Kristy Swanson

Ice, ice, baby

Yes, for you and you alone, I watched Skating With Celebrities last night. And actually, I thought it was pretty fun, which shocked the heck out of me. With all the previews of face plants and bruises, I expected pratfalls a-plenty. But while there were a few trips here and there during the footage of the contestants’ four weeks of practice, most of the airtime was given to the actual performances, which were pretty decent. I was trying to figure out how these total novices were going to make this happen, but during the show, I realized: Most of the celebrities aren’t total novices. Dave Coulier has spent a lifetime on hockey skates, and, it turns out, Todd Bridges has tons of rollerskating experience. Bruce Jenner’s athletic strength and experience help him out on the rink, and Deborah (also known as NOT DEBBIE!) Gibson’s Broadway dancing days give her a bit of an edge. That leaves Jillian Barberie, who made reference to judge Dorothy Hamil being her idol "when [she] was a little girl skating" (which explains the footage of her going for jumps during practice, moves she couldn’t have known without some previous training), and Kristy Swanson, whose stint as the title character in the film version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer doesn’t seem to have prepared her for this. I feel bad for Kristy, but it does seem like the powers that be have tried to even the field a little by giving her a strong professional partner who’s experienced in pairs skating. We’ll see how it goes for her — and the rest of the ice kings and queens — next week. (I’m hoping Todd Bridges will keep his "Whatchu talkin’ about" joke to a maximum of one usage, which he used up in the premiere. Fingers are crossed!)

Keeping with last night’s skating theme, the designers on Project Runway had to design an ice-skating dress for Sasha Cohen. (Had TLC’s Ice Diaries been on, too, we would have had ourselves a trifecta.) Who knew there would be so much drama in sewing stretchy fabrics and applying sequins? But once the overlock machines gave out (whatever those are), hoo boy! Anyway, here and now, my predictions for final three are: Chloe, Nick and Daniel V. Santino is too full of himself (and didja hear Heidi saying she wanted "to give him his ’auf wiedersehen’"?), Kara is too jumpy, Zulema is too disjointed, Andrae’s too out there and Emmett’s too kicked off. When they showed the previews of one of the outfits being called overly exposing and "vulgar," I sure thought it was going to be Zulema’s seemingly transparent creation, not Emmett’s grandmotherly-except-for-the-too-short-skirt outfit. But then she won! That was a surprise, but not in a bad way. I was pulling for Chloe’s layered turquoise dress. And I was missing Diana, kicked off last week: She was all about flowy and movement of fabrics, so I think she could have come up with something intriguing for this challenge. Oh well.

For some extra background on PR, check out Tim Gunn’s blog and podcast on the Bravo web page. He tells it like it is to the contestants during the challenges, and he continues that for viewers at that link.