Dancing on Ice 2023.

[Elderflower14]

Apologies if there is another thread but starting one for the beginning of the show!!

I thought she’d gone home

I would have 😁

Wasn't the most stylish of recovery's. (Ignore me I'm being bitchy cos I really don't like her)

Who fell?

Patsy

Good to see Joey Essex is good at something!

Harry Styles wore it better, but I do love Joey

Was Carly singing? I missed that.

Patsy was given credit for picking herself up and carrying on when she only really stumbled over to the props guys who strapped her into her harness. Hardly a great recovery.

Nile is keeping me watching this show: he has the potential to be the best ever contestant. I'm hoping to see The Vivienne's skating improve too, I think they could do some great routines.

Yeah, I thought Michelle should have scored higher than Patsy

Am I missing something I thought every Week was dance week??

Really sorry to see Michelle go. I thought she was really undermarked, and skated better than Ekin-Su, who was very wobbly. I'd hoped she might have been saved by the public vote.

It's tough with no dance off - I thought it would have been fair for Ekin Su, Michelle or Patsy to go. They were all a fair bit below the others.

I'd be pissed off about that if I were Michelle, but it's not as though she was ever going to be troubling the final so I guess a week sooner or later is no big deal. And actually if you do the maths I think Patsy must have got more viewer votes than her, which means that Michelle would have gone even if their scores had been the other way around.

Who's cheesy melt?

No dance off? Was that a time issue.

Probably a time issue: this is the week where the largest number of contestants perform and they seem to have wanted to get it over and done with in 90-odd minutes.

Hopefully Ekin Su will go next week.

Not having a skate off is odd - not sure I'm a fan of that if I'm honest. Nile and the Vivienne for me are the strongest skaters, Nile's doing brackets and other difficult footwork, and the Vivienne has good clean, basic footwork and power over the ice.

I'm going to be honest, I preferred the earlier series where the majority of the panel were skaters - dancing of any kind and skating are so different, I don't think the 2 dance focused judges add much for me. But again, I'm a skater so have a different view and standards to most 😀

Better than Ray Quinn?

Christ knows. It's someone who has a go at writing funny TV reviews who makes up the odd nicknames. It's on the Happy Valley thread as well.

Surely ray quinn is the best they've ever had? Unfortunately he knew it though.

Ray Quinn is definitely the best- but I think Nile has a chance of being a better skater, if not necessarily a better showman. I'm a bit biased because he's local to me though!

Maybe, if he keeps improving. I'm not a skating expert though so can't opine on RQ's technical expertise.

Ray was very good at individual elements, but there was a lot of two footed skating and limited transitions between the elements - it's set up, jump, cross overs, set up, spin. And I wouldn't term most of what he did as ice dance - it's more grounded in singles/pairs, which is a very different skill set.

Nile's basics are already good, and Olivia is giving him choreo that is the nearest approximation to a real ice dance program - there aren't a ton of flashy individual elements, but they are doing really tough footwork, that fits to the rhythm, and mixing up the holds they are using. (I know everyone says skating on your own is more impressive, but that's not true - hand in hand to support the weaker partner is a trick to disguise poor skills, but face to face close holds, with turns, steps and changes of direction is tough. I've been doing bits of ice dancing for years and still am only really comfortable in a simple killian hold) I don't think he's going to be amazing at lifts because of the height difference, but everything else is really good, and it's proper ice dance, even if it's not as superficially flashy as stuff you might have seen from other celebrities.

That's really interesting, thanks rowan. My gut instinct was that the stuff Nile was doing with his feet looked proper tricky so it's good to have expert opinion. And as I understand it Olivia is the best pro skater they've ever had, so can do ambitious stuff with him.