No it's not. Cast you mind back to when SCD when the judges didn't have a say at who went when it was rounded down. THen they changed it so the judges had the final say.

Be danmed if I let the public rule the show completly. If this was the case all the awful skaters would be in, and it would of be renamed to popularity on ice. Hell, Greg would of made it to the final!

But the judges DON'T judge it as they should.... They should judge the skate off ON THAT PERFORMANCE ONLY - and they blatantly don't, cos if they had they would have saved Greg last night.

Zaraah made loads of mistakes in her routine whereas Greg delivered an error free one but Greg knew he was out before he skated and STILL came out and gave it his all.

They have all judged on potential or past performance at least once so its about time they stopped saying that the decision is based solely "on the performance they are about to give"....

Greg may as well have not bothered doing the skate off at all as it has been obvious for weeks thaat the judges wanted hiim out at all costs

I agree... I didn't see the main show so can't comment on whether Zaraah deserved to be in the skate off this week... but I thought her skate-off performance was rather wobbly. I was actually really surprised by Greg's routine- I thought it was lovely, and he performed it really well. Maybe because he knew he was going he was able to just go out and relax. Seems strange that Zaraah was so nervous- even she must have known that the judge's were going to save her- they weren't going to miss the oppurtunity to get rid of Greg. It was like when Kate was in the bottom two in SCD- it was obvious she was going to go.....

xx

I agree that Greg is not as good as Zaraah, but in the skate off she made mistakes, he didn't.

They should be consistent with their judgement of the skate off - either everything that's gone before is forgotten or it isn't.

I could see Jason's point that Fred and Zaraah did more with the props, but that is irrelevant if the tricks don't come off.

Now what would have made interesting viewing is Jason saving Greg, lol ... well based on that dance off thats what should have happened

Last week Linda delivered a perfect element whilst Zaraah failed to do the element (even one of the judges asked where was the element?) but they still saved Zaraah so not only are the public voting for favorites so are the judges and they get paid, we actually pay to vote ... crime

Err...didn't Greg also have SKATING experience? Or was that just Chris?

Dance experience/skating experience - which gives the most advantage?

My argument wasn't about that so much as that because she looked graceful she was chosen over Greg even though he was technically the better skater in my opinion.

Gregs experiance is questionable. From what i've read and seen he stated he tried Ice Hockey at school but wasnt any good.

Now he was playing on the Junior Tennis Circuit in his early teens so he wouldnt have been playing Ice Hockey then as ice Skating espcially as part of Hockey and Tennis dont mix too well. As Greg said about playing in the master tennis at the Albert hall after starting his skating training the different muscles needed meant he was sore after the matches and had an effect on his game, and ice hockey is a rough sport so your not going to risk an injury on something your weak at if it might damage your tennis progress.

And the at school parts interesting, its the kind of thing I would say if someone asked me if i had ever played Rugby or even Field Hockey. They are sports I had done as part of PE, they weren't sports that interested me or that I was very good at so I didnt take them seriously and if you asked me to play either now id be lost. I suspect with Tennis being his main sport and tennis being a sport that requires alot of commitment from an early age even to reach a fraction of Gregs level that it may have been just in a PE kind of environment and probably didn't give him too much of an advantage from the skating pov

I don't think Nicky Lost his marbles - In fact he did what he was supposed to do and judged purely on the skate off performance.

It really bugs me when Phillip makes a big song and dance about how the judges will ignore whats gone before and it will all be based on the skate off performnace because its just not true at all... the judges don't even pretend most of the time

Well said...I agree 100% - it would be really interesting to see who out of Zaraah & Greg had the highest number of votes from the public on the night...on previous weeks Greg had gained the most support. I voted for Greg, so feel a bit duped that he gave such a good performance on Saturday - better in my opinion than Zaraah and still didn't get through. As you say, the judges were hell bent on getting him out - even Chris & Jane said that Greg was improving each week. I don't for one minute believe that he should have made the final (based on his skating to date), but he really tried, did a great performance and knew that he had no chance of getting voted through by the judges. Shame

Your right yes. The judges did not choose Greg to go from the skate off, Greg gave a good performance and on that 1 skate deserved to stay, but clearly the judges (except for honest Nicky) judged on all previous performances

In saying all that Greg can be proud of finishing 5th out of 12 and going out on the week when he scored his highest points and got a decent score off Jason too

Greg improved, but slowly. He should of gone in week 1 or 2 tbh. I noticed after the 60's week he got less wooden (but come on, they took ages)Those others that went early whom were.. bad, they too could of improved as slow as Greg.

Exactly! Why don't they just vote off who they think is the weakest skater and not make a big fuss about "anything can happen - it's all about the skate off" or actually get the judges to make their decision purely on the Skate off, which I personally can't see happening. If there's a skater who they perceive to be the weakest (e.g. Greg) then even if the do an amazing Skate off performance, it doesn't seem to be enough to save them.

