‘Dancing with the Stars’ 20 rankings: Nastia Liukin, Rumer Willis, Riker Lynch lead going into week 6

It’s crazy in a way how comparable this season of “Dancing with the Stars” is to the last one that aired in the fall at around this stage. In some ways, it’s boring. You have four dancers who are clearly better than the other four, and there is really only one with a chance to break through based on popularity. Last year, it was Tommy Chong. This time, it’s Noah Galloway. The funny thing is that those top four are all so strong, you really don’t know who will finish the night with the best score. We still have a clear favorite in our head, but that doesn’t mean will be right come finale time.

In the event that you are new to reading our “Dancing with the Stars” ranking pieces, first of all welcome! We tend to rank the contestants based on dance quality, perceived popularity, and show edit above all else. Let’s dive in!

8. Patti LaBelle and Artem Chigvintsev – Going into this season, we thought that Patti would have the sort of run where she would last a week or two longer than her talent on the dance floor indicated she would, but then be eliminated before things got too serious. This is around that time.

7. Robert Herjavec and Kym Johnson – We do think that Robert is a much better dancer than Chris, but he’s coming off a round of surprisingly-low scores and we are not entirely sure that he has the same voting block out there as Bachelor Nation. This could be considered a “shock boot,” but we wouldn’t be that shocked as much as we like Robert.

6. Chris Soules and Witney Carson – We just get a feeling that the former Bachelor is not going anywhere, at least just yet. He’s not going to win or make the finals; the best thing that he can hope for is no more rough edits in the rehearsal footage.

5. Noah Galloway and Sharna Burgess – Noah’s lower scores so far this season compared to the top four have always been somewhat problematic, and then he went the wrong direction this past week. Having the inspirational story and the YouTube hits may only get you to a certain point if there continues to be a divide.

4. Willow Shields and Mark Ballas – We are probably entertained more with her dances than almost anyone, but save for one outlier her scores average just below the top three. Still, she is not someone to be forgotten about by any stretch of the imagination.

3. Riker Lynch and Allison Holker – We go back and forth constantly on the fourth through second place on this list. The only real reason that we have Riker at third this week is because Rumer had the more memorable performance to us this time around.

2. Rumer Willis and Val Chmerkovskiy – We loved her Ursula-inspired dance from last week so much, especially when hearing more of how she was interested in being more of the villain. We were concerned about her fan following going into this season, but she brings such a different energy to the show than most of the other stars that we’re starting to feel a groundswell of support for her.

1. Nastia Liukin & Derek Hough – Through it all, we’re still going with Nastia at the top. She’s the most consistent, America loves Olympians, and Derek is always a threat to win the competition. It may be boring, but the data is there to back it up.

Who do you think is the best of the bunch? Vote in the poll below, and head over here to get some spoilers from this week on the show! Also, sign up here to get some other news worth dancing over via our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: ABC.)