Dancing on Ice

Synopsis

ITV's long-awaited answer to Strictly Come Dancing. A group of (fairly) famous people are tutored in ice dance by Torvill and Dean, and are whittled down week by week until a winner is found.

The number of callbacks to S.C.D. is quite breathtaking - almost as if the director's used the same shot list. There's five judges instead of four, and the scores (out of six, in half-point steps) are revealed in on-screen style like an ice dancing competition with only a few chats with the judges. The set appears to be a car crash of leftovers from You Bet! and Ice Warriors, although the glass roof is rather nice. One thing it did initially have over SCD was that the practice of only opening phone lines after everyone has performed was clearly fairer than Strictly's then practice of keeping them open all week.

The strange thing is that despite being just about the most derivative show we have ever seen, and despite the inherent limitations of the ice dance format, somehow (and believe us, we're scratching our heads over how on earth this happened) ITV have pretty much pulled it off. And not "pulled it off" as in "yanked it from the schedules after three weeks", either. It doesn't work as well as Strictly Come Dancing in any department (except perhaps in the choice of host), and it does seem to drag a bit over the course of a series, but nevertheless it works. Just about.

Make Me a Star

Alongside the 2008 series, there was a spin-off called Dancing on Ice: Make Me a Star, hosted by Willoughby alone, in which amateurs competed for the chance to perform in the main series final. The judges were Torvill and Dean themselves and there was no public vote. This secondary competition returned in 2009, but was incorporated into the main Dancing on Ice results show.

Participants

Series 1

Gaynor Faye (actress - winner)
Andi Peters (TV host)
David Seaman (former footballer and Strictly Ice Dancing champion)
Bonnie Langford (ask your mum)
Andrea McLean (TV presenter)
Tamara Beckwith (socialite/journalist)
Dame Kelly Holmes (last line of the nation's defences)
Sean Wilson (Corrie actor)
John Barrowman (actor)
Stefan Booth (The Bill actor)

Series 2

Kyran Bracken (rugby player - winner)
Ulrika Jonsson (TV presenter)
Stephen Gateley (ex-Boyzone singer)
Neil Fox (fake doctor and DJ)
Emily Symons (Emmerdale actress)
Lisa Scott-Lee (ex-Steps singer)
Lee Sharpe (ex-footballer)
Kay Burley (Sky News presenter)
Clare Buckfield (actress)
Phil Gayle (newsreader)
Duncan James (ex-Blue singer)

Series 3

Suzanne Shaw (ex-Hear'Say singer - winner)
Gareth Gates (sometime Pop Idol runner-up)
Samantha Mumba (ex-pop star and actor)
Tim Vincent (TV presenter)
Greg Rusedski (ex-tennis player)
Sarah Greene (TV presenter)
Chris Fountain (ex-Hollyoaks actor)
Linda Lusardi (ex-Emmerdale actress and model)
Aggie Mackenzie (How Clean is Your House? host)
Michael Underwood (TV presenter and game show veteran)
Zaraah Abrahams (ex-Coronation Street actress)
Natalie Pinkham (sports presenter)
Steve Backley (olympic pointy-stick-chucker)

Series 4

Ray Quinn (The X Factor reject - winner)
Gemma Bissix (ex-Hollyoaks and Eastenders actress)
Todd Carty (Grange Hill's Tucker Jenkins)
Jeremy Edwards (Hollyoaks and Holby City actor)
Ellery Hanley (rugby player)
Graeme Le Saux (football player)
Donal MacIntyre (investigative journalist)
Melinda Messenger (Fort Boyard frontswoman)
Coleen Nolan (Loose Women presenter)
Roxanne Pallett (Emmerdale actress and Soapstar Superstar veteran)
Zoe Salmon (Blue Peter presenter)
Jessica Taylor (singer with Popstars failures Liberty X)
Michael Underwood (returning following injury)

Series 5

Emily Atack (The Inbetweeners actress)
Sharron Davies (swimmer/presenter)
Bobby Davro (comedian)
Mikey Graham (Boyzone singer)
Doctor Hilary Jones (doctor)
Gary Lucy (The Bill actor)
Heather Mills (ex-model and tabloid hate-figure)
Tana Ramsay (Gordon's missus)
Kieron Richardson (Hollyoaks actor)
Jeremy Sheffield (ex-Holby City actor)
Sinitta (singer and friend of Simon Cowell)
Hayley Tamaddon (ex-Emmerdale actress)
Danniella Westbrook (EastEnders actress)
Danny Young (ex-Coronation Street actor)

Key Moments

Torvill and Dean's regular performance at the start of the Saturday night show. The old magic's still there, so much so that the duo starred in a performance, featuring contestants from the first two series, in October 2007.

Whenever anyone attempts "The Headbanger", a spectacular and scary move in which the male dancer spins around while holding the female dancer by her ankles and lowering her head to within really not enough distance at all from the ice. If that goes wrong, you're in trouble. There's only been one injury from this so far, when David Seaman's partner hit the ice during a camera rehearsal in the first series - amazingly, not during the actual move but by missing her footing on the recovery. She got away quite lightly with a couple of cuts, but we wonder how much of a delay there is on the live transmission, just in case.

Trivia

The show's working title was... well actually, over the long period between the show being announced and finally making it to air, there were any number of working titles: The Torvill and Dean Project, Skating with Celebrities, Celebrities Dancing on Ice, Skating on Thin Ice, Celebrities on Thin Ice, Stars on Ice, Ice Dance with the Stars... basically, just about every possible permutation seemed to be attached to the show before they settled on the most boring one. Still, you can't say it doesn't live up to its name.

While Robin Cousins was away in Vancouver, commentating on the 2010 Winter Olympic Games, his place on the ice panel was taken by singer Michael Ball.

Catchphrases

The show hasn't really produced a proper full-blooded catchphrase, but the closest it's got is probably "...to be revealed after the break". Phil also likes to throw in the odd reference to the dancers at the bottom of the leaderboard being "on thin ice" but it's never really developed from a stock phrase into a catchphrase. Must try harder, Schofield. C+.

This doesn't really qualify as a visual catchphrase either, but this is probably as good a place as any to note that we like the way he taps his ear to indicate that he's being given the results through his earpiece, lest we should think that he's either (a) reading off cards being held up in the distance, or (b) telepathic.

Music

Theme by Paul Farrer. Hear it at Screened Music.

See also

Weaver's Week review

Web links

Wikipedia entry

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