Triple Axels and teetering ankles

"There's a certain level of cheese," admits Kurt Browning as he talks about Fox TV's new reality show, Skating with Celebrities (Mondays), which pairs six Olympic skaters with low- to mid-level celebs. "I mean, hello?" Browning is, after all, one of figure skating's more flamboyant stars. And his partner in this competition is the forever-perky singer Debbie Gibson. The show also features walking punchlines Dave "Uncle Joey" Coulier (Full House) and Todd "Child Star Gone Wrong" Bridges (Diff'rent Strokes). If the reality TV hierarchy goes something like this -- The Amazing Race and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition are the class acts, while The Bachelor, The Swan and Fear Factor are the dignity suckers -- then Skating with Celebrities (like its precursor, Dancing with the Stars) sits in the middle. "I'm just happy nobody's made to look foolish," says Browning, 39. "We're not sticking them in a house and saying you have to eat rat tail or you have to leave. We're made fun of a little bit, but we knew that was going to happen. You're trying to learn to figure skate and you're Todd Bridges -- that's funny."

Turns out, he's right. Bridges can't do a Salchow to save his life, and his shakiness and attempts to breakdance on ice are both laughable and endearing. But it's hard not to cringe when he looks in the camera and says, "Whatcha talkin' 'bout?" And there's something unsettling about how Skating uses him -- the way Dancing with the Stars uses rapper Master P -- to project diversity and street cred, while revelling in his gracelessness and discomfort in a spandex cowboy getup. Still, the actor formerly known as Willis might be the breakout star if the judges find him entertaining enough to keep around -- he certainly is capable of laughing at himself. He and his pint-sized partner, U.S. pairs champion Jenni Meno, might get just enough "artistic" points to make up for their dismal "technical" ones. Unlike Dancing with the Stars and the Idol franchise, viewers don't get a vote on Skating with Celebrities -- it's up to Dorothy Hamill and her cohorts, mean judge Sir John Nicks and hanger-on judge Mark Lund.

But what the audience loses in control it gains in drama. "The danger factor is high," says Browning, now a pro skater who lives in Toronto with his ballerina wife and son. "There is blood, there are stitches, there are ligaments twisted -- people do get hurt." Kingston, Ont.'s Lloyd Eisler (an Olympic medallist with Isabelle Brasseur), who's paired with actress Kristy Swanson (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), has also experienced the painful skaters' equivalent of novice dancers stepping on their partners' toes. "She's kicked me in the shins with her picks," he says, "and a couple of times in the privates. But I dropped her a couple of times too." Going into the competition, Browning thought Eisler and U.S. pairs champion John Zimmerman had an advantage. "I assumed that they would be doing cooler stuff than we were doing because they're big strong pairs guys and they lift girls for a living." Browning acknowledges he's too weak to hoist Gibson above his head. But no other pair is as enthusiastic, well-choreographed and rhythmic.

Those two, Eisler and Swanson, and Bridges and Meno all seem to truly enjoy being partners, hugging and supporting each other through the good performances and the bad. Pairs skater Tai Babilonia and Olympic decathlete Bruce Jenner, the older couple at 46 and 56, are inspiring and charming -- they've been friends since the 1976 Olympics. Meanwhile, comedian Coulier and Nancy Kerrigan are uninspired -- awkwardly trying to mesh hockey moves with figure skating. And while Canadian-born, L.A.-based TV personality Jillian Barberie (Fox NFL Sunday) and model/pairs champion Zimmerman are by far the most beautiful and talented -- Barberie skated until she was 15 -- they have zero chemistry off-ice. They are the most likely to win. Or to choke (each other).