Brianne Delcourt has successfully reached her 3rd Dancing On Ice Final in 4 years! This is a pretty great stat and I thought it deserved a thread!

She's one of the best female pro's so I'm glad for her.

Hmmm. If she had had:

2013 - Joe Pasquale
2012 - Corey Feldman
2011 - Ashley Peacock
2010 - Bobby Davro

how far would she have got then?

Though to be fair she should have got further last year because Sebastian was really good and went out too early.

only because she has had the best of the bunch! I think it would be a different story if she had been paired with, say, Corey Feldman, Todd Carty, Joe Pasquale etc etc

Its a good stat... but as others have said DOI is so crap with its distribution of ringers to pros.

Dan always gets a goodie or someone heavily in the media or on an ITV show for the men. Brianne has taken over Maria's place as ringer for the female pro

And as said its not a case of lets throw 2 people together and hope for the best like on SCD. There are factors that need to be taken into account although it seems with Brianne IMO its whether or not she can get together with her partner or not. Sorry but that is my opinion at the moment as that is now 2 out of the 4 that there has been "relationship" questions about.

Dan has had more than his fair share of poorer skaters over a range of series (Emily Symons, Linda Lusardi, Roxanne Pallet and Kerry Katona) all poorer skaters Jennifer Ellison was a reasonable standard IMO and Gaynor on the fence a bit with her as for what was expected at the time she was ok. Hayley although he won with I don't really rate as I don't think she could honestly compete with most of the good females who have taken part and got lucky in a rather mediocre year.

I think there is a perception that Dan is favoured but I wouldn't say he is favoured more than the others Matt has had pretty much an equal run to Dan he equally has been in a final 3 times in the same length of time as Dan and they tend to have finished either just ahead or just behind each other in other series so I don't think there is specific favourtism there with the exception of this year and in honesty I think they expected Pamela to be there to the end.

I don't think being heavily featured in the media is necessarily a help and I wouldn't say anyone has been on "an ITV show for the men"? Being a media personality didn't help Pamela Anderson did it and again you would have thought she would have attracted some of the "lad" vote but she didn't.

Maria has had a few ringers but Brianne certainly seems to be topping the board for that now had Sebastien not lost it she probably would have and a fourth final which is suggestive of her being specifically given the best to get her to the final almost every year she has been in which I'm not sure of the reasoning behind.

I used to like Brianne but she now irritates me like heck and IMO is not coming across that well. I don't know if it her personality these days or how they are styling her on the show but she is certainly not one of the pros I would miss should she not come back.

The first 3 from a high profile ITV show, the second media hungry and all would do well in the votes.

In comparison to someone like Mark (who never seems to get a break), Dan and to a certain extent Matt are the golden boys and seem to get a goodie no matter what. (obviously misfired for Matt this year).

Strictly has had some odd pairings - Lulu and Brenden and Kristina and Colin spring to mind, but on the whole they at least try to give pros a goodie once in a while.

Ok SCD is on a solid dance floor therefore there is not so much of a danger element if you mismatch partners. Plus dancing and ice skating equals different rules. Watching the actual ice skating comps you don't see mismatched pairings so why should DOI do it just for the sake of giving someone a chance. If the pairing doesn't catch the public's attention then there isn't a lot T&D can do about it.


If you put a shorter/weaker male celeb with a taller female pro then there is a higher risk of there being accidents if they are unable to do a lift properly. Same goes in reverse if you give a tall or sturdier female celeb to a smaller male pro there is the same risk. So you can not just do odd pairings and hope that it all works out you are risking peoples safety if you do that.

Although I'm beginning to think that this what some people seem to want to see from this show.

Dan only got the Emmerdale stars not because they are high profile soap stars but because he is from the North and well funny enough so were they at the time although he did have to move in with Linda after she left Emmerdale and went back to London.

No conspiracy no he has to get the high profile one simply they were in the North and he is from the North simple as that. Emily was still working on Emmerdale while doing DOI Linda was still just doing Emmerdale and Roxanne I believe lives in the North as well. If pros are given a preference as well to be North or South based then maybe that is a factor as well. They won't always get a choice of course but if they can accomodate that then I guess they will i.e Dan being based in the North so he can stay at home, Mark being based in London so he could could commute to and from home each day.

Kerry I believe he got purely on the fact he IMO had the best temprement to deal with her and the media circus that surrounds her. Not purely because it was Dan and he must get someone high profile


Also as said before it doesn't necessarily matter how good or bad a celeb is if they don't have public backing then they won't do well. I think people read far far too much into the whole certain pros are favoured over others. Again Mark will not have wanted to have been too far from home given his wife was pregnant so he needed to be based near his home and he was commuting to and from London to train.

