Dancing on Ice

Is there something wrong with the acoustics tonight? All the speaking and cheering sounds very drowned out and echoey.

Also is it me or is Philip and Holly seeming quite miserable tonight? They seem very stern faced and struggling to crack a smile.

It’s Phil’s turtle neck, holding all the Botox in.

Notable they're not showing him in vision either.

Barry Davies would be perfec

Either they are not showing him to avoid those who are unaware spotting it is a different person or perhaps they are being cautious and giving him a week to make sure he works out before showing him in case we end up with someone else next week!

He seems good to me.

Sam is much better. He's trying to be a comic and is actually telling us the technical moves which is what the commentator role was originally for.
I feel some of last week's issues have been ironed out and it's overall much better. Just needs a voiceover for when the celebs are coming on and they could do with a proper opening of the titles and the "let's meet our skating stars" entrance.

I suspect as Sam is seemingly passing the test this week he may do the announcements in future weeks.

With Phil and Holly co-hosting everything does feel like both are not needed, and it is Phil who seems to be coming across as the spare part.

The minor confusions with the scores and the comment ordering seems have been sorted out and Jayne and Chris seem to have settled into their roles a lot more.

Tony Gubba is a hard act to follow, as he had the magic touch of getting all of the technical content in whilst making it light hearted and fun. However, Sam seems a lot more natural with his comments whereas Matt sounded like he was reading them and didn't seem as confident on the technical content.

Chris is a brilliant judge, I have to say. Jayne still sits on the fence a little like in her previous role.

Shame to see the commentator from last week go, I think he’d have settled really well into it.

Sam is a brilliant commentator so far, he’s got the voice for it!

Enjoyed tonight’s show more but they really need to sort the sound issues in the arena - celebs appeared not to hear the results so were unaware of whether they were through or not. The ending was messy - with Lemar and his pro not sure whether they had won the skate off - maybe the rules need explaining on how the dance off works or maybe again they couldn’t hear correctly.

There's certainly a case for winning and losing lighting effects. It gets the message across quite quickly.

Skate Off was clearly unfair with one couple having a week to prepare, the other just a couple of minutes. Probably slightly less controversial as Lemar got through - in a way Jayne and Chris probably excused a few issues because of the comparative preparation time.

Sam is a good comentator - I agree Matt would have grown into the role and it's worth remembering the commentary isn't as technical as it might sound - I remember Tony Gubba admitting many of the terms used were made up! I think the difference is Sam put in a few references to suggest he'd done his home work, plus of course Sam is actually a commentator whilst Matt is predominantly a presenter and reporter.

It did feel a better show tonight and next week should be even better with the additional 5 skates, so including the Skate Off they'll be 13 competitive routines compared to 8 tonight and 6 last week. Do think they need to up the choreography and staging though, especially on the pro-routines which have all been rather unspectacular so far.