I was with you all the way to your Kieron point - I think his skating is weaker than Gary and Hayley and, though I find her a bit too cheesey, Hayley seems the best overall package to me by a long way. I do think there is a danger in over doing the conspiracy theories re the marking but it would have left a rather unbalanced cast if Hayley was left with three male celebs at this point so it was interesting bearing in mind the previous two weeks in the bottom two that Danniela had such high marks for a routine in which she emoted like anything but barely skated a step!

Sorry I cannot edit anymore, but I would like to add something.

During the last weeks, we had lots of people shouting fix and manipulation for a Hayley win. Now, there are people shouting fix and manipulation because Daniella got put on top of the leaderboard. It could be said that Hayley fans are now retaliating to what was said in previous weeks about Hayley. (in answer to your point that some people are retaliating).

It works for both sides of fans and for both sides of the argument, which is the main point I'm trying to make!

Yes,my motto on here is now 'if you can't beat them, join them'

No disrespect but what an idiotic comment ^ is.

It wouldn't bother me if that was actually true what you just said. But Daniella clearly deserved that score on sunday and it's frustrating to see detractors on here discredit it.

As an all-round performance, Daniella was HEAD AND SHOULDERS above them all on sunday.

All round perfomance I don't think, where was the skating? The routine may have been head and shoulders better than the other routines, but Daniella wasn't.

She also did skate, contrary to some claims we see.

There was almost no solo skating, but that's not the same as no skating.

Besides, if skating were so important this week as many seem to think it should have been, neither Hayley nor Daniella would have been top, or even 2nd.

I didn't say it was right, or even that it had happened, only that it wouldn't surprise me.


I didn't say some people are retaliating. I said: I haven't seen anyone defending the judges re Daniella by treating disagreement as dismissible because the judges are experts or Olympic skaters, or by saying disagreement implies the judges don't know what they're doing or are lying or have been taken in. (Not that it would surprise me if someone did (or had) as retaliation for what was said in other weeks.)

Note the "haven't seen".

see post

Noted. However, you did include this sentence, which led to my other interpretation:

(Not that it would surprise me if someone did (or had) as retaliation for what was said in other weeks.)

As such, I understand that you haven't seen it, but that if there are incidences of it, it wouldn't surprise you if it had happened as a retaliation. I assume that's what you meant, and my answer was related to the "if there are incidences" scenario.

Again, my overall point remains, both camps may exagerate at times, retaliate and be in the wrong. Regardless of whether I get you wrong (which seems to happen so often) that's the point I'm trying to make.

The last few weeks people were shouting fix and manipulation in relationship to Hayley. This week the same happens in relationship to Daniella. The last few weeks people were complaining about the lack of skating in Hayley's routine, this week the same happens with regards to Daniella.

Some of the people are now defending one topic, when last week they were joining in the accusation and vice versa (regardless of whether it is Daniella or Hayley). This is my overall point, regardless whether there are some details in my posts that may be ambiguous (I apologise in advance).

lach doch mal -- I have been pointing to some things I've see only from one side. (See the part after "haven't seen anyone defending the judges re Daniella by" above); and you've been pointing to something different that you've seen from both.

Can you see how we are, as the phrase has it, talking past each other?

Definitely possible. It's not the first time that happed to me, and it won't be the last. To be fair, I'm working on some statistical analyses whilst posting (boring but fiddly stuff), which takes up all of my serious brain power. I'll read through our posts later again with a fresh "brain".

Do you think it's invalid, or ridiculous, or something similarly dismissable to disagree with the judges? (It's a genuine question. I'm not trying to imply you do think that.)

For some reason, that sort of idea has become popular this year for DOI when it's never been very noticeable before. Notmally, we've been able to disagree with the DOI judges (and the SCD ones) without that sort of response.

Re what they can see -- sometimes they can see more than we do, and sometimes we can see more than them. If someone's skating on a part of the rink that's not near the judges, we may have a better view. We can also freeze frame, rewatch, and watch in slow motion.

Now maybe if there were a strictly technical part of the scores that were listed separately, it would seldom make sense to disagree with the "skating judges" about that, but that's not something that happens in DOI.


