Well said. I just want the celebs to have a modicum of talent in the 'show' they are involved in. If you are a crap skater you won't get much better, ditto for dancing etc. I'm not in favour of the 'aww but they try so hard' brigade. Rubbish is rubbish not matter how you package it and isn't quality entertainment at all.

I actually think that Laura deserved to get full marks for her favourite routine. If I was a judge, I would only award a 10 in routines, (DOI and Strictly), if I was completely lost in the routine. And that's what happened to me when I watched Laura last night.

Oh, and I agree with you about Vanilla Ice. He, along with Laura, was my favourite this year. So charismatic and likeable.

I don't even like Sam, but fail to see how he cheated? You could argue that they've all been over marked at various points during the series as well.

I can't see what the fuss is about - the judges marks were irrevelant as another poster said. the public voted Sam the winner - get over it - it is only an entertainment show.

I explain why I regard it as a cheat earlier in the thread. (Different parts of the explanation are in different posts.) Is there anything in particular that you disagree with?


Multiple wrongs don't make a right, and this was imo an especially comment-worthy instance of over-marking.


The marks aren't irrelevant, because they are part of the show, and hence a legitimate subject for comment, and because they can influence viewers.

Similarly, the judges' comments aren't a formal part of the voting but are part of the show and can influence voters, and comments on such things are a normal part of discussion in this forum.

I thought he thoroughly deserved all the marks he got ... yes he did sone dancing "off ice" but so did the girls .. and most of the girls' routines were them being carried around and passed from one pro to the other ... Sam on the other hand incuded a bit of solo skating and solo and group work with the other male pros to do some pretty intracate lifts .... that move where the girls were being lifted in the helicopter spins and passed from pro to pro to Sam was very tricky and really well done .. it was also flowing and more professional looking that the other two . .. and I say that as a Chloe fan

For me Sam thoroughly deserved the marks he got for the show routine


If he cheated then so did the others .... if there had been no skating at all then that would have been cheeting but he more than justivied the floor work by what he also did on the ice .... seeing as it was a "showdance" I think it was fine to include some off ice dancing


overall last night I thought that Sam wiped the floor with both girls and was the justifiable winner ... and I've never been a big fan of his

I have to agree. I thought the performance was superb!
Great skating, choreography and performance. It was a true showcase.

There have been plenty of times when Dancing on Ice is about far more than the skating. The girls often spend a lot of time in lifts and when they have done the flying, skating hasn't even come into it.

There is no way it can be classed as cheating
Sam's skating was by far the best and the performance was outstanding.

of course he didnt.
and thats a very strong allegation to make by the OP.
i wish people could be a bit more gracious in defeat.

Yes, the fact that every single showcase featured off-ice performing for a considerable length of time at the beginning of the routine. It's a point that several posters have made and one you've failed to address.

The use of the word 'cheating' implies either shirking the challenge set, or gaining an unfair advantage. Given that all of the performers did exactly the same thing, I fail to see how either of these descriptions fits the perceived crime. So this is an important point you are neglecting and I think there are a number of people on this thread who would like you to address it.

That's not true. I've even addressed it more than once, most recently in an extended answer to your earlier posts.


They did not all do exactly the same thing, as I have already explained.

And it should be obvious why going off the ice to dance gives you an advantage. It was bad enough that Hayley Tammadon could get perfect marks for a routine packed with dancing in place, but actually going off the ice onto a floor is taking the p.

The headbanger was down to Brianne.

I have just checked the videos on the DOI website.

Sam started dancing at 10 seconds.
He jumped off the ice at 40 and back on at 60 so he was off the ice for 20 seconds.
His performance ended at 2min 20 secs
Total skating on ice time = 1 min 50 seconds

Laura started dancing off the ice at 7 seconds, jumping on the ice at 25 seconds so she was off the ice for 18 seconds.
Her performance ended at 2min 8 secs
Total skating on ice time = 1 min 43 seconds

Chloe started off the ice at 10 seconds and jumped into the lift at 35 seconds so she was off the ice for 25 seconds.
Her performance ended at 1min 55 secs
Total skating on ice time = 1 min 20 seconds


You can nit pick about the odd second here or there but I think the facts speak for themselves. Sam clearly made the best use of the time he was given.

Also, the judges scores didn't even count!!!
It was all down to the public vote!

Funnily enough, it was the skating in Sam's Footloose routine that I enjoyed and remembered the most.

Gracious in defeat?

I'm not complaining about Sam winning, and I didn't much mind who won out of the final three.

I don't even think Sam was specially guilty, personally. He may have just been going along with what he was given. It's T&D and the judges who are most to blame, and then the DOI producers.

Even taking into accound his off-the-ice moves, Sam still spent more time on the ice than either of the girls considering how long they were in the air.

I thought everyone was scored fairly in relation to one another and THAT'S the most important thing.

If you would like to have seen Sam deducted 2 points because you don't feel he spent sufficient time on the ice, then be consistent and suggest Laura & Chloe's marks be lowered for the same reason.

Missed your earlier post, so I do apologise.

Your reference to the fact that Laura's off-ice performing was different from the other two's efforts mystifies me. How is it better to be off ice and not dance, than off ice and dancing? That would make the show 'Not Dancing Not On Ice' rather than just 'Dancing Not On Ice'

And there is no advantage to going off-ice if your competitors do exactly the same thing, regardless of what you, or they, actually do while not on the ice. Just because Sam (and Hayley before him) had dance training, I can't really see how he can be expected not to use that in an off-ice situation. If everyone is off-ice for a period, it's exactly like criticising Sam for being better on the ice than the competition. That's what he's meant to try to achieve, surely?

