Bob22A, I agree with you. How can real skaters work out what to do with someone who can't skate?

I admit he seemed to have more confidence tonight but he is so far behind the others. I like the man but I don't think he will ever be relaxed enough to do much skating.

At present he isn't putting anyone with any ability out of the show, but how long will he be there?

partner has to pretty much drag him around the ice. If he lets go for more then a few seconds he is in danger of falling. If he is being held he can just about lift one leg off the ice for a few seconds before he starts getting wobbly.

What kind of routine can they give him with such limited skating skills?

Yes .. he was awful tonight and again stayed at the expense of a good skater who had his best week, IMO!

I'm sorry but he should be getting better with practice and he is still dire!
If they want to use the fun element to this extent it should not be called Dancing on ice ...

Todd and Coleen should have been in the skate off.

I agree.
If you check out the DOI section of the ITV website, under where it says "see the judges' scores", this unintentional misprint, sadly, says it all.

Karen Barber: “I want to encourage you Odd… There’s not a lot of skating to mark, but there’s a lot of entertainment value.”

Some of tonight's was quite sweet, but it's still so basic and tentative compared to the others. I wish he had been voted off really, I'd hate to see him become a laughing stock.

Yes you do have a sense of humour - I didn't find him funny tonight either. I watched through my fingers!! Last week was entertaining but I really don't think he can go any further now. He is such a nice guy but unless he can put a bit more content in, then the 'jokey' routines aren't going to work.

I wasn't a massive John Sergeant fan (nor naysayer either though) on Strictly but people forget John Seargant was actually a competent ballroom dancer. His American Smooth was just charming. His latin was not so good and this was where the comedy came in and he pulled that off with a likeably bemused expression on his face and clever choreography from Kristina. He rarely was actually out of time or got steps wrong (even if they were very simple ones).

He did work hard (he lost two stone) and he was also witty. I think Todd probably does put in the hours but it may not make any difference. I personally don't think this partnership has the charm of John and Kristina's, but different horses and all that.

Last week was brilliant, but it was the same joke again this week and I didn't find it as funny. I was never embarrassed watching John but I was embarrased watching bits of Todd's routine tonight. I'm sure lots of others weren't though and I'm not that fussed that he is through. I don't think he will stop a really good dancer with a chance of winning going like John could have, and that is for the reasons above.

I though John's Tango (the most latin of the ballrooms?) was actually pretty good, and that the judges marked it too far down for reasons that shouldn't have made that much difference: because he hadn't quite played the character they thought went with the dance, rather than because of flaws in his dancing.

The contrast with Todd is huge. John was a far better dancer by SCD standards than Todd is a skater by DOI's.

While I agree with you overall, I think you're dead wrong about the bolded line. Part of dancing is to portray character and emotion, that's the whole point of it. The lines touched on in the dance are just one of the means to that end.

Perhaps we're talking about different things. There's portraying character and emption (which seems to be what you're talking about, given how your post is worded), and then there's portraying a specific character / type of character / role (the gaucho or whatever), which is what I had in mind.

I don't think the character (in that sense) is as big a part of the dance as they made out then, or that John was so far off. He portrayed character and emotion, but it wasn't quite the "right" character for that dance.

Morning All

ok got to comment on this issue as whilst I'm a bit of novice on the old DOI front, I do know about dance.
In Ballroom Tango the character is supposed to actually 'provide' the emotion of the dance. They are inextricably linked.

Sorry it's late and I can't remember who said what so please forgive me.
Yes, John was actually a pretty competant ballroom dancer, but unfortunately he was unable to convey the gravitas in his tango which is why he was marked down. His facial expression was virtually the same throughout the competition no matter what he was performing, and that clearly shows his lack of characterisation.
The impact of the tango is in the definition of the shapes created by angular lines - think of the two dancers like a tree, glued from the hip down and arching away from each other from the hip up, and definitely no grinning ( incidently JS not the only one who got marked down for lack of characterisation - seem to remember Christine did too as well as her floppy core lol )

anyhow hope that helps

peace out

It's very helpful, but it also seems to be about two different things. (Which is not a problem in itself.)

(1) When you say "he was unable to convey the gravitas in his tango", that's about the specific character appropriate to that dance. (After all, someone could fail to convey gravitas even if they were doing a great job of expressing something else.

