DANCING ON ICE 2025

[Cleoriff]

ITV have started revealing the names of the candidates for Dancing On Ice 2025.

This is a show watched and commented on by myself, @sheepdog and @Mi-Amigo and others.

First candidate is

FERNE McCANN

Ferne is classed as a TV personality who appeared in TOWIE

Then we have

Mollie PEARCE

Mollie appeared in The Traitors. (I didn't watch the show so know nothing else about her)

The 3rd candidate to be revealed was:

Sir Steve Redgrave.

Steve is well known as an Olympic rower who won gold medals at five consecutive Olympic Games from 1984 to 2000. He has also won three Commonwealth Games gold medals and nine World Rowing Championships golds. He is the most successful male rower in Olympic history, and the only man to have won gold medals at five Olympic Games in an endurance sport.

The 4th Contestant is :

Sam Aston.

Sam plays Chesney Brown in Coronation Street. He's been in the show for a long time.

Apparently all the contestants start training next week for 2 hours a day.  Steve said they are banned from the ice until they start training.

There are a total of 12 contestants.

[sheepdog]

Generally live shows are on the wane these days. Apart from streaming taking a big chunk out of the viewing figures, there's no real interest in live shows these days. It doesn't help when we're led to believe at pre-recorded elements are "live" when clearly they aren't. 

Especially worse this last decade in having the same people presenting over and over again. That and presenters these days are not a patch on the old skool presenters. Caught a bit of Bob Monkhouse the other day and comparing to Stephen Mulherne, the chasm is quite obvious. 

Doesn't help when certain shows are obviously biased towards certain acts which just alienates the viewers when it comes out we've been played for fools. On top of the definition that constitutes what a celeb is these days is hitting the depths of the Marianna Trench. 

Even streaming exclusives have an incredibly short life. There's no end of shows that are terminated that need a time to grow but the execs don't think like that in the new age of viewing habits. It's all about the ad revenue.

We'll miss DOI though regardless!

[Cleoriff]

Musicals Week

Nice to start with Ball and Boe.

Mollie and Colin

A good skate but a bit stuttery in and out of transistions. The headbanger was performed but I think her skate showed how worried she was about it.  Scored 35.5

Sam and Mollie 

Excellent skate with a lot of character. Really enjoyed it Scored 37.00

Michaela and Mark

I thought it was good but needed more 'Sally Bowles' She didn't skate much on her own. Scored 36.5

Dan and Vanessa

Good skate but didn't really get into character. He attempted a throw which caused his partner to fall. I think he was overmarked  Scored 37.5

Anton and Annette.

A really  beautiful skate. Quite mesmerising and emotional Scored 40.

Enjoyed Moulin Rouge.

Skate off. Mollie and Dan

Dan was better even though Vanessa caught her skirt in the skate blades and ripped it.

Oti voted to save Molly but the other 3 saved Dan. So Dan goes through to next weeks semi final.

[sheepdog]

Pleased to say all the judges and The Mulherne & Holly passed the fashion report. I was in shock that AB wore a jacket that fitted. Alfie Boe might want to stay away from the Greggs steak bakes as that jacket was a bit too fitting. 

They should do more of these musical starts to a show. Definitely brought a bit of class to tonights show given it was musicals week. Then again, they need class acts to pull it off and on that thought, maybe just leave it for special edition shows.

Mollie and Colin: After last week, I was expecting more of the same in regards to solo skating. Alas, played it safe with more hand holding. Maybe too much on her mind with acting/performing plus the impending headbanger. 

Sam and Mollie: Good skate, good routine, quite smooth and effortless. However still has errors which he needs to resolve for next week. Plus points for Mollies wig! Mini-Chesney will be deployed next week.

Michaela and Mark: After last week, had to be good. But to be honest, it started well but I lost interest halfway but that was just me. She needed to elongate her moves as it was a bit short at times leaving me feeling underwhelmed and did need more solo work. And I kept thinking of Helen Skelton's routine from Strictly which may have clouded my thinking. 

Dan and Vanessa: Is it me or have we been spoiled in previous years with the stronger skaters going above and beyond with tricks and skills by this time of the series? I'm going to be critical of Dan as while he is a good skater, it tends to be a lot of circles and more circles. Another underwhelming performance for musicals week. 

Anton and Annette: And for the scorcher in the back of the net, Anton pulls out a hat-trick out of nowhere. Oh my, wasn't that good! Well deserved top of the leaderboard score in any series. 

Last years finalist that we've all forgotten about appeared and actually did a good job in singing for the prize filler spot. And back to obscurity it is. I'll just say Moulin Rouge was fitting for the show but I won't be buying tickets. 

Onto the skate-off and whilst I thought Mollie's was the better routine (and better done 2nd time round), Dan was technically better all round bar the routine. Maybe if Mollie did more solo work it might have been a different outcome. 

Next week, Diversity makes an appearance so looking forward to that. And at long last, we have a judges challenge in Solo skating. Is that it for this series? A single challenge to go out on your own and in semi-final week? I guess we should have another quick break to discuss....

[Cleoriff]

Yes we have fallen short on judges challenges this series. @sheepdog 

We used to have a props week which has faded into obscurity

All very crammed and rushed. 

