I find Ruthie's marking consistent - consistently bizarre.

I honestly believe she's on the wrong show. Artistry and musical interpretation on ice compared to the West End stage is so different. She's simply not qualified to assess ice dance.

Depends what you mark for. Jessica would get more for skating but less on acting, dancing, lines, lifts, risk or wow factor. The judges are doing their jobs - the skating ones put Jessica higher and the performance ones like Zoe's work more. Jason goes in Ruthie's direction. Robin's marks tend that way on Zoe. The studio audience on noise and I suspect the one at home are with Ruthie's ranking. Ruthie just needs to make it clearer that she's finds some people dull to explain her marks. The problem is people get upset if anyone points out that people are dull.

Her other problem at the moment is that she is on her own. The skating judges can't mark high because they have too few good technical skaters and Jason doesn't think anyone is very entertaining so isn't giving anyone great performance mars even if they are much better than the rest. He's marking Zoe in comparison to Clare, Ruthie is marking her in comparison to the rest of this year's girls. Both are right in their own way.

She's not judging on an ice dancing show on Eurosport though. She's looking for something that would entertain the viewers and its not skating around in larger or smaller circles its what happens on top of that.

The last winner, the runner up before that and the best dancer of series one tend to suggest the opposite . They all had starred and two have since gone on to star in musicals. Suzanne even got Chicago off the back of DOI which is one of the roles Ruthie herself gained her fame for.

The viewers are in the best position to decide what entertains them. That's why we vote.

But Ruthie is judging on an ice dancing show be it on Eurosport, ITV or even the olympics, if she is looking for something to entertain viewers she should mark on both skating and presentation as the pro skaters do and not just on who has smiled the prettiest

I noticed that Zoe didnt skate on her own once this week she was pulled pushed and carried around the ice, that fact far outweighs any advantage of a smile or two

Ruthie has some kind of agenda concerning her favorites

Agree. I dont rate Ruthie as a judge at all.

By the standards this year I'd say it's been rigged in favour of those who have talent by the amount of poor performances there have been for what is essentiall week three for both male and female celebs. There are to many poor performances and you can see who have had the least practice before the series because of other commitments.

The question is why have so many whom didn't have enough training before hand compete against those whom had some skill or some sort of natural ability. I cannot recall anyone from Series Two whom had less training than some of those from Series Thre & Four who were bad. Even Neil Fox seemed better by some of the standards of skating in this current and he was the first to go in Series Two.

Unfortunately Ofcom cannot do anything against this blatant rigging to may favourites look better than they unless they get definate proof producers of shows like Dancing on Ice/X Factor/Britains Got Talent/Strictly Come Dancing are deliberately including contestants they know will appeal to the public, but as obviously bad as to boost the chances of the favourites. Really the days of those getting voted on pure poularity and talent died years ago with New Face and Opportunity Knocks. Now al TV producers and like likes of Simon Cowell are worried about is where is their next milk cow coming from and who gives a damn if the current one fails after a year because they are easily replaced.

Ruthie has favourites because she's objective? How's that supposed to work?

How do you know it's her professional view, rather than a result of personal bias?

She didn't sound like someone giving an objective, professional view when she was talking about Roxanne.

With Zoe, Ruthie looks for the positives and gives her the benefit of the doubt; with Roxanne, Ruthie does the opposite; and Ruthie's manner and tone of voice suggest neither objectivity nor professionalism.


Zoe isn't closing the gap either. Meanwhile, Roxanne is improving more rapidly, and Jessica is working on her weaknesses (which the show is, for some reason, exaggerating).

Why would they be desperate for Zoe to keep on getting better, while chipping away at the confidence of Roxanne and Jessica, if not out of bias?

The rational approach, if they wanted someone to make it a competition with Ray, would be to want and encourage Zoe, Roxanne, and Jessica all to improve.

double post sorry!
Last edited by icedragon : 02-02-2009 at 21:19

Hmm I think I agree with a lot of your post here Veri. Ruthie does seem to play favourites more than the others and does seem to have a thing for Zoe. I think perhaps she likes the more attacking nature of Zoe's skating compared to Roxanne's for some reason.

Mind skating ever was a highly subjective sport even in the real competitions and here I dont see how they can be objective when they have no clear criteria to go on and a huge range in ability and technical content. They have no way of comparing like with like because the routines are so different, and the skating standards so different.

To make an objective assessment is pretty impossible especialy with only one mark. I noticed in the Russian version they at least let them mark seperately for technical and for presentation which allows them to make some sense of the wide range of ability. Oh and they have Yagudin (swoon).