What springs to mind when somebody says ?duel?? People flouncing about with swords, trying to kill each other? Yes? Well, forget about that. Because this week, Dancing on Ice brought us the least threatening duels of all time.
There were no swords. There was no serious injury. There were just two celebrities on the ice at the same time, skating one after the other, and wearing vaguely coordinated outfits.
And the prize for winning the duel? Did they get to use their skating blades to hack their rival?s costume to pieces? Or to inflict some dramatic but non-lethal wounds upon them? Or steal their partner? Or do anything? Anything at all?
No. They got immunity from this week?s skate-off. That was it.
First to compete for the world's least exciting prize were Chico and Sam, who as well as sharing the ice and the music were also sharing their costume. Not literally, unfortunately, even though a pantomime horse on ice could be utterly brilliant.
Instead, they were both dressed a bit like Freddie Mercury and as per the rules of this particular ?duel?, they started off facing each other. Doing push ups, which we assume was considerably easier for one Freddie than the other.
In fact, everything seemed to be easier for Chico/Freddie, who was just shitloads better than Sam/Freddie. He was faster, and better at the lifts, and did more complicated fancy stuff. And just when you thought it couldn't get any more devastating for Sam he had to finish the routine with yet more push ups, even though his arms were presumably burning more than Lindsay Lohan?s ladybits.
Next up were Jennifer and Sebastian, who were set up as the ULTIMATE SKATING DICHOTOMY. Jennifer, you see, has a background as a dancer but isn't a great skater. Sebastian is shit-hot at skating, but can't perform. If you could smush them together, they?d be great. But you can't, so they were both just mediocre.
They couldn't even match their costumes as well as the two Freddies. The judges just about managed to muster enough enthusiasm to give immunity to Sebastian. And then they had to attempt to be sympathetic towards Corey and Chemmy.
Corey and Chemmy don't have any confidence, you see, and so they were united in the Duel of Low Self-Esteem. Luckily for Chemmy though, Corey also suffers from severe and long-lasting delusions. He's under the impression that he can dance and skate, even though he's still wearing kneepads. Like a toddler. Which is apparently what he is.
Yes, it turns out that Corey is just a great big deluded toddler. After his professional partner wouldn't bow down to his greater skating wisdom he threw a massive strop and stormed off of the ice. Or just kind of wobbled off of it slowly. It was up to Chemmy to calm him down, which she did very nicely.
And then she shat all over him and got immunity.
Unable to summon up any such drama were Heidi and Charlene, who have both been in the skateoff and are therefore equally, unremarkably god-awful. Still the judges were forced to choose between them, so they gave immunity to Heidi because she's got better hair. Maybe.
Jorgie and Matt, meanwhile, are both stupidly ridiculously good and so everyone was very excited about their duel. Jorgie had a lift that makes her dizzy and a bit vomitous. Matthew had ruined his back and dropped his partner. It was all INCREDIBLY DRAMATIC.
Then we saw their outfits. Matt had been put in something silver and shiny, and Jorgie was in a spanglebra and leggings. Who cares about skating when you've got people dressed like that?! The judges do, apparently. As they chose to give the sacred immunity to Matt, just because they had to give it to someone.
And then there was an anti-climax.
The producers had forgotten about Andy and Rosemary so had to just tack them on the end and hope that everyone hadn?t already switched off. Rosemary hadn?t got through a routine cleanly, but apparently she changed her attitude this week and that helped and now she is better at not falling down. So the judges gave her immunity, leaving six of the celebs facing the public vote.
In the skate-off, the public proved that they don't like Americans who were famous in the 80s and have names beginning with the letter C, and so left Corey and Charlene in the bottom two. Somewhat inevitably, Corey barely managed to stay upright and got booted off. Which he apparently took VERY SERIOUSLY.
And so, we have lost deluded Corey and his stupid hair but that's OK, because we've still got 11 other bland celebrities to will serious injury and deep humiliation on. We just need to hope that next time they duel, the producers let them have swords. Please, please, give the cretins swords.