Agree with this concept; this is what I was thinking could be done, without adding unnecessary drama.
I also think personal touches could be added that might be more attractive to a general audience. I am sorry to keep bring up football series, but they are what I know. I ended up liking Kirk Cousins, who comes across as a stiff in games and interviews to me, after being humanized with his family in Quarterback. In the documentary Kelce, Jason's wife is sarcastic and funny and keeps her hubby in check, she became a star in her own right, and Jason talks honestly about CTE and if he will recognize his grandchildren and has football been worth it.
I think personal touches will depend on how much the skaters (and honestly, their feds) give access to the documentary crew, but it will still need to be
relevant to, how the sport and the competitions work. Too much fluff and not enough real connection with competitions and the results is not interesting at all (sorry Break Point).
But something like... what do parents think about their kids travelling around the world since a young age to compete, what do they think about their kids trying to make it to the National team, what are the real challenges in having a kid who does figure skating, and not just the money but also having to use rinks throughout the night (midnight practices are common), etc. It can even ties in the recent wave of sexual assault cases and having the perspective of various parents on that, having to trust these federation people, these ice show organizers, their agents, with their kids. And we can go through the perspective of how parents from each country sees it, whether those parents are former skaters / coaches or not, and see if there's any contrast in that.
But also considering the relative youth of figure skaters, some parents or families may not want to be spotlighted, which is also fair.
I really think this can be good in the hands of someone who understands the stakes in figure skating and cover the skaters realistically. The audience is smart, they know which skater has a realistic chance to win and which skater can consider them lucky just to make it to the free skate / free dance. If the show pushes too many unrealistic narratives, or has no connection whatsoever with the actual competition and results happening, it's an easy dud for the show and any chance for people to convert into a consistent figure skating audience.
In order to do that, I think the scope of the series should be something limited first. For example, one series is focusing only on the GP series up to the GPF. Potential storylines: the top 3 seeds as favorites to make the GPF, the dark horses, and then the host spot picks and hometown skaters who likely just want to do their best. Injuries and the conflict between GP series and national qualification for worlds. Back to back GPs and the travel and exhaustion involved in that. Speculating about the top 3 seeds strategy in picking their GPs. I can see a 10-episode series for this, 4 for the preparations, 6 for each GP, 2 for the GPF itself.
And then you have one series that focuses on the nationals / Worlds team qualification up to Worlds. Exploring the local competitions, the big countries with their depth of field. The smaller countries who has like a 10-time consecutive national champion or even sometimes the local competitions have no impact on the Worlds team selection. The importance of getting more spots (especially if it's for the Olympics). The difference of competing internationally and locally. Top favorites, injury concerns, too close to Christmas / New Year shenanigans (especially JNats and RusNats lol). This one would have each episode focusing on different countries, you can start with 2 episodes for Japan, 2 episodes for the US and Canada, 2 episodes for Russia, 2 episodes for South Korea, and then 1 episode for the countries with major contenders but not much of a local field, and then 3 episodes for Worlds - the preparation that goes for it, the logistics of the actual comp, the aftermath and beginning of the spring/summer of the off season (where you can even talk about how World Champions are viewed in skating and discuss the prestige of the title compared to Olympics and GPF and all).
I remember when I first tried to make sense of figure skating competitive season, like all these competitions and each of their unique implications. Of course I did it because I like this one skater, but I thought it would be great if more people know and understand why competitions are important in a more streamlined way. There's a disconnect between what content the fans of figure skaters are consuming and the actual scheduling and reasoning of the competitions, and the lack of publicity and promotion in a comprehensive way for the whole season doesn't help normal people in understanding how to follow the sport.