Stephen Mulhern still gets on my damn nerves. NOT FUNNY.

Also, getting fed up of Dan who knows he is one of the best and he needed that shock of being in the bottom two this week.  Mind you his mother has brought him up to think like that, listening to her ramble on last week.

[Mi-Amigo]

@Cleoriff @sheepdog 

I agree - it looks like this will be the last DOI series. We have to ask why has so much of previous series been dropped - no Judges Challenge; no props week; no viewer phone-in vote ? Anyway onto last night`s show...

Mollie and Colin

Mollie showed some improvement with a good skate. First female to do head banger. Judges underscored.

Sam and Mollie 

I enjoyed this. Better performance than some previous weeks. Agreed with judges score.

Michaela and Mark

Michaela is back - after not-her-best performance last week. Liked this. Agreed with judges score.

Dan and Vanessa

OK I admit I`m not a fan of Dan. He has done well in previous weeks but his attempt at a throw failed,

causing partner to fall. But he is one of judges favourites so was overmarked.

Anton and Annette.

Best skate/performance of the night. Loved it. Having been in skate off, Anton pulled it out of the bag.

Well deserved judges score.

Public vote

Thank God for the viewing public and common sense -

Anton; Michaela; Sam voted thru to semi-final.....

The public didn`t fall for the producers "fix" and judges vote and put Dan into the skate-off.

Although Mollie did the head banger, compared to the others [except Dan] was not as good and rightly was in skate off... 

Skate off. Mollie and Dan

The "fix" strikes again....

Dan throw failure earlier and now Vanessa catches her skirt in blade.

Mollie did the head banger again - and, in my opinion, the better permance....

ITV tried to pull out all the "suspence" stops...

Ashley votes to save Dan

Oti votes to save Mollie

One vote each - Chris votes to save Dan

So it`s all down to head judge Jayne.....

Come on.... no way is she gonna vote against hubby - nor the fix

Jayne votes for Dan and he is saved....

Until next week....

[Cleoriff]

@Mi-Amigo 

I have a feeling that if Dan is in the skate off next week he'll still be saved. As you say, he's the judges favourite. He was overmarked last night but I felt he was just trying different tricks 'to better others'

The way he threw Vanessa in his first skate, showed he really had no care for his partner. She was lucky not to break her ankle the way she landed. Then she had to stop to untangle her ripped dress in the skate off, that wasn't considered by 3 of the judges when they voted.

Oh and by the way. Jayne and Chris aren't married to each other.

Jayne is married to an US sound engineer and has 2 children.

Chris has been married twice, both times to ice skaters. Isabelle Duchesnay and Jill Trenary. He has two children with Jill. He is divorced and has been in a relationship with Karen Barber since 2011.

Karen was a British ice skater and used to be on the voting panel with Jayne , Chris and Jason (Nr Nasty) Gardiner. (Jason and Karen hated each other.)

Now Karen does the choreography with Dan Whiston.

I've always liked Diversity as a group @sheepdog. One of the best acts to come out of Britains Got Talent.

Having said that, BGT is back on our screens and there was an all male dance troupe from the Philippines on the show on Saturday. They were called Obsequious and were brilliant. 

[Cleoriff]

@sheepdog @Mi-Amigo 

WEEK 8 ; SOLO SKATE

Michaela and Mark : All By Myself by Celine Dion

Anton and Annette : Ridin' Solo by Jason Derulo

Dan and Vanessa : Calum Scott

Sam and Molly : I Want To Break Free by Queen.

[sheepdog]

Judging by those songs, let's rename Solo week to Irony week! Hard week for all trying to convert those tunes into interpretive ice skating and getting high scores. 

Guessing the Calum Scott tune is the cover of Robyn "Dancing on my own"? In the meantime, an interesting take on her own tune as a duet with David Byrne from Talking Heads which might be a touch better than Calum Scott's rendition:

[Cleoriff]

@sheepdog 

All a bit cheesy with the obvious references to being alone aka skating solo. 😂

Not sure how much they'll manage in 90 seconds of skating !

[Cleoriff]

Semi Final

including Solo skate

The contestants were asked to do 5 elements.

They could choose how many  to do but would be scored 2 points per element.

Spiral

Jump

Spin

Reverse lunge

Element of their choice.

Sam and Molly

Sam chose to do all 5 elements. A really excellent skate full of performance. Scored 39.5 + 9.0  Total 48.5

Dan and Vanessa

Dan chose to do 4 elements. An ok skate but lack of continuity. His spin was poor as stopped on both feet

Score 37.5 + 6.0 = 43.50

Anton and Annette

Also chose to drop an element. Skated very well although again in 2 parts. Scored 38.00 + 7.00 = 45.00

Michaela and Mark.

Chose to do all 5 elements. Started her skate with the solo part and did very well. A lovely performance.

 Best of the night  Scored 40 + 9 = 49.

15 minutes given to vote.

I love Diversity and they gave a superb performance. Lovely to see Perri back on the ice and skating well.

The vote saw Anton and Dan in the skate off.

Anton gave the best performance and was voted to stay by all 4 judges.

The finalists are Sam (Hooray), Michaela and Anton. The best 3 in my opinion.