Even by reality TV standards it seems a thin concept: take ten public figures in varying stages of decline or repose, and see if any of them can learn to approximate various ancient dancing styles. Eliminate them one by one, before eventually declaring one of them the winner, pretending the whole bizarre mess meant something.
It seems somehow grimly appropriate that 48 hours after TV3 emotionally farewelled their biggest star and most meaningful show that it debuted Dancing with the Stars, the ferociously silly reality franchise which proved hugely, inexplicably popular here for five seasons on One in the '00s. But thanks to MediaWorks' ravenous appetite for local reality, it's back on our screens in 2015, stepping into the slot recently vacated by X Factor on Sunday and Monday evenings.
It is, by some distance, the most gaudily moronic show I've watched this year. Yet somehow it's more enjoyable than it has any right to be. X Factor was weighed down by its seriousness, reminding you constantly of the career in the music industry which was supposedly at stake. Despite that contention being manifestly false - winner Beau Monga's single dropped out of the top 10 after one lonely week - the constant references to it grated immensely by the end. Dancing With the Stars knows that its winner is crowned champion of a competition to which no one on earth attaches any importance. Everyone involved acknowledges and even revels in its emptiness, in the inexplicability of both the show's existence and their participation ...
