Sorry to start a post about this, but I've just watched this again and his scoring is awful.

He scored Jessica a 4 who is a brilliant skater.
Whereas he scored Melinda and Coleen 4.5

I don't get it.

Jessica is confident on the ice, skates solo a lot and didn't stumble, trip or anything.

Coleen - fair enough her confidence was a lot better but both her and Melinda rely heavily on their partners.

There's no possible way it can be argued that Melinda or Coleen were better - in fact, there's no way it can be argued that Coleen was as good as Melinda. Melinda was very graceful and emoted well, but relied on being pushed and shoved around. Coleen wasn't graceful and didn't emote, and relied on being shoved around and did little if any skating alone.

Jessica did confident 'leaps' at the beginning (I hesitate to call them full jumps), was very graceful, was capable of plenty of solo skating and did not seem to struggle or rely on Pavel at all. They were dancing together, rather than him dragging her around.

It makes no sense. I wonder if in hindsight he would have given Jessica a 5 had she skated at the end of the program.

I agree, it's hard skating at the beginning as there's nothing to compare them to, and I think if you score high at the beginning, then someone skates better (Ray) it's difficult to give them a score reflecting this.
I think Nicky gave Colleen and Melinda 4.5 as he marked them on their improvement from last week, which I think is a vast amount. They were like different people on the ice this week. Personally I don't think Jessica had improved as much as these two after her first skate. I do agree with Robyn advising them on how to score, I like the idea of having 5 as the highest score at the moment because it gives the celebs something to work towards.

He's just a very inconsistant judge?

Excellent summary Psychosis - I agree with every word. Undoubtedly Nicky's scoring was way off last week and I think by the end of the show he knew it too and was rightly embarrassed.

But I can't say I've ever felt he's cocked up like that before. Sometimes he comes up with questionable individual numbers, but so far as I can recall, he usually finishes up with the right ranking, which is all that actually matters in terms of final points/survival.

I'd put Sunday down to an off week, not helped by Ruthie's taunting, and hope he gets things sorted for next week

Both Nicky and Ruthie were extremely inconsistent. The sad thing is that Ruthie was right in what she said to Nicky, right with every word, but then she went and cocked it up by doing essentially the same thing with other contestants.

Well I hope he bloody looks again at what he's scoring on. This has wound me up this week.

I appreciate that Jessica may not have improved much but her toe steps were brilliant at the beginning of her routine. She is a cleaner skater than all the other girls and he then put her 4th in his ranking which is wrong IMO.

Surely he is scoring on the skating ability and improvement and not just the improvement.

Grrrrrrrrrrrr

Agree, but not to the extent Nicky did IMO

He got at least 4 of his scores out.

Also I do think that maybe Ruthie didn't need to make a massive deal in front of the people she was talking about and maybe had a word with him off camera/backstage about it.

Nickys scoring is fine. He's a generous judge who gives marks for improvement.

In these early rounds it doesnt really matter if Jessica was in fourth place on Nicky's scorecard. In the later rounds it will even itself out.

Nicky's always been a bit erratic in his scoring. He frequently seems to be looking at things from a different perspective to the other judges. Even Karen, who tends to be the most consistently generous of the judges, is usually more in line with the others than Nicky.

I'm fond of Colleen but even I admit she was grossly overmarked.

Zaraah Abraham was scoring 4.5's in the xmas special. Is Nicky suggesting Colleen's routine was on a par with hers?

Ruthie is in no position to talk. Some of you seem to forget that she gave Zoe 4.5 stating she 'didn't care' about the stumble yet gave Jeremy only 2.5 stating that she was 'undewhelmed' by his performance - What kind of constructive criticism is that? Then she gave Todd 2 even though his routine was appaling.

People should get off Nicky's back. I like his positive approach to marking.

Yep I agree that with Jeremy Ruthie got it wrong and maybe Zoe was slightly overmarked.

The good thing about Zoe though is she didn't fluff the required element and she does loads of skating on her own. Yes she stumbled a bit but that was right near the beginning of the routine and she held it together to continue, she could have very easily not carried on and fallen to pieces.

There is a positive approach to marking which is good for confidence, but then there is overmarking to the extreme.

Do you really think that Melinda and Coleen deserved 4.5's then? I personally think 4's would have been sufficient, it would have been an increase for both of them and leaves him with availability to mark them better next week assuming they skate well.
Last edited by Eviesmum : 29-01-2009 at 18:44

I like his positive approach too, but I'd also like to see some consistency.

Nicky should have been given a drug test after Sundays show his marks were a disgrace.

That's just a tad extreme, isn't it?

Ruthie being bad does not make Nicky good. There can be two terrible and inconsistent markers on the panel.

I wouldn't call it "positive" either. How is telling Jessica that she's worse than Coleen "positive" for Jessica?

I dont think he told Jessica she was worse then Coleen. As I see it he was rewarding Coleens improvement

I honestly think that he scores high sometimes so he can get some air time - they usually go for the lowest and highest and Jason gets to give comments on virtually everyone.

I'm inclined to agree with you as that was my impression last Sunday. The previous week he hardly got to comment on anybody's performance and towards the end of the show he seemed quiet surprised when Holly asked for his opinion!

Yes he did. A score of 4 (Jessica) is worse than a score of 4.5 (Coleen). Unless he gave her a 4 last week, he didn't have to give her a 4.5 this week to reward her improvement.

Giving Jessica a lower score is not really the same as telling her outright that she skated worse then Coleen. As I said, I think Nicky's mark was more for Coleens improvement.

My point is, this thread is called 'Nicky's scoring' and personally I think it should be retitled 'Nicky and Ruthies scoring'. I do not understand why Nicky has been singled out for this kind of criticism when most of the judges can be accused of inconsistent marking at some point in the competition. Especially Ruthie.

Also, at this stage of the competition I dont think it matters all that much that Jessica was 4th on the leader board and not 2nd. It will matter in a few more week time but for now I think Nicky's marking is being overly ciriticised

Nicky's marking should be standardised. He should mark everyone on the same level. At the moment, Coleen's 6 is the same level of quality as Jessica's 3. That's not right. Ruthie being dodgy (although not THAT bad) does not make it righr.

It's Nicky's scoring that's annoyed me. I didn't really think about Ruthie's scoring until someone pointed it out - hence why the thread is called Nicky's scoring.

In the early rounds, a good skater getting panned by the judges and the audience collectively deciding that it's unfair, can work out well for that skater in the long run. If it becomes personalised between a particular judge and a skater, that can translate into votes.

With Jessica being the only skater that has any hope of touching Ray, I think its worth the risk building up a 'head-of-steam' for Jessica - because I'm not certain any of her routines on their own will garner massive votes, unless she has a connection/emotion breakthrough (I'm expecting that storyline to kick in around Week 6 or 7).