Running Commentary: Dancing on Ice, Week Three

Holly’s dresses are creeping up …down?? Love Jayne’s hair. Chris back next week, woohoo. The required element tonight - Toe Picks. Philip’s jokes are better than Bruce’s. “Gemma/Jason, brutal fight, floods of tears, mascara everywhere - never seen Jason cry so much.” Got the laugh, moved on.

Ellery and Frankie - how drunk will he look, lol - not the most rhythmic and fluid but full of fun - and his toe picks were excellent. Score: 16 Jessica and Pavel ‘Heaven’ one of my faves, the routine looks beautiful in training. Wow - that’s really something at this stage of the competition. The teapot that become a one-handed something was gorgeous. Score: 20.5. I like her - snappy answers back without any hysteria, great skater and a personality off the ice. Married to … , oh, but that’s irrelevant, really. Donal and Florentine, awwww, bless all those little’uns in pink tutus …doesn’t Florentine remind you of Andie McDowell? Love the start, he’s more confident, the toe picks were stumbly though but a good performance overall. Score: 15

A new improved Coleen and Stuart, training looking good. But oh - the pink, orange, yellow combo, ugh. Thoroughly enjoying herself, terrific roll up lift. Very strong partnership developing too. Score: 17. Jeremy and Darya and they’re colour co-ordinated, much better on the eyes. I really enjoyed that offering to ‘Faith’ - the toe picks were out of time but the inside spread-eagle was excellent and it was full of personality and (whatever Jason says) I love seeing them sing along, you can’t be more into the music than that, can you? Score: 17

Melinda and Fred and she took being in the dance off a lot harder than Donal, completely different attitude. She managed to reverse it and it’s another lovely performance - voting will be tough tonight, very little between them so far. Score: 19 Ray and Maria in training - did she just say he was farting around? Another total WOW - I love the way he moves around the ice, in fact, I prefer his dancing on ice to his dancing on stage. Brilliant technically and conveys the emotion, well acted. Maria overcome, bless her. Ruthie’s lashing out at Nicky for over marking earlier contestants (which, to be fair, he has done a bit) Jason being the sensible one and advising the others they need to do the same as Ray and “skate with your whole being.” Score: 25.

Fun Michael is back with Melanie, trying to sort out his wobbly bits! A much more confident performance - only the one little wobble but left me smiling. The song though - I’m a bit under whelmed with the music choices this series so far - when are the themes coming in? Score: 17. Zoe and Matt - she’s feeling the pressure, we almost needed a beep machine, naughty EX-BP presenter. Someone tell the voice over man. Now come on, pull yourself together girl. Skated fantastically well to begin with, though they only just missed a wall but then she lost it right in front of the judges, almost a clenched fist and foot stamp of frustration but she managed to hold it. Score:16.5. Could be in trouble because of the waterworks and tensions.

Todd and Suzie are making me laugh out loud in their training clips: Look forward to Suz, now look away; the faces he pulls are hilarious. They’re skating to ‘Help’ which just makes what followed even more brilliant - two thirds of the way through he's lost control and skates/stumbles his way out of sight, the timing is incredible - he's come back just in time to take a bow and may have just won my vote! Hysterically funny, I’ve got tears rolling down my face. Philip said it’s his favourite moment ever on DOI and I have to agree - this is what a Saturday??? I mean Sunday night light entertainment show is all about! (Freudian slip there!) I’ve no idea what he scored. PS. Score: 9.5. Roxanne and Daniel could either benefit from the goodwill generated by Todd or be forgotten completely. Excellent theme and musicality, well skated. Score: 18

I can’t choose who to vote for, I’ve enjoyed tonight immensely. They’re so close it could be anyone in the skate off, although if the scoreboard works the same way as the SCD one does, I fear Donal may be unable to escape because of the two ties above him. Safe and skating again next week: I’m resorting to team names - there’s a fancy word for it but I can’t be bothered to remember it: Frelinda; Maray; Zomatt (aren’t they a ski resort in Switzerland?); Pavica; Roxiel; Floral or Dontine - can‘t make up my mind, you choose; Colart; Michanie; And Todzie! I wrote them down before Philip said it, I was that confident. It’s Frankery v Jerya in the skate off - I preferred Jerya first time round, let’s see what Frankery can do. Not as strong as his first one, a stumble unfortunately although he’s more relaxed. But a couple of stumbles from Jerya too - not as strong, maybe he should have sung his way through like before. The judges could be split. Or maybe not, it’s 5-0 to Frankery. Look, I’ve never pretended to know what I’m talking about, lol!