I disagree...and as such I am very pleased to say that I feel that I played a part in keeping Greg in the competition - I voted for him. I never started out thinking that I would support him, but he really gained my affection - he made my viewing of the series more interesting...he was never going to win, but I for one (and I am not alone) really enjoyed seeing him in the competition...

IMO Aggie would never have made improvements, no matter how long she had stayed in...so I think your theory about the others improving isn't quite true in this respect.

You certainly weren't alone - he lit up the series for me

Me too, and I think Greg's last preformance was magical, his big silly grin lit up the screen for me. I like watching those that look like they are enjoying themslves on the ice and Greg, Gareth & Linda all manage to show that

I thought one of the factors of this show was the improvement from week to week of the skaters?

In which case, Greg certainly fulfilled the criteria. He had improved by leaps and bounds (sorry for the pun!) by the time he left. And he also brought a lot of joy (and abandon!) to the ice. He was a pleasure to watch.

I like seeing someone enjoy themselves - and if they're also getting better each week, then that's a bonus ... and Greg certainly was. So he certainly deserved to stay in 'at the cost of others' (some of whom - debatedly - maybe weren't going to improve much anyway).

It saved Steve Backley.

Personally I'd rather watch some who can dance on ice to music, not a middle-aged man dash about like Tigger on ice with all the grace of a bull in a china-shop. And in his VT's Greg came over as cocky and arrogant and thought he knew better than his professional partner. I think he should have been out week 1.

That is just untrue. Catching the hoop at the start of Zaraah's routine went wrong (which may have been partly due to whoever threw the hoop), and the timing of the hula spin that followed was then slightly affected. The rest of the routine was as good as the first time. There was at least one noticeable mistake in Greg's skate-off performance too - it just wasn't as obvious as the missed hoop catch.

But Zaraah Doesn't dance on Ice. She largely just tamely skates in hold, wobbles like mad out of hold and gets flung around.

And how is it cocky and arrogant to realise you lack the rhythm and have arms, legs and hands that are so big they will never look graceful and want to go out and have fun and entertain.

I'm just glad people like you arent the ones who soley choose who goes through, else we would end up with people who can skate going out and more people like Zaraah going through simply due to being flung around by their partners and do so in a way that makes you feel they are being forced on the ice at gun point.

She missed the hoop and totally went to pot. She stood around for a good few seconds after she dropped it and then her skating which was slightly improved in the main show then became as unsteady and messy as it has been in previous week. It was a mess.

There was a slight mistake on Gregs, but that was Kristina's error not Gregs and its the celeb being judged. Otherwise we would just have the partners doing what we have seen in previous seasons and what Tim's partner did in one routine and go for all the fancy tricks while the celeb just skates around normally

I think you were watching a totally different skate off to me! It's your opinion that Zaraah went to pot - well it's mine that she didn't.

Also, how do you know that it was Kristina's mistake and not Gregs? Maybe she was forced to abort the move because Greg wasn't in the right place or hold?

As I say, maybe the hoop missed her(!)...and I certainly didn't see her go "to pot". Your comments on her really are harsh for someone who's been in the top four on the scoreboard for 5 out of 6 weeks. Ah well. I'll enjoy Zaraah's performance on Sunday much more than I would have enjoyed Greg's. I hope she wins you over! You never know...

When you compare the two performances it seems very much in Kristina's court. For some reason she just starts to accelerate out of the previous sequence later that she did the time before, this means while Gregs in place she's out of position so goes into the move later and hence has to get out sooner


She misses the hoop, if you watch the final 'twist' she does you will notice she losses her balance a bit coming out of it in the skate off version, which causes her to miss her mark. It may not have been a problem BUT the result of her losing her balance out of the twist is she has to take a second to steady herself and as such is too late to react to the missed mark meaning the hoop is a little ahead of her.

Now the next part of her routine really isn't hard and is the perfect part to regroup after all its basically standing still and hulu hooping. However she fluffs the first attempt and aborts, looks completly lost for a few seconds and there was a moment I thought we were going to see a situation like SCD this year where she was just gonna skate off and sit down. To her credit she didnt, she tried again and did it.

The next series of spins is then just no where near the level of the first performance and she even struggles a bit stepping through the hula hoop. After the lift she is a bit wobbly on the next skate before going into the next lifts which she just doesnt extend on in anything like the same level of before. They then head to the judges to get their canes and she again loses balance. From then on shes not out of hold so her chances of a mistake were limited.

She let the mistake that put her in the wrong position get to her and it effected her skating and her lifts throughout the rest of the performances

And the simple fact of the matter is this is a skating competition, she has had a lack of solo skating all along (Ive done a recap of her solo skating on one of these threads where I point out shes done 9:22 of routines in the main shows and of that 1:34 was solo skating, although that included 10 seconds of stright line gliding which is debatable if its really solo skating) and the solo skatings hes done has been of low complexity.

The solo skating in the last routine was better but the amount and complexity was still low and when you remove the improvement she made like happened in the skate off the routines just awful and theres no getting away from it.