I commented on this in the Pairs LP thread. An awful lot of the programs looked like a series of tricks - with O/S as the worst example. Many of the pairs didn't look like pairs out there, but like two skaters thrust on the same ice. That was one of the things I thought T/M actually did fairly well compared to the rest of the field - look like an actual pair. One of my fav skates of the night was Pang and Tong for the simple reason that they actually had a program (and got shafted on their marks, but that's another discussion). I was also proud of both Canadian pairs having something resembling a coherent whole.
However, several things really bothered me. One of the strengths of COP so far has been putting the focus back onto ALL of the elements, so that the side-by-sides weren't the be all, end all anymore. But in the pairs free I saw a horrific lack of anything resembling good pairs skill on the side-by-side spins (any of them) and quite a number of atrocious death spirals - many of them had awful positions - not far enough down, close to the ice, and many of them were far too brief - I wondered if some of them even counted. The skill levels on these elements seems to have gone down. Also trying to think of one great footwork sequence and am coming up empty. These are basic skills that should not be virtually absent from the final flight.
