Review - “ Skating with the Stars ”

We were watching “ Skating with the Stars “ at 8:30 pm ( ABC CH ) on November 22, because Johnny Weir was there as one of the judges, with Dick Button and Laurie Ann Gibson.

Seems like it was about 6.5 millions viewers !

I never knew such a large amount of people were watching this show.

I’ve never seen this kind of show, like “Dancing with the Stars“ , and would not care for it if Johnny was not in the show, but it was really enjoyable to watch.

Also I found I can know three situations through watching it , as a judge’s side, as a challenger’s side, and my personal view. This way I can objectively watch it to be fair.

I could view like that while watching figure skating competitions, but as being a huge fan of a particular skater, judge’s side was often ignored from my mind.

But since Johnny is one of the judges in this competition, I also viewed from judge’s side and found new discovery.

The performers are

Rebecca Budig / Fred Palascak,
Bethenny Frankel / Ethan Burgess

Brandon Smith / Keauna McLaughlin
Jonny Moseley/ Brooke Castile
Sean Young / Denis Petukhov
Vince Neil / Jennifer Wester

And all the celebrities are in the left side of the list.

According to the biographies of the celebrities, totally new to ice and skating sounded like Sean Young, and Jonny Moseley.

Brandon has experience with roller skating. Rebecca love to skate when she was a little kid same as Vince Neil.

Also it was interesting to see each person’s character.

We often interested in characters besides performances whether it’s skaters or athletes or celebrities. Because personalities are very interesting.

For the first round ,

The result was

1. Rebecca / Fred
2. Jonny / Brooke
3. Brandon / Keauna
4. Sean / Denis
5. Bethany / Ethan
6. Vince / Jennifer

And from my personal view,

My ranking is

1. Rebecca / Fred
2. Brandon / Keauna
3. Bethany / Ethan
4. Jonny / Brooke
5. Sean / Denis ( 5.6 are tie breakers )
6. Vince / Jennifer

It’s not like what is right or wrong, I think judges know more than me since they are the skaters who have the back ground for skating both technically , artistically. Especially Johnny.

Just how I honestly felt was different.

Tanith Belbin was commentating about each performer with slow motion video and I thought she explained really well, each performer’s good points and difficulties. Great commentator !

She looked like one of the contestants of Miss USA. Beautiful. Really fit in Hollywood.

Back to my impression of the performances.

Rebecca & Fred team was the best to me so I agree with the judges.
She was well stretched, was pointing her toes, good posture without showing fear.

Second, I thought Brandon was good in rhythm without showing fear. His spin was good.

For Jonny team, they had the energy and speed, but I didn’t see anything special in their performance, didn’t see difficult technique, it looked like watching speed skating. But Jonny didn’t show fear and looked relaxed and dynamic. Maybe that Judges loved it ?

I first thought Bethenny / Ethan team was better than the score they received. Bethany looked fear and her body looked stiff, some moves were not stretched, but she challenged difficult moves technically, her body looked well stretched when she was circling.

But later I found out, Bethenny was actually not skating much, her partner was the one who were doing.

Tanith said they definitely didn’t go safe way. I thought it was quite adventure to challenge these moves.
But I understand why she received the scores.

Sean / Denis team, the music was great and it fit with their performance. Sean’s expression was good, just whole her body looked stiff and not musical and careful.

Legs and body were stretched in some parts. Didn’t see technical difficult moves.

Vince / Jennifer team, he looked careful and looked very stiff. But he challenged difficult spin. I agree with Johnny and Dick Button, if he could remove the fear, he would be able to show more passion with music.

I thought judges are seeing skating without fear, that may be seeing their main point.

Some Bethany’s fans are complaining about the scores and they were criticizing judges for Bethany’s low score.

And by seeing this, it was weird feeling, since Johnny is the judge this time, and getting criticisms from performer’s fans, putting myself as a Johnny fan complaining to skating judges who scored low for Johnny’s awesome performances.

I’m seeing objectively. Both from judges side and performer‘s side and my personal view. I could know how judges were seeing these complaining fans.

Normally I was often in the fans side when I was watching skating competitions. So this is good to know different side of view when Johnny is in the judge’s side.

Some Bethany fans were making scenarios which says Johnny and Jill Zarin are friends, so he has bias to Bethany.

But being a fan of Johnny since more than 4 years ago, seeing and reading all his interviews and his opinions , my impression of Johnny is that unless one is his very close friend or family, he is pretty tough and very honest to his opinion.

I don’t think Johnny and Jill are close friends each other and it has nothing to do with his opinion of the score he gave to the Bethany’s team. All three judges scored low for Bethany team 's performance.

I got a good impression from Bethany’s twetter to her fans who were complaining about her score and against judges. But she was calmly and objectively telling her fans, "you are biased because you love me. I’m happy to be there, so don’t upset."

It is important to cut myself from my mind in one of the views if we think about fairness besides my personal view.

I’m a very opinion person so I love to write my impression about what I saw.

No matter the result, It was nice to see someone is challenging a new thing which they never done. These challengers action made me feel I want to go to ice rink.

Ray and I have been to a skating rink once when we were in St.Louis ( about 8 years ago ) and it was our first time to skate. Since then we never tried it. Now I’m checking the closest location of ice rink around here.

As for Johnny (Weir), His judging was great ! I thought he was not so tough judge for some performers as he said he would be.

His new poker face ?

He skated amazing in such a very tiny round rink, it shows how world class skater he is,

just his new costume made him look hard to move in the beginning until he took off the red top part, which somehow looked like a bird cage.

And the waist line of the costume, I think tighter may be make his body look nicer. Not so crazy for the design at all.

His movements are my favorite part to watch his skating, and good part of poker face was his other performance with his original beginning of choreography so this was not my favorite.

And the make-up. It looked similar to his Halloween make-up for his Porno robot which does not even show Johnny’s original facial features. No. I’m not liking it, because it‘s not beautiful and cool or funny.

He can be much cooler Poker face without distracting his original beautiful features.

Heavy make-up has been unpopular with Japanese Johnny fans and for me, it depends more on what kind of make-up.

Heavy-make-up is fine if it’s cool and not ruining his original features like his Mac photo shots. It was an amazing art and beautiful.

But the Halloween make-up , he looked like a ventriloquist's doll. It’s just doesn’t look good and not for me. Sorry, Johnny.

Loved his introduction look, with curly hair with almost no make-up ?

Judging part of his look, … no. his face didn’t look natural.

He is a chameleon, whether I like it or not, the fact is I don’t stop watching him because he never bores me . I look forward to seeing it next week !

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