Dancing on Ice: The Show That Lies

This week it was semi-final time on Dancing on Ice, and for the first time ever the person with the top marks went straight through to the apparently-quite-important final. Sounds like they've come up with something new, doesn't it? It's that whole "first time ever" bit that does it.

But they actually haven't, and instead of coming up with anything new they just brought back the ultimate skills test to work out who was best. So it was all a great big lie.

Which isn't exactly surprising, since everyone in Dancing on Ice does seem to have the amoral worldview of the compulsive liar. Because that's all everyone did all show long. Lie.

First up was Chico, whose "banana lift" involved everyone's face being next to everyone's skate.  We were led to believe that it was going to end in some kind of disgusting mutilation, and then he scored 28.5 and everyone thought he was wonderful. Karen even did a little cry. We did one too, but that was because we were upset that he did something so dangerous and let us all down so badly.

Whilst we were mopping up our bitter, bitter tears, everyone else was trying to pretend that they weren't a bit surprised that Jennifer Ellison's made it through to the final four. She got 24 and did a bit of a cry and then everyone tried to tell her she was lovely and deserved to be there. We all knew that she didn't though.

Elsewhere, Jorgie was trying to actually land the terrifying-sounding headbanger, which no celebrity has ever done before. And until the live show, Jorgie hadn't ever done it either. Disappointingly for us, she managed it on the night and everyone pretended it was an amazing return to form, even though she didn't even come close to banging her head on the ice and therefore deserved NO PRAISE.

Jorgie wasn't the only one stuck with the Move of Lies though, as Torville and Dean also decided to give it to Matthew, who just proved yet further that it was incredibly badly named by banging his partner's hip into the ice during practice. Hip. Not head. Does nobody pay attention to names in this show?

And then it was the return of the not-at-all-twisty-twist, as the celebs took it in turns to complete the Ultimate Skills Test. Apparently everyone was trying very hard not to "do a Sebastian" and forget the routine, which we were told was a real danger. Just like the headbanger was a danger. And the banana lift was a danger.

Obviously, nobody forgot anything, and Matthew came top of the leadboard and went straight through to the final and none of it was at all surprising.

At skate-off time, Chico and his unstoppable grin went through to the final and promptly fell over. And so Jorgie and Jennifer found themselves in the skate-off, where Jennifer demonstrated some championship-standard defeatist attitude and burst into tears before she even started skating.

Jennifer turned out to be right though, and she got booted off. Still, the producers kindly found the time to put together a nice montage which made it seem like she was actually quite a good skater. Because it wouldn't be Dancing on Ice without some lies.

Next week: the earth is flat, Elvis isn't dead, and it's the Dancing on Ice final which Matthew definitely isn't going to win.