Let me say straight away that she is undoubtedly a great trainer and does sterling work with the contestants during the week.


But ...

... as a Judge she never offers realistic criticism, often reverts to how well they did in training and them marks them on that. Surely, if she is to be a credible Judge she should mark on what she sees on the night, not on what she, and no one else, has seen during the week.


Otherwise, a great panel.

I was surprised to see Karen back on the panel last night - I understood she was a coach - not a judge (correct me if I am wrong) - it just seems, to me, a little weird having someone sat on the judging panel who has been coaching them all week

Absolutely correct. If she criticises them it is a reflection upon her abilities as a coach, so she has to praise them to justify her position as a coach.


Wrong, all wrong. At least is explains why her marks are always higher than any other Judge.

I don't recall her giving any of the contestants any constructive feedback whatsoever, only Jason seems to do so.

They aren't. They were generally the same as Robin's marks last night.

As the only member of the judging panel who actually was an ice dancer, she is the most qualified of all of them to be a judge.

Qualified - yes, of course she is.

But she cannot, in all fairness, expect to combine the two roles without bias, real or apparent, creeping in. She has always been the most generous marker historically but some of those marks have been, on her own admission, based upon the 'training' experience which illustrates the unfairness of it all.

Would be possible for her partner, Christopher Dean, to give her some impartial and informed advice; presumably his gold medals trump her bronze medal.

I thought Robin was an ice dancer

No, Robin was a solo skater, not an ice dancer. They are two separate disciplines.

I know it's not quite the same thing, but I'm a teacher, and when I was teaching at a certain school it also had my daughters in it! I ended up teaching my youngest for four years in the end - and she hated it because I was so hard on her!

You can't be seen to be favouring your own, it's the worst thing you can do. Hard as it is, you have to be impartial - if she misbehaved she got told off (probably quicker and worse than the other children ) and when it came to writing reports I had to be completely neutral and comment on her as I did everyone else - I could not take into account what I saw when she was doing her homework at home, nor could I excuse her if she'd not performed to what I knew was her full potential, but had (for whatever reason) been unable to show 'on the day'.

If I could do that with my own child then surely Karen can do it with a group of adults she isn't even related to!


But if/when I criticised my daughter it wasn't a reflection on my abilities as a teacher!

Karen gets too emotionally involved (again ironic - as if I wasn't emotionally involved with my daughter!) and can't separate what she sees with what she wishes she'd seen. It's an important distinction and anyone who is assessing someone else (for any reason) needs to be able to do it fairly and constructively. I know that often that doesn't happen, but Karen has the added issue of being paid a lot of money to be on TV while she is giving feedback, so she needs to be whiter than white (as I had to be at work). She can't hide behind anonymity, and she shouldn't be making excuses.

being Chris Deans other half does have its advantages

forgive my ignorance but what is the difference? they both perform on the ice so.......

There are 4 disciplines:

Male solo skaters
Female solo skaters
Pairs skaters (one of each sex)
Ice dancers (one of each sex)

The solo and pairs skaters will do a short programme and a long programme which requires the performance of specific elements, in particular the jumps (axel, toe loop, lutz, flip, salchow) and in the case of the pairs skaters throw jumps.

Ice dancers (which is what Torvill & Dean and Karen were) historically had three sections: compulsory dances, original dances and free dances. I think it is a bit different now. These were performed to music, supposedly with a dance character, and the routine was supposed to portray the characteristics of this dance. Such routines did not incorporate any of the recognised jumps (although often did have things like the assisted jumps we see on DOI) and would have other things (such as twizzles etc) that are not part of pairs and solo skating.

thank you! how interesting - I am am complete novice when it comes to ice skating, I thought it was all ice dancing thank you for explaining, I appreciate it

olivej, the skating on DoI is much more ice skating than ice dancing. Ice skating is more 'acrobatic' and ice dance has much more choreography and is much more like dancing (weird that eh? LOL).

Both have rules but ice dance is loaded with them - especially in Torvill and Dean's day - you have to dance much more in hold for example.

