Alex Casey’s second power rankings for Dancing With the Stars NZ, including Maz Quinn’s elimination, Siobhan Marshall’s dog and Shane Cameron’s microwave technique. 

If there has ever been anything to convince me of the validity of Mercury Retrograde, it’s Dancing With the Stars NZ. Basically, Mercury is seemingly zooming backwards through the zodiac for a few weeks, and everything has gone batshit as a result. Candy Lane said “bitch” live on air. Shane Cameron talked nonsense about microwaves. I shed uncontrollable tears as rump of the decade Maz Quinn got sent home packing. I swear 2/3 of those things wouldn’t normally have happened.

I’m doing this post-elimination, which I’m well aware also eliminates the need to power rank contestants. Or does it? Trying to figure out the DWTSNZ voting system is up there with doing my taxes currently, and I still haven’t got my head around either.

This is my understanding at present: votes stop at 8.30pm, are tallied with the week before, results show is shot immediately after, broadcast the next day, carry the one, add 50% judges score, leave a voicemail for Stephen Hawking, read A Brief History of Time, watch The Theory of Everything, hold up a potato and a pea and reenact the theory of relativity, take 100 fish oil capsules, do a sudoku, key the numbers into excel, print it out and send it directly via morse code to Dominic Bowden. All while standing at a perfect 90º angle whilst being on hold to Statistics New Zealand. It’s simple, really.

Before we begin, let us lament the loss of Maz Quinn. Maz gave it his all this week – he wore a thin long gold chain and he attempted a backstage scene that was even weirder than last time.

Maz pranced around to ‘Uptown Funk’ like he had a Bruno Mars-shaped gun to his head. How he longed for the sea, the sand, the salt. As sad as I am to see him go, I know that he is going to a better place. Where the tans are real and the only score he gets is 10 (as in hanging 10).

UPDATE: Jane Yee interviewed Maz about his music tastes after we speculated as to whether he liked Bruno Mars or Jack Johnson on the podcast. Turns out, he likes neither. I have concluded based on his responses that Maz only listens to the inside of a shell.

And now, onto the rest.

1) Pam Corkery

Number one forever. Pam seems to be starting to like this “dancing malarkey”. It genuinely looks like she’s getting a lot more out of the process than just the celebrated delicious roast beef catering. She’s approaching six years free of drugs and alcohol, which is a tremendous achievement and – thinking strategically here – a sure-fire way to keep her in the roast beef for a few weeks longer. If Matt doesn’t kill her first, that is.

Pam did a slow prance to ‘You Look Wonderful Tonight’ by tribute act Merrick Clipton. It was incredibly romantic, even Hayley said she felt like she was creepily spying on them on their honeymoon in Venice. Who knows what Hayley does in the off season? Pam forever. Long live the Cork.

2) Shane Cameron 

I think I’m a little bit in love with Shane Cameron. He is so happy to be a part of this objectively dumb show, and it giving it a million percent at every opportunity. Shane did a medium prance to ‘If You Don’t Know Me By Now’ by David Brent, doing some enormous yet unsurprising lifts and some of the twinkliest toes since Fred Flintstone. I like to think Shane owns Viva Rock Vegas on DVD. Talking of great childhood movies, him and Nerida ended on the perfect homage to a 1980s classic.

After the dance, Shane Cameron really let the word dogs out of the old brain gate. He said “SHIT” to Sharyn in her velvet nook, and then told a weird tale of how he microwaved his hands to make them smaller.

I’ve just had a horrific thought – what if Shane Cameron’s excess microwaved hand meat was actually the beef that Pam was raving about?? Cannibalism almost does seem like the natural progression for the DWTS format.

3) Chrystal Chenery

Chrystal began her intro video defending her lack of dancing skills, emblazoned with a presumably very sassy t-shirt. I’ve got money on this one for sure.

Chrystal’s dance itself was a powerful prance to ‘Skyfall’ sung by James Bond. The huge drawcard of the performance was the “helicopter” move, wherein she was swung around and around Johnny’s head faster than Alan Cumming’s pen in Goldeneye.

4) Colin Mathura-Jeffree

Colin slicked back his luscious curls this week and adopted a vaguely Patrick Bateman-esque pouty persona for his smooth prance to ‘All About That Bass’. I was a little frightened to see his aggressive strangulation move hit the d-floor, but then realised that, like Ben Barrington, CMJ is probably going to announce his new role on Shortland Street very soon.

The pair ended on this bizarre move, even more unnerving than the inexplicable and never-used lamp and chez lounge lurking in the distance.

5) Siobhan Marshall

Siobhan did a rigorous stairs-based training routine in St Kevin’s arcade this week, accompanied only by her dog and the assumed four or five homeless people they had to shimmy out of the shot.

With all of the heavy eye makeup of latter-day Taylor Momsen, Siobhan’s charming prance to ‘Without You’ received a standing ovation from Stefano. And I’m sure the pooch liked it too.

6) Teuila Blakely

I feel like Teuila is the type of person who deserves a heavy dose of that “yaaas queen” malarkey. She’s a damn vision, and her regal prance to ‘It Had to Be You’ quickly silenced all her nervous squeals we had seen in the pre-roll. Also looking forward to when her and Scott appear in the latest body horror film, Human Centipede 4: Evacuate the Dance Floor.

7) Simon Barnett

Simon Barnett had a good catch up with old mate Gazza this week, sharing a lovely mid-morning beer between friends, colleagues, hosts, contractually obliged subjects.

Simon did a Coldplay prance to ‘Viva la Vida’, with his token There’s Something About Simon stiff as a board frosted tips. He allegedly dislocated his knee during the performance, popping it back in before you could say “treasure island”. Ending with his head buried deep in some boobs, he told judges that he had “a pool of testosterone in each shoe”. This really grossed me out, and plunged him right down the rankings despite his huge score.

8) Ben Barrington

Ben spent a lot of time flexing in front of Krystal this week, and then donned an opulent sparkly singlet to rapidly prance to ‘Livin’ La Vida Loca’.

I thought the dance itself was pretty fun, but it also seems a bad sign that the most interesting part of his segment was watching this interesting chiropractor man hard at work.

9) Jay Jay Harvey

Jay Jay’s prance to ‘Walking on Sunshine’ wasn’t the greatest, but that’s not the only reason she’s last. It’s mostly because of this. And the robot. And the leap frog. But mostly this. Maybe I should just be boycotting the whole of MediaWorks? Ah crap, I’ve already written this whole thing though. Damn.

Pam says it all really. Looking forward to next week.

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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 second episode of our podcast below: