Dodgy Skaters On Thin Ice
The Age
Friday April 28, 2006
SKATING WITH CELEBRITIES (TEN, 7.30pm)
AND now for the latest chapter in the quest of half-famous people to further their careers by inserting themselves into fields of endeavour outside their usual sphere of experience.Skating with Celebrities is Dancing with the Stars on ice: six professional skaters are matched with six celebrities to master a range of skating routines, be judged on their efforts, and be whittled down to a winning pair.Understand that we use the word "celebrities" loosely. Even in the US, folk such as Dave Coulier (comic actor, Full House), Jillian Barberie (Good Day LA, Fox NFL Sunday, Good Morning, Miami), Bruce Jenner (Olympic decathlon gold medallist and TV personality), Todd Bridges (the trouble-prone child actor from Diff'rent Strokes) and Deborah Gibson (former pop star, now Broadway performer) are C-list, at best. For an Australian audience they're, like, who? We say the closest local program for comparison is Daryl Somers and his dancing stars, but Americans do this stuff so much bigger and razzamatazzier. Skating with Celebrities is to Dancing with the Stars what Hollywood is to an eight-year-old with a camcorder. And that's not to say the result is any better.It starts with hosts Summer Sanders and Scott Hamilton bouncing in to the arena like pro wrestlers preparing for a tag-team to the death. There's flash and glitz and a brain-wave-distorting cacophony of audience whoop-whooping. Sanders (Olympic swimmer) peels off a little shadow-boxing flurry before co-host Hamilton (famous figure skater, cancer survivor) welcomes us to the most unique skating competition he's EVER seen.It's week three of the comp, and they're adding another technical requirement to the routines. Last week the pairs had to master synchronised footwork. This week they add an unassisted travelling one-legged lunge. Hamilton says "travelling one-legged lunge" like he has an oyster stuck deep in his throat that he needs to hoick up. Sanders: "Steve, when you say it like that it sounds soooo cooool!" Er, Summer, please meet Scott. Steve Hamilton is a crime writer. He's also - according to a search of the net - a former baseball star, a Scottish jazz composer, a drag racer and an associate professor of zoology at the University of California. These might be separate Steve Hamiltons, but it's definite that none of them is your Skating with Celebs co-host.The pairs do their stuff. They twirl. They glide. They synchronise their footwork. They lunge without assistance. The camera cuts to some celebrity in the audience. (Oooh, look - there's Sugar Ray Leonard with a caption under his face.) The crowd goes wild. Then the skaters face the judges. There's the evil, hyper-critical one: Sir John Nicks, legendary skating coach and member of the figure-skating hall of fame. There's the good-looking authoritative one: Dorothy Hamill, 1976 Olympic gold medallist, American icon. And there's the camp, artistic one: Mark Lund, journalist, TV analyst. Marks are awarded, the audience groans/cheers/hisses.The gripping bit comes in the routine of Kristy Swanson (the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and pro skater Lloyd Eisler. In rehearsal, Swanson gets a thorough working-over from Eisler. He swings her like she's a sack of potatoes he's trying to hoist on to a truck, and her arm seems to almost leave its socket. On the ice, she stumbles and smashes a knee, then, in another aeroplane manoeuvre, has her face scraped across the ice. As she tries to bravely smile through the post-routine interview, a cut on her chin wells with blood. She might have been back in Sunndydale dooking it out with demons.Why Ten is screening this stuff when they have perfectly good unseen episodes of Veronica Mars rotting on a shelf somewhere is a mystery. They stopped that choice series months ago, halfway through season one, so many questions asked but unanswered. Bring back Veronica . . . Bring back Veronica . . . Bring back Veronica . . .
© 2006 The Age