Skating with Celebrities

Last year Ed and I got into watching Dancing with the Stars. We cheered when the underdog won and we were sad when Peterman got voted off. We’ve been watching it a little less faithfully this year, but the constant promos for its copycat twin, Skating with Celebrities, caught my eye. Yesterday I checked it out. It’s basically the same format as DwtS– a bunch of celebrities are paired with professional skaters. They skate a choreographed program every week and the pair with the lowest judge/audience score goes home.

Why Skating with Celebrities is kind of lame:

1. It’s harder to learn to figure skate than to learn to ball room dance. This is obvious when you consider that Ballroom Dancing=dancing + walking, while Figure Skating=dancing + ice skating. As a result, the celebrities just aren’t very good and so it’s not that fun to watch.

2. Like cheerleading, pairs figure skating is not very interesting unless someone is getting tossed in the air. The higher the better. Since the celebrities aren’t very good (see #1), there is no tossing.

3. The dancing stars are a lot more passionate (and hence fun to watch) when they perform than the skating celebrities, who look like they are using every ounce of concentration to keep from face-planting.

4. Skating with Celebrities during the Winter Olympics. Bad idea. It just makes the celebrities look even worse.