Alex Casey delivers her first power rankings for Dancing With the Stars NZ, including Pam Corkery’s boob jiggling, Simon Barnett’s spray tan and Shane Cameron’s meat hands.
Dancing With the Stars came samba-ing (and Simba-ing, weirdly) back onto our screens this week after a six year hiatus that approximately nobody had noticed. Ten celebrities. Ten professional dancers. Ten charities. Eleven disco balls. Thirteen if you count Stefano’s eyes.
I hauled myself to the live record on Sunday night, and honestly had a whale of a time. From audience members falling off the bleachers in delight to Nerida Cortese warming her bum on a stage light for some reason – it was a great night out for me and all the old men wearing tuxedos around me. Where did those old men come from? How long have they been trapped in the studio at SPP? Definitely felt like something from The Shining.
Who else was lurking in the cheap seats? The Auckland branch of Bachelorettes were there. The cast of Westside was there. Shane Cortese’s disembodied head was here, there and everywhere. It’s a shame that the audience was more famous than the majority of the contestants, but I guess that’s why shows like this exist. To give a few more bites at the cha-cha-cherry.
Alright, let’s just kneeslide into it. Full disclosure: I am not a dance expert. I gained high distinction in jazz ballet at the age of 12, but threw my career away after a horrifically embarrassing mistiming of steps during the finale of our unauthorized Shrek: The Musical. With that in mind, I will be ranking the contestants on watchability, coolness and funniness
1) Pam Corkery
Pam is number one for a few reasons. The first is that she currently the lowest-scoring on the leaderboard, and because I’m not a zillionaire I can’t afford to vote for her. This is my charitable act of the year for you P. Corkz. Pam did a rambunctious jig to ‘Hey Big Spender’ after an intro video showing her outrage at having imaginary cash thrown at her. Bizarrely, she was a-ok with faking a BJ in the middle of the d-floor:
Stefano said he didn’t want to see a “little lovely lady” next week. I don’t know what you were watching mate, but did you miss the part where Pam threw up a Westside, jiggled her boobs and faked a beej?
Open your electric blue eyes mate! Dancing aside (I’m going to be saying that a LOT for the next few weeks) Pam Corkery is clearly the best TV talent of the lot, and if you don’t vote for this human disco ball you are a puffed up little shit. Plus, we need to keep her around to get to the bottom of her neck tattoo:
2) Shane Cameron
Maybe it’s my residual childhood Shrek-related dancing trauma coming out here, but I was truly charmed by Shane Cameron. He was BEAMING under the bright lights like an overjoyed Easter Island head, looking bizarrely at home in his lacy bustier. Even backstage he couldn’t believe his luck:
Shane did a rambunctious jig to ‘When Love Comes to Town’, accompanied by the cotton candy-haired Lady of Cortese Manor. He gave his best twinkly toes, but his “meat hands” distracted Hayley Holt to no end. After that sort of hand-shaming, I’m not surprised Shane scored the experience as “let’s go halfway, I’ll give it a five”. It was a pure ten for him till the Holt weighed in with her butchery barbs. Tune in next week when Shane does an interpretive solo dance to ‘Hands’ by Jewel.
3) Chrystal Chenery
Self-proclaimed ‘Bitchelor’ Chrystal Chenery was always going to be a welcome addition to the DWTSNZ lineup. She milked the whole dancing thing about as much as MediaWorks milked her Bachelor background. The intro video featured her dance partner Johnny fetching her a rose, that she quickly beheaded and threw to the ground in slow motion. Classic Chrystal.