It doesn't seem to me like the judges are given much in the way of guidelines. They certainly seem to disagree about how much emphasis they should put on different aspects of the performances, how important the required element should be, and so on.

Also, the show seems to be in two minds about how important skating is and about how worthy lifts are. If the producers are giving out guidelines, they ought to have the same ones to the choreographers as they do to the judges, and they ought to tell viewers what's important too.

See post

Actually I think that would be an excellent idea.

"Clearly" is factually incorrect. Clearly it's not clear to a lot of us.

"All-round" performance meaning dancing, skating, and use of the prop? I don't think so. Daniella was excellent at using the prop (or being used by the prop) but had almost zero dancing and even less skating. That's not "all-round".



There was NO solo skating - unless you count holding onto the chair while Matt pulls it as solo skating.

She had six seconds of assisted forward skating, three toe pick steps while holding the chair, and one forward push while holding the chair. "No" skating may be a slight exaggeration, but an extremely slight one.

I'd have to disagree.

As an actress she was great, but certainly not as a skater! And surely, on a skating show, the skating element should be pretty good to be 'head and shoulders above them all'?

Definitely not, I think disagreeing with the judges about how good a performance is, how much emphasis should be placed on different aspects of the performance or how much "wow" factor a performance has is perfectly valid.

However, I do believe that as far as skating ability is concerned, I think there are very, very few people with enough technical knowledge to judge their pure skating technique better than the judges. I also believe that even those who do have the same level of technical knowledge as the judges (and by that I mean the skating judges, not Jason or Emma) are not best placed to judge when watching on TV. The speed at which technical moves are carried out seems (based not only comments on DoI, but also during professional competitions) to be a very important factor in judging technical ability. It is very hard to judge that without being present rinkside.
As a result, whilst most of us can give an opinion on skating technique, most of us are less likely to be right than the experts.

As for the guidelines, yes there are often "debates", but I am cynical enough to believe that DoI is no different from any other of these sorts of programmes in that the judging panel is "encouraged" to generate debate amongst themselves when commenting.

I meant about skating, not those other things.

I was replying to where you said you "believe the skating judges are better able to judge skating quality than anyone else"

But, as I said, maybe if there were a strictly technical part of the scores that were listed separately, it would seldom make sense to disagree with the "skating judges" about that, but we don't get anything like that from the judges in DOI.

Disagreeing about the things we actually get from the DOI judges is a very different matter, and when we disagree with the judges about skating, it's hardly ever about such narrow, technical matters.


If anything, the speed can put viewers in a better position than the judges.

Viewers can often look at a recording, which they can rewatch, freeze, and slow down. In major skating competitions, such as the Olympics, the judges can do that too and actually do so. Why would they if it were really so much better to be present rinkside?

But again, when people disagree with the DOI judges about skating, it's hardly every about technical issues such as whether a jump was a toe loop or a flip, or whether someone did a change of edge. It's usually about their marks -- which are about a bunch of things combined, including performance -- or sometimes disagreement with some more general comment about skating.

The idea that we can't reasonably disagree with the skating judges about things like that has taken hold only this year, and I think it's very odd. It's as if people thought it made no sense to disagree with Len Goodman in SCD because he's a ballroom expert.

Obviously the judges don't give individual marks for all the elements which they include when coming up with an overall mark for the DoI contestants so since those marks include subjective elements such as wow factor I think it makes sense to disagree with their marks.
They do however make comments about particular aspects of the performance. The "skating" judges will sometimes comment on how difficult technically a particular routine is or element of a routine is. That is the part of their judgement I don't feel the vast majority of posters are in a position to disagree with.
In the same way, if Len Goodman told me that someone had turned their toe in the wrong direction doing a forward progressive move in the waltz (no, I have no idea what that is!) I would quite happily believe him, whereas if he said he thought a dance lacked "chemistry" between the partners, I would judge for myself. No doubt his marks would reflect both of those things if he saw them in a performance and I might disagree with his overall mark because I thought the chemistry was good.