Dancing on Ice (The Final 11) - Judge Cole's Verdict

Continuing with my Dancing on Ice commentary, here is my belated response to last week's second round of the competition proper.

The Final 11
We're now down to the final 11 contestants for the competition proper and last week saw the first ever 'Ice Pick' where the celebrities picked the contestant to be voted off the show.

Johnson Beharry gave another solid but in my book, unspectacular routine. Chloe Madeley, Laura Hamilton and Jennifer Metcalfe all continued to give very promising performances. Chloe's, with the 'neck breaker', looked horrifying but fair play she pulled it off well. Laura's 'wrist breaker' finale meanwhile wasn't quite pulled off to perfection but it was a good effort.

Vanilla Ice got a real battering in practise and whilst his accident was clearly weighing on his mind, he still managed a very good and admirable performance in the circumstances. Denise Welch have a much better account for herself than the previous week whilst Jeff Brazier did likewise but saw his effort slip away as he landed the first significant fall of the competition to date. Dominic Cork continued to give a tentative and nervous performance whilst Dave Vitty kept the comedy at the heart of his routine to cover what was a more basic lack of ice dance moves. Sam Attwater again gave a show-stopping performance and he's well capable of scoring maximum marks later in the series. Kerry Katona meanwhile is going backwards. After what had been an initially promising opening performance, she's failed to maintain a sense of progress and her inability to skate for any decent period of time on her own is really working against her.

The Skate-Off
On the performances on the night, for me the bottom two were going to be contested by a combination of Denise, Dominic, Kerry or Dave.

But in the end, once again, Comedy Dave's fan base saved him. Denise deservedly survived to dance another week and to her great fortune, so did Kerry. Dominic Cork unsurprsingly fell into the bottom two for a second consecuive week and was joined by an unfortunate Jeff Brazier whose fall clearly worked against what had been a much better routine overall.

In the skate-off, Jeff eradicated his mistake and turned in a polished performace whilst poor Dominic continued to look unsteady and unsure on his feet. In the final analysis, Dominic was the one to go and in the 'Ice Pick' his colleagues did indeed do what was probably right in saving Jeff.

Tonight now see's us down to the final 10 and Kerry, Dave, Denise and I would add Johnson need to watch out - they all have much work to do.