Doing a rambunctious jig to Taylor Swift’s ‘Shake it Off’, there was clearly a thematic link to her infamous #sorrynotsorry #longhairdontcare outlook on life. “The haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate” she jigged, with famed arch enemy ‘Wildcard Lisa’ sitting inches away from her sequinned buttocks in the audience. All the while, Bachelorettes Matilda and Amanda appeared to be praying at the Church of Chenery:
4) Maz Quinn
The more you hate your own involvement in Dancing With the Stars, the higher you go on the rankings. Prompted to do something hilarious in the backstage cutaway, Maz took to staring down the barrel of the camera in desperation for what felt like 30 minutes:
He’s mad as hell. He’s mad Maz, and I want to see him around for as long as possible. Shout out to our podcast engineering extraordinaire Rikki for this following good idea:
Mad Maz did a rambunctious jig to ‘Wade in the Water’ (nice water/surfing punnery there) with mixed results. The judges said he was a bit wooden, and needed to keep his eyes up. I, for one, could not keep my eyes up after I realised what a curvaceous rump he was waggling around. Best butt of the competition so far. Will you be less mad if you #breakstheinternet Maz Quinn? Please stick around long enough for us to find out.
5) Siobhan Marshall
Siobhan Marshall is a beautiful willowy goddess, who did a rambunctious jig to ‘Uptown Girl’ . She had one of the most hilarious backstage cutaways, pretending to be asleep when the camera threw to her. Hilarious, welcome relief after Maz Quinn’s staring competition with the nation. Oh wait, look closer.
Ever the actor, she claimed to be channeling the spirit of a small French girl for her performance. Candy Lane had a weird stroke where she said this new take on the French language, raising further questions about what her planet of origin could possibly be:
6) Colin Mathura-Jeffree
It wasn’t Colin’s rambunctious jig to ‘Wake Me Up Before You Go Go’ that got me excited, but his quick exchange with John Key in his intro video:
He took his lovely curls convincingly to the dance floor with partner Kristie. What didn’t translate on TV was just how loud her bullet-laden bra sounded when it was flying around. I seriously thought we were under attack at one stage, grabbing Shane Cortese and heading deep into the SPP bunker. He then lifted Kristie and nearly threw her down the barrel like a missile. A real renegade, that Colin.
7) Jay Jay Harvey
I know everyone is going to scream (no, they aren’t) at me and say that Jay Jay should be higher, but I am willing to shimmy against the tide. I am the new scandal Queenie. Jay Jay is good at the jig, and she’s obviously going to stick around till the very end. She got a super long intro video, and was the only one who got her celeb hubby wheeled out, enhancing his new but scary character of ‘overly protective husband in shiny jeans’
Jay Jay’s ‘Candyman’ performance had a lot of swinging under legs and a lot of newspaper reading. “You blew us….away” Hayley Holt said, in a confusing mix of breathlessness and innuendo. Jay Jay will probably win.
8) Teuila Blakely
“Not only is my partner good, but he’s gay” Teuila explained, chuffed to have a colleague that won’t try and mack on her 24/7. Scott definitely can’t do anything anyway with his suspender belt wrapping all around his nether regions like some elaborate DWTS chastity belt.
After a jig for the ages to ‘Happy’, Teuila flubbed the very last move. “Nobody noticed! It doesn’t matter!” the judges sang in chorus, openly dismissing the importance of dancing to the show almost as much as I am. If she can lift her knees higher, and open her eyes a little wider, Teuila will stick around for many weeks. If she doesn’t, I’ll burn my copy of Sione’s Wedding just like that piracy ad. She’s safe, that’s why she’s down here in the cheap seats.
9) Simon Barnett
Si took on a rambunctious jig to ‘Rock DJ’ by Robert Williams. Not a bad effort for someone who describes himself as a dugong. He’s in very good shape, and reminded everyone several times of his clean-shaven chest and deep spray tan.
I really thought that Si was going tear off his pants and eventually spray-tanned skin a la Robbie in the ‘Rock DJ’ video. How good would that have been?! Throwing off sinewy slices of muscle to the Bachelorettes, eventually getting carried off stage by Gary – nothing but a skeleton with frosted tips. Here’s me cheering for Simon:
10) Ben Barrington
I don’t know why I put you last Ben Barrington, but I couldn’t think of any reason to put you elsewhere. Seems like a huge red flag to me that you were the only celeb that required a park bench… and a cheese cutter.
His big triumph was not dropping his partner Krystal Stuart like his forefather – and fellow bald man – Rodney Hide. Drop the cheese cutter, and give us something ALMIGHTY next week BB.
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If you want more Dancing With the Stars coverage, and I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t, listen to the first episode of our podcast below: