So am I - if you are being carried around by your male partner you are not skating on the ice either. So what's the issue.

The routines for all 3 celebs were approved by T&D - so they are all plainly legit!

This makes no sense and seems completely subjective. - the accusation of cheating in that he performed moves off the ice? Yet he demonstrated week after week that he could perform equally spectacular stuff ON THE ICE. The fact that he did things off the ice, doesn't lessen what he did on the ice nor makes him any less competent as a skater. Seeing as its a skating competition, he clearly deserved the marks for what he did in that routine. And as such was not over marked.

Fascinating. That raises the question why Sam's routine is so much longer than Chloe's? No idea whose fault that is, but there was time there for adding another big trick in hers . Did they not have clear direction on how long they had? Did he run over, or her under and why didn't someone sort it out? You can't have a dance competition where some people dance significantly longer than others - its far easier to fit in more moves and look as if you did more if you add 15-20% to your available time.

I very much doubt the audience had a stopwatch in their hand when deciding how to vote. At the time they all seemed equal in length to me and much of Sam's extra apparent time was at the start when he had his headphones on and was banging on the lockers (which was more intro than performance on the ice).

Surely the clue is in the title of the things its a Showdance, so you do everything possible to put on a good show, maybe he did do a little bit off the Ice but he went on to do the Footloose dance steps on the ice which i'm guessing isn't that easy.............I did them on a dance floor in a routine we did for dancing one year and believe me I found it hard to do in dance shoes let alone a pair of ice skates!!

All credit to Sam his Showdance was the most entertaining and I feel had the most content, he had lots of skating footwork and tricks and lifts, the helicopters they did passing to each other were amazing!! I also have to say his Riverdance was fab, to beable to put riverdance to an icedance is some accomplishment and was far better last night than the first time he did it!!!


I think this years has been by far the closest contest but the right person won on the night, I haven't been a Sam supporter all the way through either i've had different every week.........my favourite is usually the one I find Most entertaining on the night!!!

But Sam shouldn't get all the credit, he didn't choreograph his routines, T & D did. Yes, he skated them well but he should not get all the credit. He was lucky they gave him such good routines.

He also had the advantage with Bolero, Brianne has done one before apparently, poor Colin hadn't as far as we know.

Nothing in the word "Showdance" says that you can do everything possible.

Exactly.


Viewers wouldn't need a stopwatch for the greater length to have an effect on them; indeed it would have more effect if they weren't distracted by using a stopwatch.

For a start, it makes it seem there was more in Sam's routine, because there was, because it was longer. Viewers don't have to consciously notice it was longer before they get the impression that there was more in it.

Well, that's most of it right there. "Sam danced off the ice."

Then consider that it's "Sam danced off the ice" and not "Sam spent less time on the ice than the others."


My point isn't primarily about how much time was spend off the ice; it's primarily about how the time was spent.

And it's not about the fraction of the total time that was off-ice.

So times that show he spent more time on the ice than the other two are essentially irrelevant, for the point I'm making.

Unfortunately, everyone seems to have missed, or forgotten, or something the post in which I tried to explain my position on times and on the other routines, probably because it came at the end of page 2 and so was easy to miss.

I think I agree with you on your position of the "off ice part of the routine" and from that point of view the routine took a long time to start (by the time he went up and did his dancing, I actually thought "come on" let's get started).

The reason why I wasn't too concerned about it, was that I thought this was the DOI equivalent of a showdance where there are no rules and where the couples can do pretty much what they want. So if they want to spend a great amount of the time off the ice, they can do it, but they run the risk that they will allienate some of the viewers who do not like that.

I assume that the judges markings and comments reflected this (e.g. Len (SCD) will go on about faffing in a Waltz but not in a showdance). Maybe it would have been better if the judges had not marked the showcases.

I think Sam's routine might have suffered more from this extensive time off ice, if the girls' routines would have delivered more of a punch (and I'm aware that this is subjective, and that people will disagree with me).

Doing relevant dance moves may be better if you want to impress the audience with flashy dancing that you couldn't do on the ice, but it's worse as a 'cheat' -- partly because it's more impressive.

The more significant what you do off-ice is, the worse the offence, so to speak. Dancing is more significant, not least in its impact on the audience, than merely walking down steps.

Re comparisons with what the others did, I'll mention again the post at the end of page 2 (and linked in my previous post).

Re "it would have to be against the rules", that's another point I've already addressed. There will always the things that aren't explicitly mentioned in rules but should nonetheless be considered cheating.

Re Sam's showcase was the best, perhaps in some sense it was, but that doesn't matter for the point I'm making.

I think that's a very reasonable way to see it, and I don't think everyone has to agree with me. After all, I am taking a rather extreme view. But I would note a few things.

