balvinder Sopal
– 14.4% – Stefan Dennis
– 8.2% – Chris Robshaw
– 7.7% – Kristian Nairn
_ 7.2% – Karen Carney
_ 3.6% – Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink
– 1% – Ross King

This is probably the most interesting part of the poll. I do unfortunately think that’s a severe overestimation of La Voix who I really think will struggle to keep her place in the competition over the likes of Ellie, George and Tess’s Vernon Klone That Escaped The Facility

of those top 4, the only one I personally feel very confident in is Nitro – Alex has the potential to alienate herself from the audience depending on how hard she leans into her ~Feisty Mature Woman Conquering The World~ persona (£20 the Daily Mail labels her a diva and claims she and her partner are having relationship issues by week 4) and The Potential Problem with Dani I spoke about earlier.
I am intrigued by the support for Balvinder and will certainly be interested to see how that develops, she certainly has a Voting Bloc in the Eastenders audience who aren’t overly swayed by Neighbours nostalgia or Lewis Cope thirst trapping on prime time.
That mid-table of people all have the chance to at least be hit with the ~Journey~ Narrative of being very middle of the pack, whereas the leaders all feel like people who might peak early in the eyes of the judges. Nitro is going to have 7s and 8s thrown at him for Vibes™ alone and as such was leading The Race to the First 10 for quite a while before Dani Dyer narrowly pulled ahead:
– 21% – Dani Dyer
– 20% – Nitro
– 16.4% – Alex Kingston
– 12.8% – La Voix
– 10.3% – Ellie Goldstein
– 6.7% – Balvinder Sopal
– 5.6% – Vicky Pattison
– 4.1% – George Clarke
– 1.5% – Kristian Nairn
– 1.5% – Stefan Dennis

My vote was personally for Nitro – I reckon the moment he tosses whichever woman he’s partnered with into the rafters of Elstree never to be seen again as a confetti cannon goes off and he does a triumphant pec bounce, that 10 is his. Although he does now have to contend with this cocker spaniel that never skips chest day for Shirley’s affections

I am intrigued by the logic of Dani Dyer being a favourite other than that she gives off the vibe of being a production push, which I totally get and also think if Dani does get the first 10, it’s a nail in the coffin for her.

And lastly, we have my personal favourite poll: The First Boot which simply amounts to three men in a free-falling race to be sacrificed first:
– 41.5% – Ross King
– 23.1% – Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink
– 14.4 – Chris Robshaw
– 9.2% – Stefan Dennis
– 4.1% – Kristian Nairn
– 2.1% – George Clarke
– 1.5% – Alex Kingston
– 1.5% – Balvinder Sopal
– 1.5% – Dani Dyer
– 1% – Karen Carney

Notably absent: La Voix, Vicky Pattison, Ellie Goldstein and Nitro. I do also think that if I had included Thomas Skinner he may well have dominated this more so on wishful thinking alone. I fear he’s around for awhile – consider every roundabout covered with a sloppily painted St. George counts for at least 6 votes for him. With the potential mobilisation of The Skinnerinas, I don’t think there’s a way that Ross can even bag himself any troll votes. His best hope is that in Week 2 he gets vaguely palatable ballroom while Jimmy draws a horrific flop Latin and even then, I think they keep Jimmy on star power alone as nobody has bothered to learn who Ross King is yet.

I also realise I haven’t talked much about Karen Carney who never scored very highly in anything but she did appear in the Ride or Die poll and has real potential to grab that all important Doing It For The Wimmin™ vote so long as they don’t just give it to whoever has the most children and goes with a Getting My Groove Back narrative – I SWEAR TO GOD DANI DYER, DON’T YOU TRY IT.

All in all, looking at the cast my biggest fear is that it feels a little bit too predictable and if I’m honest, the sudden inclusion of Lewis Cope feels like it added an actually interesting dynamic to the line-up. I’m still gutted to have lost Kristian and would do unspeakable things for Thomas Skinner to have been faded out of the show like he was eliminated on America’s Next Top Model never to be spoken of again instead

but alas, as I said, he’s probably around for a good 4 or 5 weeks. But I do like this cast on the whole and there’s enough there to be excited for despite the slight grey cloud that looms ominously over the show.

And so, I’ll see you on the other side of the Launch Show – I’m not sure if I will recap it, it’s very hard to mine a recap from what amounts to 2 hours of people just doing pleasant conversation at one another. But I’ll certainly run a poll just after the show to see if the partnerships have changed your votes and break that down ahead of Week One!