BELOW "C" LEVEL
"Skating With Celebrities," premiering tonight, Wednesday, January 18 on FOX, is a blatant rip-off of ABC's hit "Dancing With the Stars."
With one major difference. (Well, two... the whole pointy blades on feet thing...)
On ABC, the "stars," while "D" level at best, are still, in comparison to their no-name dance partners, vaguely recognizable -- Mr. Peterman, the chick from GH, druggie ex-child star and that really tan guy.
On Fox, the skaters are better known than the "celebrities" they're matched with.
Don't believe me? Let's go to the ultimate arbiter of all things quantifiable: Google.
A Google search of Nancy Kerrigan versus Dave Coulier rings up 208,000 hits for Nancy versus 145,000 measly hits for ol' Dave.
John Zimmerman and Jillian Barbieri? 101,000 for John. 508 for Jillian. John's been on "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," for goodness sake! (Error alert: This write-up calls John an Olympic medalist. He's not. He and partner Kyoko Ina won the Bronze medal at the 2002 Worlds).
The closest thing to a real star/nobody pairing is Todd Bridges and Jenni Meno. Todd has 136,000 Google mentions. Jenni only has 12,000. Then again, Jenni hasn't done time for drugs and assault. That, you know, helps get your name out there.
Now. Sight unseen, these are my predictions for the "winners":
The teams where the male is the professional skater have an edge over the ones where the female is the one with all the experience (he has to do the lifting; he can do most of the work in the stroking and the pair spins). The ones where the males are the professional pair skaters, have an even bigger advantage.
So it's down to Canadian World Champion Lloyd Eisler and his partner, Kristy Swanson, versus American John and Jillian.
My brother, a former National champion in Ice Dancing, is putting his money on Lloyd and Kristy. He says Lloyd is stronger and will be able to carry Kristy through all the complicated tricks -- and all the easy ones, too. Heck, he can just plop her on one shoulder for the entire duration of their routine and skate around while she waves her arms "artistically."
I, on the other hand, am going with John and Jillian. Because John is better looking.
Yup. Just because of that.
This is TV, folks. It matters.
So those are my predictions. Now tell me yours!
With one major difference. (Well, two... the whole pointy blades on feet thing...)
On ABC, the "stars," while "D" level at best, are still, in comparison to their no-name dance partners, vaguely recognizable -- Mr. Peterman, the chick from GH, druggie ex-child star and that really tan guy.
On Fox, the skaters are better known than the "celebrities" they're matched with.
Don't believe me? Let's go to the ultimate arbiter of all things quantifiable: Google.
A Google search of Nancy Kerrigan versus Dave Coulier rings up 208,000 hits for Nancy versus 145,000 measly hits for ol' Dave.
John Zimmerman and Jillian Barbieri? 101,000 for John. 508 for Jillian. John's been on "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," for goodness sake! (Error alert: This write-up calls John an Olympic medalist. He's not. He and partner Kyoko Ina won the Bronze medal at the 2002 Worlds).
The closest thing to a real star/nobody pairing is Todd Bridges and Jenni Meno. Todd has 136,000 Google mentions. Jenni only has 12,000. Then again, Jenni hasn't done time for drugs and assault. That, you know, helps get your name out there.
Now. Sight unseen, these are my predictions for the "winners":
The teams where the male is the professional skater have an edge over the ones where the female is the one with all the experience (he has to do the lifting; he can do most of the work in the stroking and the pair spins). The ones where the males are the professional pair skaters, have an even bigger advantage.
So it's down to Canadian World Champion Lloyd Eisler and his partner, Kristy Swanson, versus American John and Jillian.
My brother, a former National champion in Ice Dancing, is putting his money on Lloyd and Kristy. He says Lloyd is stronger and will be able to carry Kristy through all the complicated tricks -- and all the easy ones, too. Heck, he can just plop her on one shoulder for the entire duration of their routine and skate around while she waves her arms "artistically."
I, on the other hand, am going with John and Jillian. Because John is better looking.
Yup. Just because of that.
This is TV, folks. It matters.
So those are my predictions. Now tell me yours!
3 Comments:
At January 18, 2006 8:25 PM, Mary said…
I'm dying to hear what you thought about both the skating and the judging.
I've watched Dancing with the Stars and you hit it right on the head when you said that there's a difference in the public awareness of the professional partners in each competition. I'm sure the judges in Dancing with the Stars were very familiar with the professional dancers, but they addressed all their comments to the "star" side of the equation. Definitely wasn't the case with skating.
At January 19, 2006 6:28 AM, Anonymous said…
Ah, Mary... this is where I hang my head in shame.
I actually did not watch the show live, last night. (School function for my son). But, rest assured, I will watch it ASAP. And I strongly suspect there will be comments to come!
P.S. Love the photos on your site!
ALINA
At January 19, 2006 10:22 AM, Mary said…
Well, I'm glad I didn't put any spoilers into my first post. Don't want to ruin it for you.
Thanks for the kind words about my pictures.
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