Skating with Celebrities

[dwanollah]

Lloyd, Lloyd, why hast thou forsaken me?!

[realitybug]

Oh my god, this is real?

I'll watch it because I love skating and celebrities making asses of themselves.

[Deleted]

How is this safe? Some of the things they are attempting take years to master. Not that semi-celebs falling on their asses isn't funny (and I love Kurt Browning and Scott Hamilton), but a skate blade to the head? This just sounds too dangerous to me.

Is there really going to be a sequel to The Cutting Edge? I loooove that movie! I'm going to go look it up now. Thanks for the info SwanFlake.

[Deleted]

I can't wait for this show. My daughter was a competitive figure skater for years. I just don't understand how they can do it. My daughter skated 6 days a week, three hours a day and it still took months to master jumps and spins. It can take a year to learn how to do a proper cross over. Many professionals still don't do them all too well. Don't expect much of the competitors.

BTW, John Zimmerman is a so so skater, but absolutely gorgeous, nice too.

[anne]

limey said:

And the whole thing will be hosted by Scott Hamilton and Olympic swimmer Summer Sanders. I still have some questions I need to look up the answers to regarding Scott's job as host, because it was my understanding that he'd be commentating for NBC at the Olympics in Turin this coming February. Unless this show wraps up within a month (I doubt), it's going to be running the same time as the Olympics, and the Wednesday night broadcasts are supposed to be Live.

I wonder if they will have a special guest host for the duration of the Olympic skating events? Because I would beat Scott Hamilton over the head with a brick in my skate if he passed up the Olympics for the likes of Todd Bridges and Jillian Barberie.

I heard a report last night that NBC told Scott Hamilton that he's committed to them, and cannot appear on another network for a skating show. He's been told to choose one or the other. From the report I've heard, he has not decided yet. I cannot imagine that he'd pass up the long term commitment of the Olympics for a Fox debacle.

[swanflake]

I could've sworn that I heard on the commercial that the show would be Live, but someone at a skating board insists that it's not Live--it's all been taped already and the home audience doesn't get to vote, so Scott won't have to fly back and forth between the US and Italy, BUT, apparently it's still a breach of his contractual obligation for NBC. There's a possibility that NBC might replace him for the Olympics.

I really don't like Scott Hamilton's commentary, so I'm not sad. I would absolutely jump for joy if Dick Button got to commentate at one last Olympics. Dick already has been signed by the USA network to have a show during the Games to talk about the skating going on.

[Deleted]

deaconblue said:

I can't wait for this show. My daughter was a competitive figure skater for years. I just don't understand how they can do it. My daughter skated 6 days a week, three hours a day and it still took months to master jumps and spins. It can take a year to learn how to do a proper cross over. Many professionals still don't do them all too well. Don't expect much of the competitors.

I am also quite curious to see what skills they can master. A lot of skills (like edges, crossovers) aren't really that fab to see on television, and you have to learn those before you can get to jumps and proper spins.

Did anyone see the episode of "Made" on MTV in which the high school lacrosse player tries to become a figure skater? The end result was pretty realistic--at the end he still was a fairly piss-poor skater--and it didn't make for that great of television.
It will be interesting to see how this show pans out.

[Oxynia]

Did they pick celebrities who have had skating lessons in the past or those with two left feet? I'm really hoping it's the latter, otherwise this won't be the snarktastic joy I'm imagining.

[Deleted]

swanflake said:

I could've sworn that I heard on the commercial that the show would be Live, but someone at a skating board insists that it's not Live--it's all been taped already and the home audience doesn't get to vote, so Scott won't have to fly back and forth between the US and Italy, BUT, apparently it's still a breach of his contractual obligation for NBC. There's a possibility that NBC might replace him for the Olympics.

I dug up Fox's press release from September, and it reads like it's taped. I would think that would be the safest thing, considering they're lacing up skates (one slip and it's Clint Malarchuk all over again.)

[swanflake]

spordelia said:

(one slip and it's Clint Malarchuk all over again.)

Do you mean Dmitri Palamarchuk?

The celebrity that I really wanted them to select was Julie Benz ("Jawbreaker", and I think she was on "Buffy" too). She used to be a competitive skater and competed at Nationals in ice dance on the Novice level. I once read an interview with her where she said that, if given a week to refamiliarize herself with the ice, she could do all the jumps through a Double Lutz. She could've done really well on the show, but maybe the people behind the show felt she A) was too good and it was too big of a gamut between her and the other celebs B) she wasn't famous enough, or C) she had no interest in doing the show.