Here's a good example of ice skating - see how much time is spent apart - quite a lot of time is spent skating in between moves - see how the woman is thrown around.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pY7HFPSmx8M

I'm assuming you have seen T&D's routines - if not get YouTubing!!


And don't forget Karen and Nicky.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JR6A_uMU0mI

I don't see how a coach can also be a judge - I thought she contributed very little to the show and really don't know what she's doing on the panel.

Coaches are very often judges. Back in my days as a competitive dancer, it would be virtually unheard of for any of the judges not to be teaching at least one of the competing couples. Commercially this made sense - competition organisers would invite people to judge their events because they would then bring their dance schools with them to compete (bums on seats x entry fee = profit).

It didn't make them impartial though

Having been in the studio audience last night, I thought Karen contributed far more to the show than Jason. He was just his usual gratuitously offensive self. I don't know how long it took him to come up with his "bored to Beth" prescripted insult that he was going to use regardless of how she skated but it certainly wasn't consistent with how I saw it sitting in the same studio as him.

I do not understand why Karen is a judge either??!!!!! Well, she TRAINS the celebs, right, she is always on the training videos so how can she be an impartial judge? She has watched the celebs rehearse and helped them with their routines so how can she then be a judge??? The whole thing is ridiculous. What happened to her ex-husband, I thought they both trained the celebs at the beginning of Dancing on Ice? He seems to have disappeared from the show!!

Her impartiality might be questioned if she taught only one of the celebs because she then might have reason to favour that one over the others. However, she trains all of them so has no reason to favour any of them over anyone else, other than on the basis of the quality of their skating.

DOI is essentially performance skating, which has no rules and belongs to no specific skating discipline, instead taking elements from all of them.

The origins of ice dance, which was Torvill & Dean and Barber & Slater's discipline, was ballroom dancing on ice. Of course, over time, it's evolved some and it's no longer exactly the same as when they were competing. Mind you, pairs and solo skating are no longer exactly the same as when Robin was competing either.

Apart from DOI, Karen has virtually no experience with performance skating. Robin, Jayne and Chris were all professional skaters for years, skating in various professional shows and creating and choreographing their own shows. Karen spent one season skating in a professional show and then became a coach.

Speaking as a teacher's daughter - and, like you, my mum was much harder on me than on anyone else - I completely agree with all of that!

A judge should always judge with their head not their heart; judgement should be based simply on what is being performed in front of them at that particular moment.

Unfortunately Karen appears unable to do this - she lets everything that has happened during the week (month or whatever) cloud her judgement ...... "You've come so far...." "You've had this problem/that problem to deal with all week...", none of which should be relevant.

She seems almost afraid to upset any of the contestants by saying anything negative, which is not only ridiculous but also counter productive.

She should remain a coach only.

She might say those things, and to be honest it is good to have a balance on the panel to counteract Jason's "you looked like a piece of shit", but I am unconvinced that it affects her judging. Her scores might on occasion be a little more generous than some of the others but regardless of the score she does nonetheless rank them in the order of merit based on how they skated so I don't see what the problem is.

I agree with those who say Karen can't critique harshly (even on a constructive basis) but I agree her marks are generally fair. Last night she marked Matt & then Beth higher than the pthers which reflected that they were a class above the others. Any problems with marks last night came from Jason & Ashley who both gave 4 contestants the same mark when only 6 were skating and there were a real range of abilities on show.

A Judge who only makes positive comments to all contestants is not really a Judge at all. Without going to the extremes that Jason does, (although at times he does make valid points, albeit in an abrasive manner), both positive and negative comments are not only invaluable but, really almost essential.

We saw examples on SCD recently where one contestant, of average ability, was always praised despite her obvious failings so that when the crunch came she was visibly upset and perhaps justifiably so.

It's rather like giving a driving lesson and telling the learner that they did really really well to miss the cyclist who swerved out in front of them, but, for fear of causing offence, fail to mention that they also drove across a pedestrian crossing, just missing some pensioners, and then through a red light causing several vehicles to stop suddenly..

She's a crap judge and a waste of space on the panel! Shouldn't be there. Better to have an empty space I think.