212: Toe pick! | The Cutting Edge (1992)

·1 hr 40 min·5 clips

Robin Cousins and JoJo Starbuck both appear in The Cutting Edge’s skating setup.

Lauren and Charles start with Olympic season on the horizon. They note that the Winter Games feel smaller than the Summer Games, but still have the air of a major event because so many sports only show up in certain climates. That becomes the bridge to a movie pick built around skating and competition. The pair land on The Cutting Edge as the main reference point, with the show’s usual back-and-forth energy intact. They also try to pin down a documentary about Tanya and Nancy. One ESPN documentary comes up as hard to find, and they mention the version tied to Tanya’s mom with the fur coat and the parrot on her shoulder. From there, the talk shifts to the movie versions and spin-offs built on the same basic figure-skating setup. They bring up Going for the Gold: The Cutting Edge from 2006, which does not bring back the original cast but does include Oxana Baiul. The story follows Jackie, a figure skater forced out of singles and into pairs, who teams up with Alex and falls into a love-hate competition on the road to Olympic gold. Next they move to The Cutting Edge: Chasing the Dream from 2008. In that one, Zach recruits Alex, an ice hockey player, after his partner gets injured, and their feelings start getting in the way of the competition. Then they get to The Cutting Edge: Fire and Ice from 2010. The lead of that one is Michael from Roswell. This is after a former figure skater becomes an instructor after a partner’s career-ending injury, then later returns to competition with an unusual speed skater. They figure the franchise may top out at four films, which makes it feel like a tidy weekend project for anyone snowed in with Olympic nostalgia. The tone stays loose, conversational, and a little sidetracked the whole way through.

As heard by us

A figure-skating movie opens into a brisk, opinionated tour of Olympic-season obsession.

The episode uses The Cutting Edge as a doorway into winter Olympics culture, with its smaller scale, narrow field of sports, and the oddly durable pull these seasonal stories still have.

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Why you'd press play

For a warm, sideways Olympic-season detour, press play here.

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