Also Oona technically wasn't that bad but she wen't into Duel week with an attitude IMO because she had to skate against Beth and that was what affected her not a case of Mark being given another duff it was her own attitude not abilities that was her downfall. I believe she could have gone further had she not adopted the defeatist attitude that week. Laura proved you can turn round public perceptions Oona could easily have done the same.

While I understand what you are saying would it not be possible for the PTB to sign an older lady from one of the two soaps or who is based in the North. It is quite a bit since Dan has had an older lady - when I say older I mean of the age that say Linda Lusardi is - or around that age bracket. He does tend to get a lot of young female celebs. I grant you Matt has been quite fortunate too.

Surely though the time has come to give Brianne someone who is not going to be as good as Matt or Sam, I felt that Maria too was relatively lucky with her partners and that other skaters, who could have been given a good partner have been unlucky more times than they have been lucky. I know she no longer skates on the show, but why did Susie get Todd Carty after getting Steve Backley.

Couldn't they have paired Todd with someone else. He

Unless you are Erin, who has had three not so talented celebs on the spin- Aliona though has been rather lucky

This is a pretty great stat and I thought it deserved a thread!

Sorry but it didn't

it's more to do with the quality of celeb skater she's been given.

Yeah - they could have given Matt to Jenna and put Shayne with Brianne and Luke to Maria

Shayne was expected to do really well though

But that doesn't really answer why Matt was put with Brianne when she won two years ago with Sam.

You do seem to have a fair bit of knowledge about the show - so who makes the decisions about who gets who

It's possible that any older ones based in the North don't actually want to take part in DOI because of the risks involved. I also think don't there is a huge stream of Northern based celebs desperate to take part. This year has been unusual in that there are 4 from the North generally you have one or two and that is usually one male and one female. Also re the soaps a lot of the older females within the soaps are core cast and either not in need of the boost that DOI could give their career or their soaps are not willing to let them go do it in case of risk of injury etc and potentially losing them from storylines.

I don't think Dan would honestly have a problem with being partnered with someone older he seems to gel with everyone he has had and has the ability to get the best out of anyone. Fair enough if he wins on Sunday with Beth he will be made up but IMO he seems to get as much out of getting his celebs to learn to skate and to improve week on week as much as potentially winning the show and perhaps that is what people find appealing with him there isn't the desperate need i.e must get to the final must win, that doesn't seem to be there with Dan it's a take each week as it comes and that is what appeals to me. With Brianne for example the desperation IMO to get the win is there from the beginning and I don't like that fair enough we know they all want to win but showing it so desperately is a bit tacky.

I think what I am trying to say is I don't think Dan would care who he got be it a duffer, older person etc (he has gone on previously about wanting Fern Britten) or not they would both go out and do their best and be happy whatever whereas some of the others if they got saddled with a duff would potentially kick up a stink.

Susie perhaps was the only one that was able to be matched up with Todd in terms of partnerships that year.

Pretty sure its Jayne and Chris that decide who gets who, obviously they need to take into consideration things like personalities that wont clash, height, location etc,
Sometimes as with Shayne and Pamela this year they were expected to do better as they have been promising in rehearsals but they can never really know for sure how things will go once it comes to the live show.
The celebs get their basic training for a few weeks before they get teamed up with their partner after that its out of Jayne and Chris's hands to a degree as the pro partner can have a lot to do with how a celeb progresses ie some celebs take well to being told what to do and can transfer info easily to the ice while others rebel and think they know it all and dont pay attention and then wonder why they dont do stuff right ie Matt at the start was quite rude IMO when Karen was showing him stuff and he just wouldnt listen properly and she was telling him off. All he wanted to do was HIS stuff.
Dont have personal experience of the others as coaches BUT I once had lessons with a coach (not on DOI) and couldnt get the hang of skating at all, then was lucky enough to have lessons from Dan and while Im not that great at skating I can now get round the rink properly and do some other stuff (never going to be great due to a hip problem that affects balance) also had a couple of lessons from Karen Barber and found her teaching style didnt suit me and actually put me off skating for a while and Dan was not too pleased when he found out! Another few lessons with Dan and got some of my confidence back.
So I think the points about personalities and teaching style comes a lot into DOI, for example Michael had Chloe first time round who really wanted to do well took intsruction well and leart quickly with only a few meldowns along the way, whereas this year he got Lauren who thought it was going to be an easy ride, would turn up late for practise and then wondered why she didnt do well!
Another example Matt Evers was given the high profile name partly because he was American and was happy to go home for a couple of months, first signs were she was going to do well, BUT nobody could predict her nerves which caused the mistakes that put her out the comp.
ANother example Dan getting Beth rather than Sylvain, I expected Dan to get Samia because of the usual soap connection BUT dont think Sylvains temprament and teaching style would have suited Beth as she had to totally relearn everything she'd been taught ie gymastics means straight legs skating means bent knees Dan had the patience to teach her this not sure Sylvain would have been as patient with her, Samia was probably also given to Sylvain in the hope of some tabloid attention which of course worked.
These are just a few examples of what goes on there are more of course some partnerships I can understand others Ive no idea how they came about!!