As I said earlier, I do actually agree that Sam's showcase was skating-lite, and I didn't agree with the 10s either. But relative to the other two, he deserved to be marked higher, and if that needed 10s then so be it.

Who chose the music for the show dances? In my opinion, that was the difference between Sam and Laura. His was easy listen, easy to skate to music, whereas Laura's was a dirge. OK it might have been Madonna but it was still a dirge and there was not much that could be done with it.

I think what made the difference in the end was Robin's comment about Sam deserving to win (or words to that effect). For the casual viewer, that would be all that was needed to vote for Sam.

Over the series, I think Laura was the better skater who put in the best performances, but Sam who is a trained dancer and longtime Eastenders actor was put in the competition so that this year there would be a male winner - so predictable.

I didn't think any of the showcases were that impressive, just seemed to be one lift after the other.

I seem to recall the T&D "cheated" in the same way at the Olympics, by not skating for the first 18 seconds of Bolero

Which agrees with the time (50 seconds) I gave earlier for the time Sam spent through to the end of his off-ice dancing. Very little of that time was skating, although (as I noted) some of the faffing was at least while he was standing on the ice.


Laura did not do any significant dancing off the ice. Pretty much all the did was walk down stairs and pose briefly at a couple of points. While even in your timings, Sam danced off-ice for 20 seconds.

So, as I said, Laura's scene-setting took about 20 seconds in total (Sam's took 50).


Chloe spent only about 15 seconds in significant off-ice dancing, though.


Your timings are pretty close to mine, so I don't have any problem with them. But what they say to be is that (1) Laura did essentially no off-ice dancing, (2) Chloe did quite a bit, though still less than Sam, and did it as part of a scene-setting sequence was was half the length of Sam's.


As I explained earlier, the marks are part of the show, and hence a legitimate subject for comment, and they can influence viewers. They are therefore similar to the judges' comments which aren't a formal part of the voting but are part of the show and can influence voters.

Good point.

Everyone was banging on about "Express Yourself" being one of Madonna's most iconic songs/videos. It's not. Vogue, Like A Prayer, Material Girl, yes, but not Express Yourself. No way. So the performance was never going to be all that striking or powerful or inspiring.

I would have liked to have seen Laura dance to La Isla Bonita and recapture the flamenco feel of one of her earlier routines, albiet in a more gentle, romantic way. That would have played to her strengths and given viewers a song that they could identify with better.

I thought Chloe suffered the reverse problem. Her song was almost too iconic. It was too big for her. Plus, we've seen it used in so many similar reality shows before so I groaned and thought "here we go again" when I heard the music start.

It is obviously different to walk down some stairs than to do a substantial part of your routine dancing off the ice on a floor.

And the reason it's better to just walk down stairs is that it's less significant. The more significant the stuff done off-ice is, the more it's objectionable.


The others didn't do exactly the same thing.


That's not the point. Chloe didn't have Sam/Hayley levels of dance training / experience (if she even had any), yet her routine still had too much dancing off the ice.

They shouldn't be doing it at all, at least not without any point penalty. That goes for all of them, as it does for skating in place. It's not only Hayley's skating in place that was a problem. But hers stands out because there was so much of it, and because the routine (Jai Ho) was given such high marks.


I don't think he did deserve to be marked higher on that routine. I don't think he should have gotten anything higher than 8.

Just to be clear, I don't think Sam should have lost 2 points because he didn't spend sufficient time on the ice. I think he should have lost points because he did so much dancing off the ice, and not as something that could reasonably be regarded as mere scene-setting.

It doesn't matter what or how much he then did on the ice. And just as someone shouldn't get 10s if they fall or make other big mistakes, they shouldn't get 10s if they dance off the ice.

Laura didn't do the same thing (she just walked down stairs, which was much the same as a little "faffing" / scene-setting at the start of an SCD routine). Chloe was an intermediate case.

Surely the point of a showcase routine is to entertain ... go to any bit "Ice Show" things like Holiday on Ice, Hot Ice etc and you get routines that spend periods of time off ice .. either dancing, swinging on swngs .. sitting on park benches on the ice ... it's all down to making an overall entertainment piece incorporating props, people, dancing, skating, acting etc .... the routines were quite short but I thought that Sam/T&D managed to choreograph it in a way where they incorporated all of the above really well ..it was very entertaining

And I don't. That's the bottom line. I don't think it's fine, and I don't think it can be justified by anything else done in the routine.

(I skipped the part arguing that Sam deserved his marks and "wiped the floor" with the others, because I don't have anything I want to say about that except for the impact on marks that I think off-ice dancing should have.)


I think that's just a version of the old entertainment vs skating argument. So far as I can tell, no one on the 'skating' side thinks entertainment is irrelevant; they just think that it matters how the entertainment is provided.

It was already bad enough that the show had so many lifts, and so much dancing in place, pick-dancing and the like. Now they've added going right off the ice and doing some dancing there.

Robin has almost ceased to be a skating judge. Most of his opinion seems to be about "performance" and much of the time he does little more than agree with Jason.

I already thought that dancing in place and pick-dancing were just one step short of cheating; and now that step's been taken.

I agree with you on this diamond, it was supposed to be a 'showcase' to entertain