Whatever score he gives is his own business. Otherwise there is no point having judges. Might as well just give Ray the crown now if that is the case.

Haha noooo leave Ruthie... take Jason!

Their marks were absurd though because they had been throwing 4s and 4.5s at easy routines. They ended up giving the best routine 1/2 mark more than Colleen's and then marking Zoe lower than Colleen for one wobble. Their marks refelcted the ability of the performer and whether they had got better not the difficulty of the performance or how one performance related to another.

Ruthie was pretty consistent. Easy and badly done got 2s. Easy got 3 s , Zoe with a wobble gets a 4 because its worth more than Colleeen's even with a wobble. Ray gets 5.

Spot on.

But I don't think you can do a tarriff system- what will happen then is that the difficulty will go upwards and if you mess it up they will still give you a 3 at least. That is ridiculous. You have to start with a 6 and then deduct marks as mistakes are made

GOD! It's not about her marks! It's about whether she has the right to undermine fellow judges. Answer - she has no such right. Does she have the right to interrupt his opinion? No - and certanly not to bring it up two dances later. If someone did it to her she would be lived - If someone has an opinion about ANYTHING they are entitled to it. Unless it's a race where everyone runs to a line then opinions will always be divided. My partner thought Melinda Messenger was great - I can't stand her so if she did an olympic standard routine I would say she was crap - cos I am human! Ruth's comments were not acceptable. I bet there are sparks going on now!

She's marking to a more complex standard than knocking one off for a mistake. Zoe's good points outweigh much of her mistake. She's also marking for performance and Zoe's routine had more wow factor than most of the girls and as much as the best of them.

I think those that performed better than Zoe should have had marks of 4.0 from Ruthie. So she ain't perfect/consistent at scoring either.

Rightly so- hopefully Robin has takenn Ruthie down a peg or two- after her little performance

SHE didn't need to handle the situation whilst on air!

Nicky's scores are nothing to do with her (and her's are no - one elses business either!). OK I agree that his mark for Coleen was too high but Ruthie should not have passed any comment about it to him on air - she should have taken him up on it whilst the camera/ sound was off the panel or in the ad break.

Her behaviour was totally unprofessional and how she feels she can take a champion ice skater to task on his scoring when she knows the square root of eff all about skating and/ or ice dancing was totally out of order.

Nicky knows and understands what he is looking at - she doesn't and neither does Jason as was demonstrated by their silly marks for Zoe when compared to the real skaters!

This is all well and good provided that each athlete is playing on a level playing field. You cannot transfer the exact system used in the Olympics and apply it to a Nolan Sister and Todd Carty! It's ludicrous. Furhtermore if you DID apply those rules you can't have Ruthie as a judge AT ALL!! Nor Jason for that matter. This is why any such contradiction is flawed, frankly.

But that is the marking system judges use in cimpetitions. I would think Robin, Karen and Nicky would use that system- why should Ruthie be any different. Compared to those three she knows nothing about skating competitions

It seems no reality show is complete these days without some form of a voting scandal, it will be good for column inches though.

I get the impression nobody much likes Nicky on that panel.

well going by his scoring of Colleen tonight, you wouldn't have thought Nicky knew anything about skating competitions.

I used to quite like them all, now I think Ruthie is just a cow.

He's never got over coming 2nd to Torvill and Dean all the time.

That's not nice

Why shouldn't she point out his marks are silly when they are? Everyone does it to Jason and its part of the routine on SCD. The point of having judges is for them to argue their case when they are not agreed - otherwise they all look pointlessly random. I doubt if she would be if the producers hadn't wanted a controversy. There also seems to be something going on with Nicky - his dig at Robin over his instructions and the lack of times Nicky has been asked his opinion before tonight suggests either there's a genuine problem between judges or the producers want us to think there is.

Colleen didn't make an obvious mistake as Zoe. I agree the mark from Nicky to Colleen was excessive. 3 would have been a fair mark- and Karen, Robin and Nicky marked Zoe down, and rightly so.

That is the problem- Ruthie turned a blind eye to a an obvious mistake- if Michael say had done that I bet Ruthie would have marked him down

Two dances later?? To target the same skater? The same judge? Wrong Wrong Wrong

But how do the producers expect anyone to have any respect for Ruthie now- least of all the viewers

Correct. And if any of them read things like this it might get back to them. I am not a complainer to TV company's but I bet people do.

Totally agree with everything you have said here.

Another thing I've noticed about Ruthie is, that she has her favourites and marks them accordingly.

People point out that Jason has marked low for a particular skater but then they move on. It was Ruthie's failure to move on, and her insistence on discussing Nicky's marking of previous contestants rather than commenting on Ray's performance, which was the problem. In fact, the argument only ended when Jason (rather tactfully I thought ) interrupted Ruthie in order to make some comments on Ray.

OK Zoe made a mistake but her overall performance was better than Colleens, more difficult and smoother skating. You have to take the performance as a whole. This is what happens in ice-ksating competitions and Nicky would know this as would the other judges if they had watched ice-skating competitions before. Some skaters made mistakes at the European Championships over the last week, where Nicky was a commentor for Eurosport, some still won because of the difficulty and artistry of their performance.