Watching live, Fear/Gibson and Bekker/Hernandez FDs both felt very "10am on a Friday morning in August". F/G aren't as sharp as they were this time last year, and Rocky fell a bit flat for me. The audience (small, but predisposed to F/G) weren't as responsive as they were to Lady Gaga at the equivalent event last year. I'm expecting them to make some revisions to the FD before they compete again. I think part of the issue is that there aren't any 'wow' moments. They're reusing a lot of elements (lifts, spin etc) but that shouldn't make much of a different to audience impact so part of it is how they're placed on the music. They new choreo hydroblade is really cool, but it just kind of passes by. And I wonder if switching the character step to the long axis would help; it would give more space for skating elements alongside the cheesy moves.
B/H I think have the bones of two good programmes but they have lots of work still to do (Nick Buckland buy a stopwatch). I'm expecting them to have a typical up-and-down first senior season. I was hoping for some of the more electronic Muse selections but I think this suits them, and it moves from twinkly into the more powerful parts fairly quickly. It's not too out there for a team moving up but not too overdone (not Exogenesis III - but
that they thought it hadn't been used before. I heard the first 10 seconds while getting a tea and immediately thought "Kerrs 2009". Should have run it by a fan!) I think it will be more impactful when they're more comfortable with it and skating 'bigger' and with fewer hesitancies. And a positive is that they're skating more closely together, with more intricate holds and transitions.
Layla Karnes is great! Very capable technically and an uber-dramatic on ice personality like we haven't seen for a while. And Oksana Grishuk's 1997 hairdo. So glad they've decided to compete for GB. I think B/H will stay ahead (at least for this year) but BIS probably should send them for a head-to-head in front of an international panel before Euros.
I enjoyed all the 80s RDs. Still not sure what "feeling of the 80s" actually means for ice dance but it makes for an entertaining competition, and the pattern variation works much better than the choreographic rhythm sequence.
Looked at their wiki page to see their FD history and it looks like Romain (and Sam) are their choreographers. Anyone know who is with them here? ( I was behind Romain in Montreal security the 22nd so he was going somewhere).
It was Romain. They didn't share him with Karnes/Carr who were with another coach I didn't recognise (def not Moir or Lauzon and Diaz was in Bangkok).
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. The Kerrs (who appear to have started the Muse wave in skating, lol), Coomes/Buckland, and now Bekker/Hernandez (I put the blame on the coaches 
). Their free is not particularly memorable but it flows smoothly and looks easy on the eye.
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