Forget Mr Darcey and 'Pride and Prejudice'


I'm beginning to think that we trusting viewers are victims
of manipulation and gullability....

...the routines are becoming so much harder, so much sooner, and overfull of tricks
rather than good skating and ice dancing just to try and keep
our interest and keep the viewing figures up to speed
...Jason...a loose canon at the best of times is allowed to
abuse celebrity contestants and get away with it...
...Robin is Head Judge...to let Jason get away with describing
Sharron as 'a flying piece of shit' is unacceptable
..to draw some comparison..if Craig Devil Hardwood did that
on SCD...and I believe he's tried...Len Goodman, for all his
faults, would have slaughtered him and probably demanded a sacking

I'm beginning to think that a lot of this has been generated and stage managed to generate what might be a loss of enthusiasm (as with SCD after all these years) for the show

If so, abusing and ridiculing hard working and enthusiastic
celebrity contestants really is scraping the bottom of the barrel

Well said, geordiegump.

I too wonder about the difficulty of the routines. From Robin's comments last night, it sounded like the step sequence came in several weeks earlier than it normally would.

As for Jason -- I don't think an apology and people (such as Phil) trying to dismiss the complaints as an overreaction is enough at this point. Jason needs to stop being so obnoxious, and if he won't or can't, he should be sacked. Otherwise it will look like the show is just wanting controversy as a way to artificially boost ratings.

I am rapidly losing interest in DOI and this series for me has been the worst so far, lack lustre performances from the "Celebs", a Judge who seems to think that he has a God given right to abuse anyone who he deems is not worthy to grace his prescence, it needs a good shake up if it is to survive!

i honestly think that partly the reason is that the scoring is far too low.

I have a feeling I will lose interest

We all know Haley or Mikey are going to win just as we knew Ray would win, it was just the second place that we were not sure of

I must confess to knowing little about ice skating but I do find it odd that many of the female skaters are almost unable to skate more than a few feet across the ice on their own BUT seem to be able to do seemingly complex lifts. It appears to be all show and little skill on the part of the celeb with the real skill coming from the professional skater and their ability to lift and control the other skater. I don't remember so many complex (read audience pleasing) lifts coming so early in the competition before. It seems to be more of a 'put on a spectacular production' rather than improving on basic skills. As Geordiegump said...full of tricks'.

As for Jason, again I agree with Geordiegump. if this had been STC there is no way that len Goodman would have allowed that remark to pass unchallenged. He would have immediately spoken up as would Brucie, I think.

Veri brought up the point that people such as Phil have tried to dismiss the complaints. I watched GMTV this morning and lorraine Kelly attempted to bring up the subject of what Jason said with Nicky but her question was also brushed aside. It appears that all those involved have been told to keep quiet presumeably in the hope that the furore will die down.

Jason's apology was half-hearted to say the least.

Bonnie and Clare did more difficult lifts and got higher marks earlier in series one and two. Suzanne wasn't far behind. Last year was lack lustre because only Melinda and Roxy were short enough among the good females to do most big lifts. Ray was slight (though stronger than one might think when he did pull a big lift off) and the rest of the males were pretty weak at everything so they couldn't do much in the lifting line either.

Not sure but I think this year's lot have trained longer too which would have the side effect that there was more content from the top people possible earlier on and they do have a competition from the start. They obviously don't want to repeat last year where Ray was miles ahead, Jessica and Zoe were limited by height and needed time to get as far as they could. Last year the outcome of having no competition and not much excitement to build anyone's support was that the support moved to the likes of Colleen and Todd and they then had a problem getting rid of them. This year has to be an exciting competition from the start to avoid a repeat and they have managed that - though they may be praying for Dr H to go.

The reason why the better girls are being given bigger lifts is that the boys seem not to be given them unless bizarrely like Kieron its touch and go if they are big enough to lift at all. Someone has to do something exciting and if its not a boy it has to be a girl. There's no evidence at all that Hayley or Daniella can't skate, Sharon can, Heather can within her limitation and no one knows with Emily as she's been choreographed from one lift to another. Its far from clear that the boys are doing anything harder skating around a bit than the top girls are doing doing more dancing, more acting and the lifts. The show seems to be using the better boys ability to skate around a lot but not doing much more with them which may partly be why Danny and Gary look dull and have a vote problem. Lets see if the boys can do more or if its some health and safety thing about risk limiting what they can do.

I would think the Jason thing is running hard out there. Its in the tabloids , Live at Studio Five covered it tonight and they are linked to sky news. It seems complaints have been made so its hardly going to vanish.

We don't know who will win. Daniella needs one or two great routines to get up to Hayley. Suzanne probably only overtook Chris in the vote and ability in the SF. Chasing is a good position if you look good at the end. Mikey may win with a sympathy vote helping but he could quite easily be passed in abilty by a couple of other males if they sort out their weaknesses.

I think that the series started out with 6 good skaters. Danny & Kieron have dropped off a little in the last 2 weeks, even allowing for some undermarking by the judges for Kieron. But there are still 8 weeks to go & a couple of good performances from one of them & they will be real challengers.

If Gary can inject some more personality into his skating he can challenge. Daniella's scores may not be quite as high as Mikey & Hayley but at the moment I don't think there's that much difference in ability.