Skating with Celebrities

[dwanollah]

You said it. Although, I don't think the Compulsories should've been scratched completely, on the other hand.

[topher]

Swan, I am expecting a great commentary about tonight's premiere episode. No pressure or anything.

Just leave the Brandon doll at the door. ;D

[Deleted]

dwanollah said:

You said it. Although, I don't think the Compulsories should've been scratched completely, on the other hand.

You're correct about that. Many of the skaters you see today don't have good technique. You can see it when they stroke and when they do crossovers. They don't hold their bodies correctly so their spins travel and they end up on their asses half the time when they jump. Doing patch and moves in the field helped skaters perfect their techniques. I regularly see skaters doing things on tv that my daughter's coach would not let a mid level skater get away with.
.

[topher]

Here we go.

Movie Star Kristie Swanson is a bit of a stretch.

[magazinewhore]

Kristy looks like she's not easy for Lloyd to lift. Tai is still really pretty. So is Dorothy Hamill.

[BarbR]

Dorothy Hammil is almost unrecognizable!

I don't know how to post pictures, but maybe someone can come up with a before and after?

[topher]

We don't allow picture to be posted but one can link to them.

[swanflake]

I took copious (sp?) notes!

Kurt and Debbie:[/u]
Okay, I thought Debbie was totally boring. I know she wasn't a very good skater, but she barely did any arm movements or facial gestures or anything, and there was too much stopping on her part. And Kurt should've figured out something to do while Debbie did the spin. He spun and then just stood there while she finished hers, but at least she tried it on one foot.

Tai and Bruce:[/u]
Okay, my first impression was that Bruce looked like Lurch on ice. His carriage made me nervous, but unlike Debbie at least he kept moving the whole time. And those Waltz jumps they did in great unison could not have been too easy. They did the spin using two feet which is a lot easier, but he also had a small spiral and Tai looked lovely and confident in herself and her partner, so all in all I thought they did well.

Lloyd and Kristy:
I don't understand why the judges were so hard on them, unless they hate Lloyd which with his personality is entirely possible. You know his "I think everyone knows how I feel about judges" comment. Yeah, at one Pro-Am competition in the 96/97 season I remember him looking at the camera and saying "ISU, you're jerks" in response to not liking his perfectly appropriate scores. Anyway, back to the skating. The judges criticized Kristy for messing up her Spiral, but hey, at least she did a Spiral with good technique. Her posture in the skill was nice and her leg was in a relatively strong position with the foot turned out and the leg clearly above the hip. That's a lot more than we got out of Debbie. And their spin was good and executed on one foot. I thought their content was more than enough to put them ahead of Kurt and Debbie despite Kristy's mistake on the Spiral. I was more apt to pay attention to Kristy's basic skating skills than the lifts, because we already knew going into this that having a male pairs skater as your partner gives you huge advantage in the lifts department, so I didn't want to over credit them for that.

Jenni and Todd:[/u]
Bless their hearts, they tried, but I did not think the outcome was very good. I thought one of their biggest issues was that Jenni looked really distracted and nervous, as though she was paying so much attention to Todd to see if he'd mess up that she wasn't able to focus and put all her effort into her own part of the performance. Hell, she used to kind of look like that when she was competing, so if she wants to entertain the crowd I think she needs find it in her to get over that. Watching Jenni made me all the more impressed with Tai's presentation, because she looked so confident in Bruce. With Jenni being kind of distant, it was up to Todd to take center stage, and he moved okay but it wasn't good enough to me. And their spin was done on two feet (since the spin was the required element of the night I kept paying attention to see if they did it on one foot or two--two is way easier). I think John Nicks was absolutely right, all hope is not lost, but they're going to have to re-work their style if they want it to work as two skating as one. And Mr. Nicks knows exactly how Jenni works because he coached her and her husband Todd Sand when they were Olympic eligibles.