Just had another thought regarding certain pros perhaps appearing not to being favoured when it comes to matching with celebs, the likes of Mark, Susie, Andrei, Mel, Fred, Sean, Joydene etc they all have one thing in common they are all married some to each other the show is NOT going to get scandal, press publicity from pairing them. They tend to pair certain pros with celebs that are likely to get the are they arent they stories, like this year with Sylvain and Samia, Matt and Brianne.

The original post has started an interesting debate so in my opinion, it warrants a thread!

The only reason I think that Brianne always gets good partners is that she does seem quite willing to do more daring lifts than some of the pros. Maria who also got good partners for a while has never really done the bigger lifts - of course that was fine when she had Ray but I suspect the producers want to see those big lifts now hence Brianne getting the ringers.

I don't really like Brianne's style of skating in comparison to the other female pros. When they did the classical number and she was supposed to be balletic I thought she was quite poor & not elegant at all. In contrast I saw Olga with the Imperial Ice Stars in Swan Lake on Ice a couple of years ago and she was fantastic.

I also don't rate Brianne as a teacher - Matt is good but I don't see much progression from him acoss the series & the same with Sam as well. She also didn't really seem to get Sebastien last year either. Vicky is probably the most experienced coach amongst all the pros & it would be lovely to see what she would do with a real contender

I tend to feel the same, Brianne is dynamic, fast and exciting but she isn't particularly elegant or graceful (it grates on me when she bobs her head around during the lifts) - which is why she works well with Matt and previously Sam. Both of whom were/are talented skaters, but a bit rough on technique and tended to paper over their flaws with faster, exciting skating and tricks.

Hence why I don't think Matt has improved hugely over the series - his crossovers are still dodgy and his posture is awful. I don't think she gelled with Seb as he was pretty elegant and graceful (as well as being dynamic), for me they never looked natural together for that reason.

Other pros have the ability to be more versatile in their skating - Vicky for one, and also Nina, Olga, Jodeyne immediately spring to mind - also Maria, Susie, Christina and Mel also. They could do the fast routines, but also were lovely and elegant in the more lyrical pieces.

The thing for the big lifts and Brianne doing them so often is that she is tiny, the only other skater I can immediately think of similar to her in stature is Christina Lenko, and possibly Jodeyne (though maybe that was because Sean was so big next to her) - the rest are of more average size/height. If you're 5 foot nothing and weigh no more than a bag of sugar it's easier to do the big lifts.

Jodeyne was brilliant - she worked so hard with Johnson and they had a lovely partnership

I also loved Florentine Houdiniere, she and Donal were marvellous together

Why didn't Florentine come back

Tell you what - if DoI come back next year - stick Brianne with Biggins(if they can get him to do it that is)

That might be quite a spectacle

I don't like her skating either ... it's too brash/hardfaced ... she's good at the tricks and being thrown around but she lacks grace and finesse for me ... her interpretation is OTT and all the overacting, head bobbing, singing along, aggressive gurning irritates me

Olga's a beautiful, refined skater

I find the same with Michael ... he's so balletic, shame he got Lauren this year

That is why I rate Florentine so highly - because she has the ability to do the tricks and also produce expressive skating

Melanie Lambert was so good at that too

Agree with all of your post when Brianne first joined DOI I did actually like her but as the series have progressed she has started to irritate me more and more and I have got to the point now where I really dont like to watch her skate - as you have said, she isnt elegent or graceful and the damn head bobbing irrates the life out of me as well I havent seen any improvement in Matt either

Isabelle Gauthier is tiny too (Ive met her, she is Brianne size) She did some massive lifts with Jeff during their time on DOI as well as Isabelle being not only elegent and graceful on the ice but she is also dynamic and exciting to watch skate

Yes. She's been lucky with the partners she's had - the opposite of poor Anton in SCD he always gets the duffers, the only decent partner I remember him getting was ohhhh whatsername, can't think now tut!

Lesley Garrett, Patsy Palmer