Dancing on Ice

Dancing on ice when it started was something a bit different. Two legendary Olympic skaters in Torvil and Dean training celebs to ice skate made for an interesting premise.

Now however after seven series you can't help but thinking this premise has run it's course. The celebs are getting more and more Z-list by the minute and all the tricks have been seen before. Even the changes to the judging panel haven't really boosted things. The first few series were entertaining because everything was fresh and new but now the rot has set in a little bit and unless ITV do something major to ramp up the interest or pay big money to get big name stars I can see the shows popularity waning further.

I saw it as show especially for fans of ice skating. Provocative, no doubts, seductive, interesting for emotions, costumes, jury decisions. But the format is only nuanced by other TV shows, the presence of stars has only the role for high level of audience, the judgment seems , in few occasions, profound subjective.

Short, a TV show. Like so many others.

You really have to commend whoever it is at ITV who comes up with new programme ideas. It must take a lot of imagination to turn to the BBC's Strictly Come Dancing and then come up with a completely undetectable fresh slant on the format. It is a bit like their recent take on the Dragon's Den, even featuring one of the same entrepreneurs to make it even more subtle.

Of course like almost every television show these days it has to feature 'celebrities' who hardly anyone has ever heard heard of. The latest line-up has just been revealed and what a surprise. Tom Cruise? No. Halle Berry? No. David Beckham? No. Lisa Scott-Lee (Steps), Stephen Gately (Boyzone) and Duncan Something or other (Blue)? Yes. Singers whose solo career has hardly been record-breaking, indeed they would probably have to buy several hundred of their own singles just to get into the charts at all. Then there is the newsreaders, the obligatory soap star, the even more obligatory Ulrika Jonsson and some others who struggle to get on TV by their own merit.

That is my only really major problem. The rest of the show is great if you like watching or performing ice skating and it is certainly not much worse than the BBC dancing show, though there was far too much carrying of certain skaters in the last series (e.g. Bonnie Langford) that takes away a little of the credibility. I just don't know why they can't create this sort of talent programme using 'ordinary' people. The public voting is often unfair as they are probably more likely to vote for participants they have heard of (if any). "Stars in their Eyes" used to score high in the rating without resorting (apart from specials) to the increasing number of z-listers there are out there, especially created it seems to appear in 'reality' TV. I simply cannot understand why if these people are apparently so popular they need to appear on these shows. I suppose you must give the participants some credit for doing something that requires skill, dedication and significant physical risk compared to sitting around in a house, on an island or in the jungle - all moaning and swearing. Overall though this means that yet again we fail to get any break in the schedules between 'celebrity' this and 'celebrity' that as by the time 'Celebrity Big Brother' is finished we will be onto another series of 'Dancing on Ice.' Have the producers no pity?

I really thought that this show had ended a while ago , and then saw it advertised one night to my surprise .

It is tired and old , and I see that they still have the same presenters , is anyone else sick and tired of those two ?

They are everywhere , whether we like it or not !

ITV need to start looking into ditching these tired format shows , and also looking into recruiting some new presenters in general .

I think maybe Torville and Dean have cashed in enough on this by now ,lets call it a day ITV.

This show died ( deservedly so). Why it was brought back is beyond me. Bubble gum for the brain. Inane in the extreme, but since the demise of PS, it has now (hopefully) once again started to circle the plug hole of doom.

Clearly ITV look at successful BBC shows, and then after a bit of think, tend to always come up with a variant that is much much worse than the BBC original, but has a much needed twist to dumb it down for a less demanding audience.

Even the introduction of a less than capable Blackpool magician co-host neither diminishes nor improves a programme that is now so awful, so lacking in any redeeming features that ITV need to pull the plug asap.

It's astonishing to think that a bunch of Z list "celebrities" wobbling around on ice skates is considered entertainment. Depressingly awful.

Please ITV, put this moronic rubbish out of its misery...,but this time, bury it properly (and permanently).