Skating with Celebrities

Chris Stratton

New Member
Saw an ad for a new TV series: Skating with Celebrities.

Quote: What could go wrong?

Answer: judging by the preview clips it's like DWTS, but with lots of being dropped face first onto the ice. Producers must agree that the danger factor is a major part of what sells skating over dancing.
 
Since I stepped on the ice for the first time a couple years ago and am now an avid figure skater/ice dancer, I am really going to enjoy seeing the celebrities learn to ice skate :)
 
The ads for "Skating with Celebrities" literally says "This isn't ballroom dancing", in case you didn't pick up on the blatant similarities on your own. What? An unexperienced celebrity, paired with a professional, to train in order to perform to stay on the show? We've never seen that show model used before!! :doh:
 
Gosh... that's schadenfreude. Of course, it's about as fun as watching the episode of "Made" (MTV) in which the kid who was athletic wanted to dance ballet.
 
This idea sounds crazy to me. I mean, I can understand why Fox would run such a program especially after the success from Dancing with the Stars. But skating is a totally DIFFERENT story! It's just way too dangerous to put those celebrities on the ice doing PAIR skating. There is so much training required for skating alone, not to mention the extra work needed for pair skaters, and someone (especially the lady) could fall on the ice during a lift or a throw spin!
No wonder, it seems like they couldn't get any better celebrities...
 
I'm watching an Intermediate-level pairs competition right now (it's the US Intermediate National Championships). This is two levels below the top level (which goes to the Olympics). The only overhead lift they appear do be doing is a press lift -- which is dangerous enough -- the other lifts they do only go to hip or shoulder level and look more like dance lifts. I have a feeling the skating celebrities will be doing stuff more like this. Or at least I hope so for safety's sake :-)

These intermediates are great, by the way.

What's interesting to note is that the audience is very very small -- about the size that we got at the Southwest Regionals or California State DanceSport Championships this year. It's skaters and their friends and families, just like we have in ballroom competitions.
 
Laura said:
I'm watching an Intermediate-level pairs competition right now (it's the US Intermediate National Championships). This is two levels below the top level (which goes to the Olympics). The only overhead lift they appear do be doing is a press lift -- which is dangerous enough -- the other lifts they do only go to hip or shoulder level and look more like dance lifts. I have a feeling the skating celebrities will be doing stuff more like this. Or at least I hope so for safety's sake :-)

These intermediates are great, by the way.

What's interesting to note is that the audience is very very small -- about the size that we got at the Southwest Regionals or California State DanceSport Championships this year. It's skaters and their friends and families, just like we have in ballroom competitions.
huh...

It would be soo neate if ballroom turned into a mainstream tv sport! LIke one you could turn on the TV to watch a major comp or something ;)
 
smoozer said:
Are they doing pairs or dance?
I couldn't find that information on their website, but I would assume that they are doing pairs as most of the professionals in that show used to skate in pairs, not ice dancing. Ice dancing does seem to be safer though.
 
Hah! Just caught some ice skating on TV and there was Brian Boitano skating to a cha cha with a coat rack as his dance partner! Yes, I think ballroom has more an effect on figure skating than vice-versa!
 
Okay; a poll in In Touch magazine says that 84% of people polled were looking forward to DWTS and 16% looking forward to SWTS. No surprise there!
 
standardgirl said:
I couldn't find that information on their website, but I would assume that they are doing pairs as most of the professionals in that show used to skate in pairs, not ice dancing. Ice dancing does seem to be safer though.

I think this is like the speculation over if DTWS would be international or american style ;-)

The answer as always is "it will be whatever the producers think works best on TV"
 
Did anyone watch the pilot yesterday? It was very good, IMHO...Very impressive skating by some! I think I'll add that the 'must watch' list until the 'season' is over (they only have 5 pairs). If it's successful, may be they'll recruit more (like DWTS, started last season w/ 6 & this time 10!)
 

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