One is that we were told in advance that the celebs could use other pros in their showdance. I don't think we were told they could dance off the ice. And in SCD, it is pretty clear to viewers what they're allowed to do in a showdance and what they're not. For example, if one couple included other pros, that might raise a few questions.

Another is that Vanilla Ice was allowed to go off the ice to dance on a floor during one of his routines. So it looks like DOI is taking yet another step away from skating, not only in showdances, and we already have the pick-dancing, and dancing in place, and so on, with no one in the show doing a Len and objecting. Even Robin barely stands up for skating any more. 'Cheating' is strong language, but I think strong language is called for at this point.

Anyway, it would be easier for me if I just took a hard line on everything that was off-ice. Every time I make relatively subtle distinctions, it requires a more complex argument, or at least a longer one. However:

(1) I think there genuinely is a difference between some scene-setting at the start and doing a substantial part of your routine off the ice, even in a showdance. And I think that 50 seconds out of a routine that lasts 20 minutes 10 is too long to count as mere scene-setting. In Sam's routine, the locker-banging etc can count as scene-setting, but then, after that, the later dancing can't.

(2) It doesn't make much difference, really, whether something like the locker-banging is on the ice or off. It happened to be on the ice, but that isn't a huge point in its favour, and it can only be excused as 'scene-setting'.


I think Sam could always out-skate and out-dance them. Perhaps if the girls had been given routines throughout the series that developed their skating more, they could have given him a closer fight; but as it was, it was his to loose, and he didn't.

But I do think it's questionable -- as it was with Hayley and Jai Ho and some of her other routines, and even some of Ray's routines -- when someone who was already a strong dancer before DOI is given a routine that lets them do flashy non-skating dancing. It's like the show is cheating on their behalf, we might say. But that's a subject for a different thread.

Why? Did you not ntoce that both of the other pro females who were doing headbangers at the same time stuck their hands out as well? Why should Sam get marked down for that??
A friend of mine who has done ice dancing in the past says she was taught to do it that way - she assumes the celeb couples are told not to because they risk damaging their wrists.


And? The judges' scores didn't count for anything this week - it was all public vote. The fact that he did so much off the ice was actually likely to have the opposite effect to being a "cheat" - that is to say, it may have alienated viewers who were wanting to see more ice dancing (like the OP) and put people off voting for him.


Eactly. As other people have said, this is the equivalent of the "showcase" routine in Strictly - anything goes. If he wanted to dance off the ice on those blades - that was fine by me!


^^ See my previous points.

Having said that, I don't think the routine warranted 10s. But that was due to the lack of speed on the spin where he was lifting both girls - nothing to do with the dancing off the ice.

Fair point, and it wasn't stipulated that a huge amount of time was allowed off ice (otherwise they could have included time in the air e.g. flying).


I see what you mean and for what it is worth, I actually don't enjoy many of the more ice picking routines, and although I really liked Vanilla Ice in his case it could have definitely be construed as "an unfair advantage".

I'm going to reply to the rest later, because I just realised that this will take me some time. Just to point out though, because I might not have made that clear, I generally agreed with you anyway. I just explained why it didn't bother me so much on the evening. I would definitely not want every routine to now end up off the Ice. For that I will watch SCD.

Or, to put it another way, Riverdance was probably the strongest routine regardless because, like Jai Ho, it came with a theme, style and steps that people would recognise. Footloose also led to its own routine. Laura gets two songs that need themes and moves making up for them and Chloe gets one like Sam's in Footloose but the other is Kiss Kiss where all she has is what T and D produced last time. .

Riverdance is also Sam's best mark before the SF wheras Chloe for some reason uses (or has to use) her 3rd best routine from the same week as Riverdance . Laura gets her best dance of all and alone manages to get it to a 30. None of them seem to have had improvements or additions made to their past routines as in previous years - they just had to do try and do them better.Bottom line is that the routines and music chosen shape who looks better on the night - and what you have to do again (or decide to if Chloe could have repeated her 2 better , later , dances) can start you at a big disadvantage .

Brianne of course not only had done Bolero before but she's prepared it before with two different people and danced it often on tour. It seems she's also more qualified as a choregrapher than Colin is too.

its not cheating, but its all very uneven. Its also easily fixed by giving everyone a more equal song choice for the group dance - all emotional songs or all dance film tracks or whatever. Everyone also needs to have their best previous dance available to do again - perhaps excluding the semi final dances. And at some point they need to sort out the choregraphy support. It ought to be possible to improve the past routine, the group dances could have benefited from some more support and you wouldn't then have non choregraphers competing with choregraphers to design a better bolero. You might also get some more memorable, newer, choregraphy.

I disagree!