(2) But when you say "His facial expression was virtually the same throughout the competition no matter what he was performing", then that's saying he was poor at conveying anything with his facial expressions (apart from whatever his standard expression happens to show).

IIRC, the comments on his tango, explaining the low marks, were along the lines of (1), which I don't think is as important as they seemed to be treating it as being.

Yes and it really didn't work this week. He doesn't amuse me any more so he can go now!

Although he was extremely entertaining last week, (I've never laughed so hard), he really needs to try now with his ice skating or the public adoration will quickly back fire. He really needs to improve on his basic skating. I think its wrong that T&D are putting comedic elements into his routine. This would work if he could skate but he can't. Last week was a one off, it was hilarious but I think he would gain more respect if he now buckled down and tried to learn how to skate.

sorry i'll be flamed but i didnt even find it funny last week

theyre trying to keep him in by apparntly making it a joke last night was jsut embarassing he looked like he was having a fit lieing down pretending to swim or wotever it was

its a farce that hes got thrugh again and at the expense of a much improved michael

Last week was hilarious and had I been a voting kinda gal I'd have picked up the phone. This week was just playing on a joke that is now stale.

Makes me wonder, if he really is that bad, how he was selected for the show - as I thought that potential celeb skaters were tested to see how much potential they had, presumably to eliminate people who really can't do it.

Michael Underwood was on GMTV this morning saying that Todd's lack of ability is great entertainment and what it's all about blah blah blah. Seems to me that the official ITV line is to support their equivalent of John Sargeant, bit of a dig at the BBC and their self-righteous criticism of people voting for JS as SCD should be "about the dancing"?

All this said, I imagine if I was on there I'd be a million times worse than Todd.

Hmm. If they eliminate those who can't do it, it is odd that they've kept Todd, and you may be right about the reasons.

Todd skates like he's had a few hours or days of training, rather than weeks.

And since he's not doing any fancy moves, his training should almost all have been focused on basic skating.

I read a post in some thread that said he'd had panto commitments. I'd like to know whether he's put in the hours the others have, or not.

I thought Todd deserved to get through last week just for rendering Tony Gubba speechless! Yesterday on the other hand, was just embarrassing and cringeworthy. Chris and Jayne made it very clear they didn't feel there was anything else they could do with him choreographically, which means it's definitely time Todd were voted out, for his own sake. I admire him for trying but he's reached his sell-by date on DOI, imo.

I'd have given Todd the Macarena instead of Melinda. They could have had bits with him standing still doing the Macarena moves. It wouldn't have been a particularly good skating performance if he did that but at least it wouldn't feel as though he's making a fool of himself, which is unfortunately what last night's performance felt like. And Fred would have been pleased, too!

If they are trying to make Todd appear funny, they are failing miserably!

I did find last week funny only because he somewhat overdid the apparent intended outcome!

Last night though I was frustrated by the over-reliance on tricks. I know T&D say that his skating isn't improving but I want to see him try to improve it and the energy being put into those tricks put into trying to skate better instead.

As another poster summed up in just 4 words - the moment has passed.

Jokes over now - there was something unnatural about Todd last night - as though he was deliberatley trying to be funny. Last week was more natural and, granted, hilarious. But in trying to over egg the pudding it is going to get boring.

I dunno - Todd doing the Macarena would have reminded me horribly of Andi Peters and his embarrassing 'hand jiving on ice' routines that involved no skating content and far too much posing and pouting. Although anything that makes Fred happy is fine by me

The problem with Todd has been noted already but I'll say it again - T&D are having to keep finding new things for him to do every week, despite the fact that he hasn't progressed as a skater at all. It's not so much an attempt to play up the comedy elements as an attempt to keep things as varied and entertaining as possible for Todd himself.

I thought the idea of a sort of 'copycat' routine to The Police was inspired in itself, legitimately allowing Todd to skate along behind Susie and just do everything she did.

And finally, the swim thing actually looked quite graceful when Chris did it!

Given he has had weeks of coaching with world class skaters and coaches I think we can safely say he is a lost cause. Skating i just not for him. Stick to the acting I think

I think that Todd has the potential to surprise us all.

I think that Todd has the potential to surprise himself.

Perhaps he does... I'm just not sure it'll be a good surprise!