Skating With Celebrites: Episode 3
A Clean Slate, Injuries, And The Lunge
Recap By Allie Axel
January 31, 2004
Here we go again, another night of fun with Skating with Celebrities. The show started off with a brief recap of the performances, judges' comments and a reminder of the elimination of Todd Bridges and Jenny Meno. Scott then told us the tricks need to be bigger this week and, with this, comes more pressure. We were given a recap of the standings only to be told the slate has been wiped clean. Each team will be starting with a score of zero. That means the huge lead John and Jillian had is now gone. As I contemplated the outcome of tonight's episode, I was told of the new technical requirement for tonight's competition - an unassisted traveling lunge. The musical theme of the night was Motown.
Right off the bat, they started with John and Jillian. I knew this couldn't be good. You never start off with the best team. What would keep the audience (ok, ME) around to see the others? Scott told us how John and Jillian practically moved into the practice rink in order to up the ante as requested by the judges last week. Cut to several clips of them practicing like there is no tomorrow, complete with falls and Jillian practically being dropped on her head. But did they spend too much time of perfecting the tricks and not enough time working on their program? This fear was about to be confirmed or denied as they took to the ice to skate to "Get Ready". Don't ask me what the heck John was wearing because it was so ugly I couldn't even look at it. Who puts a man (especially a man who looks like John) in an oversized shirt/jacket with a ruffled collar and sleeves? My guess they needed to show some modesty since Jillian gold halter dress hardly left anything to the imagination.
John and Jillian started out their program with some dancing and then John flipped Jillian over his head to a shoulder lift. They really do have nice positions in their lifts. I give Jillian kudos for picking up these pair moves. Even being an accomplished skater, it's not easy to pair skate. They skated around and went into my favorite move - John held Jillian leg and arm and swings her dangerously close to the ice in a sweeping motion. Next they did some footwork, which included Mohawks. Their spin was a side-by-side sit spin. Both skaters had nice positions. John flipped Jillian over his head again and then pulled her in a shoot-the-duck position through his legs and back again. John attempted a butterfly during which he almost crashed to the ground, but most eyes were probably on Jillian as she performed the required lunge.
We started off the judges' comment with Mark Lund who concluded he liked their footwork, but didn't feel their program. He thought they weren't together enough. Sir John jumped right in telling them it was an ambitious program but maybe foolishly ambitious. He felt John was out of control, especially when he almost fell. Dorothy let us know that she felt most people were watching Jillian during John's slip so it would be ok. She felt Jillian was very comfortable and at ease. With the exception of Dorothy, I got the impression the judges were setting up John and Jillian. Or maybe they feel they need to concentrate on their flaws to make the other teams look better. I just hope they stay because they are clearly the best team in the competition. Technical and artistic scores were 8.3 and 8.2 from Sir John, 8.4 and 8.2 from Dorothy and 8.4 and 8.3 from Mark for a totally of 49.8. I found it interesting that this is the second week the judges' comments were not reflected in their scores. Since they were the first team to perform, John and Jillian must go from the Kiss and Cry to the Hot Seat to await their fate.
After the commercial break.....
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