John and Jillian:
Hands down, the best of the night. Jillian was quite obviously the best celebrity skater out of all of them, but because she has so much more abilities I expect more from her. Their spin was fantastic and she could actually do several different kinds of steps in her footwork (very solidly), but I didn't think she presented herself with much of any excitement. Because she looked so secure out there, it was almost as if it was more boring because you weren't on edge wondering if they would make a mistake. I think John and Jillian need to sex it up a lot. Popular opinion in the skating world is that he's one of the hottest (if not the hottest) skaters around (I don't agree, but I'm in the minority), and lets face it, Jillian public image has been based on her seeming kinda hoochiesh, so damn it! Sex it up! However they choose to go about it, they should find a way to make their presentation more interesting to match their great moves. I thought Mark Lund's scores of 9.0 were too high though compared to everyone else, because it made the gap between them and everyone else disproportinately huge.

Dave and Nancy:[/u]
Firstly, their choreographer Randy Gardner still looks kind of cute in his old age. Anyway, I was surprised he was allowed to get away with grinding off the toe picks, but whatever. I thought their costuming worked for them--the black coats worked to obscure his posture, as did the hats and sunglasses, and the hats and glasses also covered up their faces, helping to avoid the possibility of boring facial expressions. I thought their moves and steps were well matched. It didn't look like Nancy was doing too much more work than Dave (unlike Kurt & Debbie and Tai & Bruce), which I appreciated. They also had good speed and the Throw Single Axel wasn't spectacular, but at least they had something with a full complete revolution in the air. I didn't write down anything about their spin, so I guess that means it was good but not great. I can't really remember now.

So, here were my results:
1. John and Jillian
2. Nancy and Dave
3. Tai and Bruce
4. Lloyd and Kristy
5. Kurt and Debbie
6. Jenni and Todd

The actual judges' results:
1. John and Jillian
2. Nancy and Dave
3. Tai and Bruce
4. Kurt and Debbie
5. Jenni and Todd
6. Lloyd and Kristy

So, I was pretty much in line with the judges. And I think the publicity John Nicks will get out of this will work out well for Sasha Cohen in Turin. But speaking of Turin, I think it sucks that this show will be moved to Monday nights at 8/7c now after tonight (they wanted the premiere to be right after "AI"), because I believe that the Pairs Free Skate and the Free Dance will be on Monday nights, and I am not missing out on the Olympics for this stuff. Then again, I'm not sure when this show will be over. Will it be more than six episodes?

[ladymadonna]

I know nothing about figure skating. Let me just throw that out there right now. I only know what I think is "pretty". After watching the show tonight, and taking into consideration the facts that: A. Dave Coulier at least knows how to balance on skates; B. Jillian Barberie skated in her formative years and; C. Bruce Jenner is an athlete who knows how to train; I thought Kristie and Lloyd (I keep calling him Isaac, much to my nine year daughters amusement) had the best performance, followed by Todd and Jenni.
I was disappointed that Kristie and Lloyd scored so low. I kind of felt like the judges should give exceptions to the celebs that have had NO skating or athletic experience. Which is lame, I know; but it seems like it would level the playing field somewhat, for the pro skaters who have celebs with crappy athletic abilities.

That said, I just want to see some falls and minor injuries. It IS reality TV after all, LOL.

[Deleted]

Lloyd and Kristi should be first or second place at least, not last. Bruce Jenner looked like a Grandfather trying to skate. He did well, considering, but not nearly well enough to warrant their scores.

So here's what I think.

The judges are biased against Lloyd and Kristi GOING INTO THIS THING. Why? Two reasons - Lloyd's history of disdain for judges (which I actually admired. he was often right.) AND ... wait for it.... he's Canadian. A Canadian figure skating star competing with all other American figure skating stars? No way will they let him win this thing. It's Fox tv. And that's just wrong.

Bruce and Tai are enjoying major favourable bias because they're very ollllldddd timers. Well respected (tho why Jenner is respected, considering his personal life, is beyond me) and from Dorothy Hamill's time competing. They'll get coddled all the way through this thing. Nancy Kerrigan too, for the same reason.

Jillian is Canadian but not being a figure skating star, they'll let her through, because she is doing very well. I would actually liked to have seen her paired with Lloyd. She wants to be thrown and he is the strongest male skater ever. Those two would put on a phenomenal show and sweep the entire thing. But no, because they're both Canadians - Fox can't have that.