With all due respect, like fairplay to her for her ice dancing career and acheivments .. but lads i could barely understand what she said .. i didn't think she gave good constructive criticism and she brings nothing to the panel .. Karen barber would have been waaaay better

Really? You could barely understand what she said?

I had no problem understanding her, at all. She speaks English very well and very clearly.

Sorry I don't get this at all, and I'm completely at a loss to it. There are British accents I struggle with a lot more.

Me too. I understood her better than Cheryl Cole of the X factor, and some other people with strong regional dialects.

Good old teutophobia

Katarina Witt v Karen Barber- It is a no contest. Witt wins hands down- techically better placed to comments on figure skating and showed she knew her stuff with a bit of humour too.


Karen isn't in her league. Kati is Champions League

Katarina was near faultless - she did waffle on when choosing who to save - but it was her first show!

This is the first series where the panel is weighted towards skating ability. She leaves Bunton and Ruthie chowing down on her dust.

I found it hard to understand Loui spence. Infact all he did was give dirty looks to the men celebs he did not like. Even made sure he got one of them out. Give me Katarina anyday. Excellent vocabulary and speaks English correctly.

She stated first she was saving Andy - but was explaining why she was doing so

Why bring back a Skoda when you have a Ferrari in your driveway

How did he do that when Robin had the casting vote?

Witt for me...I don't like Karen she's got too big for her boots since dating Chris

My only quibble was her waffling when talking about who to save other than that I liked her. Hopefully as shows go on she will reign that in a bit as overall her points were valid and constructive and given her background she is a much needed replacement on the panel.

I don't get the Louie hate I think some posters are finding stuff that isn't there to justify their hatred of him. He didn't say anything horrifically offensive, I didn't see him give any celeb the evil eye and overall his comments were constructive. Also on the whole he kept his usual over enthusiasm to a minimum and seemed to be taking the role seriously. In his view the dancing was worthy of a lower mark for the males so he marked it lower there is no conspiracy about it. Jason would probably have done the same but had a barrage of abuse to go with it.

Given Robin has been on the show six years and Louie one show thus far I hardly think he influenced Andy leaving in any major way. He wouldn't have been able to make Robin make any decision and Robin is his own person and capable of making his own decision without any help from Louie.

She wasn't waffling she was explaining why she was saving him & I think people would also have preferred a proper explanation from Robin too because it didn't make sense from a skating perspective.

i was going to write something like this but you have saved me the trouble! nice post

I think all she was trying to say was she felt Andy had the most skating potential. However, she was unable to find the words and so she did end up waffling on instead of being clear and concise.

I just said this on another thread, but it does seem that, wowed by her credentials, some poster's are in total denial about the obvious language problem. I hope ITV aren't so blind and will provide Katerina with some intensive English language training in the next few days/weeks.

I was pleasantly surprised by her, I thought she would be a lot harder on the celebrity skaters. Sweetiepie and Tiggergirl have said it I think

It's not obvious to me - I had no problems understanding her. You could equally criticise Robin & tell him to have some language lessons so he can explain better why he saved Heidi rather than a silly soundbite.

Her grammar and syntax was a bit like Yoda.

I thought she was really good, she was really nice and supportive to the celebrities but gave honest feedback.

I don't know why you couldn't understand her accent, I understood every word and was actually surprised at how good her english was!

Katt Witt brings a touch of class to the show - loved her, best judge they've ever had on the panel, and that includes the lovely Robin!

Likewise.

Apparently Germany is the most popular place to do a degree in English if you are a non native speaker. German accents are easiest to understand English in for many people.

Seeing as Old English basically WAS German, it makes sense.

Katarina has been a pundit for ice skating on US TV for years. She does still have quite a heavy accent, but I really don't get how anyone can say they don't understand her

Her English is a lot better than my German. I thought she was great.

Like Bleakley.

I have just made similar comments on two other threads. I didn't know much about Louie before last night - only what I'd seen on TV Burp when they had clips from his Pineapple show, or Louie was actually on TV Burp as a guest - and I will admit to being unsure because I didn't like the persona I'd seen on TV Burp.

However, I was prepared to give Louie the benefit of the doubt on DOI - and I was pleasantly surprised. He's clearly understood that 'Pineapple Louie' is not a suitable persona for DOI, and his comments were constructive and relevant without being nasty or bitchy. It would have been so easy for Louie to have just been 'Pineapple Louie' and not tried to tone it down, but he hasn't taken that easy way out, he's really tried to fit in with the programme as it stands and not make all about him and his persona.

Of course, it's early days (and some posters are determined to find fault from the start, or have already seen into the future and stated without ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY that Louie WILL 'revert to type', as one put it), but I have a feeling Louie hasn't survived this long in a very competitive industry without learning a thing or two about fitting yourself to the job you've been taken on for - and for all we know he's been waiting for the chance to prove he's more than just a one-trick-pony in TV programme terms. Certainly doing a good job, in a more toned down way, won't do his CV any harm, and good luck to him if that's the case.

I still won't watch Louie when he's in 'Pineapple' mode because I don't find that degree of OTT behaviour entertaining, but as far as DOI is concerned I think he's got it almost spot on.

Because our brain's are quite clever and we can fill in the missing words, replace incorrect ones and transpose when necessary, almost subliminally. But I imagine how well we do that would depend on our own vocabulary and intelligence to some degree. So some may have some difficulty while others none at all.

There was only one moment last night when something really jarred. I can't remember now what it was, but if you can imagine someone asking for a "a small cappucino with wood and cream, please" it had the same affect and I did go a little "whaaat?"

Maybe I should sit in the dumb corner

I must clarify, I really liked Kat on the panel and am so glad she and Louis have replaced Emma and Jason. I will probably come to love Katerisms too. A few shows in, we may even have enough for a thread dedicated to them.