‘Dancing with the Stars 21’ finale rankings: Will Bindi Irwin, Nick Carter, or someone else win?

It seems appropriate that for the first time all season long on “Dancing with the Stars,” we’re changing our #1 contender for the Mirrorball Trophy right before the finale. It feels like this has been mostly a season of attrition, where we’ve seen how a contender has slowly made their way up the leaderboard and into the hearts of the show’s viewers. We weren’t sure in the early going that we would have a competitive finale, and we are so grateful that this has changed.

As always, we’re basing these rankings off of scores, viewer support, and what we’ve seen historically over the course of the season.

4. Carlos PenaVega and Witney Carson (last week: 3) – We’re changing up our #4 and #3 mostly based off of Alek having a better week than we thought that he would, but we honestly think that they are both also fairly interchangeable at this point. Both are very solid dancers who have gotten a lot out of this show, but we just don’t see them cracking the top two.

3. Alek Skarlatos and Lindsay Arnold (4) – Alek has made it much further than we thought that he would based on a few simple things: Having some dance ability, being an American hero people can get behind, and having a good demeanor about himself on the show. He’s the everyman, and while his scores have not always been the best, they have improved vastly.

2. Nick Carter and Sharna Burgess (1) – At the end of Monday’s show we inferred that Nick may have been at the bottom of the contenders when combining viewer votes and the scores, but we’re not sure what to make of that. Even if he was in danger of leaving in that spot, we feel like his fan base has probably galvanized over the past few days. Us playing him #2 really has more to do with what our top contender has done than anything he has.

1. Bindi Irwin and Derek Hough (2) – The truth here is that Bindi has made the biggest improvement all season. She was not a dancer or a stage performer at all going into this, but Derek once again has worked wonders this season. More than her high scores, though, we feel like viewers have really responded to the enthusiasm and the joy that she brings to what she does.

Who is at the top of your rankings at the moment? Share in the comments, and head over here to see more of the format for the upcoming two-day finale! Also, sign up over here to get some other TV updates worthy of dancing over courtesy of our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: ABC.)