Why, you may wonder, did a rock snob like me, who has rarely had anything nice to say about the Goo Goo Dolls, agree to watch them perform several interchangeable hits while figure skaters leapt and cavorted about the ice at Honda Center?
Because “Improv-Ice” was just too weird an O.C. occurrence to be ignored.
The concept – pro skaters spinning and strutting as pop stars belt out big ones live, while NBC cameras capture it for a seasonal special – isn’t entirely novel; Clay Aiken, for instance, served as musical star for the network’s “Holiday Celebration on Ice” two years ago.
That, however, was a tightly choreographed, well-rehearsed and polished production – a modern-day Ice Capades. The twist of “Improv-Ice” is that it’s a competition, in which eight world-class skaters both young (Sasha Cohen, Evan Lysacek) and older (Nancy Kerrigan, Kurt Browning) vie for audience votes via routines they improvised Tuesday night to two tunes – a contemporary choice (like Carrie Underwood, Beyoncé, Taylor Swift) and then a dollop of Goo Goo.
Both selections were supposedly determined at random and revealed to the skaters with only an hour’s notice. The results will air on Christmas Day in a special clearly devised to capitalize on growing interest in the sport as the 2010 Winter Olympics approach. Viewers will select the winner by voting online during the telecast.
You’ve seen “Dancing with the Stars”? Consider this “Rocking with the Skaters,” sans a panel of snippy or supportive judges. And just as resistance to ABC’s ridiculous smash series can prove futile when it’s left on for longer than five minutes, “Improv-Ice” also proved a guilty pleasure worth briefly indulging.
It helps, of course, if you actually enjoy figure skating. I typically do not, yet I know what to look for – not so I could officiate but enough that I can tell you why a triple axel is considerably harder than a triple lutz.
That much I’ve learned because I cheered for my younger sister Jennifer when she skated competitively, from grade school through high school. I like to think that if a leg injury hadn’t permanently taken her off the ice around the time she started driving, I might have seen her out there Tuesday alongside Cohen and Kerrigan at the old frozen-over Pond.
What I didn’t anticipate, though, was how much I’d feel the fun (and frustration) of the sport come rushing back to me – especially while Johnny Rzeznik was singing.
When Cohen botched her first jump during “Iris” in the evening’s second half, I groaned and grimaced in empathy, just as I did when newcomer Joannie Rochette bobbled her first leap and Kerrigan tumbled out of hers. (That’s what you don’t usually see at these things: skaters attempting to outdo one another, then falling and failing.) Conversely, when current world champion Lysacek nailed his triples, and three-time national champ Michael Weiss wowed with effortless back-flips, I spontaneously muttered “nice!” and gently pumped my fist – knee-jerk reactions deeply ingrained from years of appreciating the athleticism it takes to be that good.
There’s little question who should win – either Weiss or Lysacek, both of whom delivered routines that were fluid, expressive, in-the-groove, bursting with technical difficulty yet almost flawlessly executed. Weiss gets my vote, but only by a hair. He was better (and flashier) in the first half, skating confidently to James Morrison’s “You Make It Real” than he was in the Goo Goos portion, when he was a tad lead-footed for “Black Balloon.” Lysacek was spot-on but less charismatic earlier, challenged as he was by Keith Urban’s “Sweet Thing” – yet he proved fleeter and more engaging in a splashy opening to the second round, bringing precise moves to “Stay with You.”
Cohen, a dazzling gazelle during Taylor Swift’s “You Belong with Me,” could have walked away with this had she stuck that first triple during “Iris,” and she’s so well-liked, she could win on popularity alone anyway. As at actual competitions, Olympic and otherwise, subjectivity reigns; there is no sport more marred by favoritism than figure skating. It was hard not to spot that creeping into even this friendly faceoff.
On one hand, having the generic Goo Goos as house band ensured a modicum of fair play. Though they can kick like good Plimsouls when they want to (particularly during debuted bits from their next album, “Something for the Rest of Us”), the upstate New Yorkers’ formulaic songs tend to all sound the same. Thus, skaters were evenly bolstered and/or perplexed by lumbering tempos and predictable crescendos to hook-heavy choruses.
On the other hand, it sure is suspicious how Cohen just happened to skate last, and to the band’s most widely loved song. Just as every skater played to the cameras more so than the crowd – kinda easy to do when the amount of lookie-loos on hand could have squeezed into the Grove up the road – so did that finish seem fabricated for television.
Everyone got a case of nerves here and there – Browning especially lost the plot during the Goo Goos’ set, unable to capture the rhythm or thematic thrust of his appointed selection (“Let Love In”) and wasting his last minute dawdling and speed-skating to ensure he didn’t miss his big finish, hopping on stage alongside Rzeznik for the closing note.
But his opening routine, set to Spearhead’s irresistible “Say Hey,” was Miami Beach frothy, as playful as model-esque ice dancer Shae-Lynn Bourne’s kittenish (but also meatless) improvisations to Underwood’s “Cowboy Casanova” and the Goo Goos’ “Slide,” the latter of which she took very literally. Likewise, routines from younger Canadians Rochette and 2008 world champ Jeffrey Buttle were mostly smooth, albeit bland.
My chief criticism has only to do with the inclusion of Kerrigan (who’ll be 40 next week) and Browning (a ripe old 43), stars designed to draw in viewers who were nonetheless outpaced by skaters half their ages. Both are still strong entertainers – Kerrigan remains a paradigm of poise and elegance on the ice – but neither one is tour-toned or teeming with pizzazz anymore, nor up to the task of going toe-to-toe with current Olympians.
“Just to put on a costume is a challenge,” Kerrigan admitted after skating to Beyoncé’s “Halo,” and I applaud her bravery. But she, not stiff, awkward Kristi Yamaguchi, should have co-hosted this special alongside new Food TV star Brian Boitano.
Maybe next time – for I strangely hope there is a next time. That is, if the producers can find another mainstream band as willing and desperate for attention as the Goo Goo Dolls.
