(I posted some of this at the of "The Judges are @!***! thread, post 41. It didn't really belong there and I wanted to change it after listening to Robin Cousin, but the system won't let me so I'm starting a new thread. Sorry if it's against forum rules, if one of the mods wants to delete the other post that'd be cool, this is the one to keep).
There's a short BBC sports interview with Robin Cousin available to listen to online
Select Thursday, Robin's interview stars at 2:12
Mostly he talks about the Olympics but he discusses the Barrowman eviction briefly. If you don't want to listed to the whole thing (7 minutes) I'll repeat what he said about DOI a bit down the page, to avoid spoilers.
I think a large part of the blame for the messy judging on DOI lies with ITV as producers. They've certainly not made it clear to me exactly what criteria the judges are using and the shenanigans on the show the last couple of weeks make me think the judges and contestants don't know what the criteria are either. The judges aren't entirely blameless - as professionals they should at least have made up their own minds what they're judging on, advised the contestants accordingly and stuck to it, and I don't think they've done that.
IMO this week's show made one thing clear at least - overall the judges prefer the pretty routines to the tricky ones. On reflection I think this is what they've been doing all along - the skaters amongst the judges have talked about technique, but most of the time flash has been getting better marks than technique.
In the BBC sports interview Robin said he'd chosen Stefan over John because of technique - John had a minor stumble in one run of the required toe step routine (it was minor, I was watching on a tape and I didn't see it until I replayed it). Robin had said the same thing when John asked (on Monday 6/2 This Morning) - John pointed out that he'd done 3 toe step routines, 2 perfectly, one with the stumble, which Robin didn't answer. So it seems that technique points are purely negative in DOI, contestants loose marks if they do something wrong, but don't get extra marks for doing more than the minimum required. (I know the basic routines are prechoreographed by Torvill & Dean but we've seen plenty of evidence they've been modifying the routines to suit the contestants).
So again we have pretty be judged ahead of tricky. I've no objection to pretty
but I thought that part of the point of DOI was to encourage the contestants to challenge themselves and improve.
I couldn't tell if Barrowman's performance on the 4th was more subdued because he intended it to be, or because he was nervous (yeah, it could have been both +/- the most subdued piece of music he'd had) but if it was intentional he should have been watching what the judges were doing instead of listening to what they were saying, and he might still have been a contestant.
I suspect the remaining skaters have all worked it out by now.
There's a short BBC sports interview with Robin Cousin available to listen to online
Select Thursday, Robin's interview stars at 2:12
Mostly he talks about the Olympics but he discusses the Barrowman eviction briefly. If you don't want to listed to the whole thing (7 minutes) I'll repeat what he said about DOI a bit down the page, to avoid spoilers.
I think a large part of the blame for the messy judging on DOI lies with ITV as producers. They've certainly not made it clear to me exactly what criteria the judges are using and the shenanigans on the show the last couple of weeks make me think the judges and contestants don't know what the criteria are either. The judges aren't entirely blameless - as professionals they should at least have made up their own minds what they're judging on, advised the contestants accordingly and stuck to it, and I don't think they've done that.
IMO this week's show made one thing clear at least - overall the judges prefer the pretty routines to the tricky ones. On reflection I think this is what they've been doing all along - the skaters amongst the judges have talked about technique, but most of the time flash has been getting better marks than technique.
In the BBC sports interview Robin said he'd chosen Stefan over John because of technique - John had a minor stumble in one run of the required toe step routine (it was minor, I was watching on a tape and I didn't see it until I replayed it). Robin had said the same thing when John asked (on Monday 6/2 This Morning) - John pointed out that he'd done 3 toe step routines, 2 perfectly, one with the stumble, which Robin didn't answer. So it seems that technique points are purely negative in DOI, contestants loose marks if they do something wrong, but don't get extra marks for doing more than the minimum required. (I know the basic routines are prechoreographed by Torvill & Dean but we've seen plenty of evidence they've been modifying the routines to suit the contestants).
So again we have pretty be judged ahead of tricky. I've no objection to pretty
but I thought that part of the point of DOI was to encourage the contestants to challenge themselves and improve.I couldn't tell if Barrowman's performance on the 4th was more subdued because he intended it to be, or because he was nervous (yeah, it could have been both +/- the most subdued piece of music he'd had) but if it was intentional he should have been watching what the judges were doing instead of listening to what they were saying, and he might still have been a contestant.
I suspect the remaining skaters have all worked it out by now.
