Steve Braunias on Dancing with the Stars: Stars' last dance fades out in a Hayes

Alas poor us. We're going to have to cope without the faintly entertaining minor distraction of Dancing with the Stars. The 2018 season limped to a close last night with a two-hour show which felt longer than the entire series.

Not a lot happened. It allowed ample time to observe the truth that whenever not a lot happens, the precious little that does happen is going to happen very slowly. There was even slow-motion film of Jess packing her suitcase. First, she put in a jersey. Gradually, she put another jersey on top of it. Motes of dust floated in the sunlight above her suitcase. They floated really slowly ... It was edge of the seat stuff. You just didn't know what wasn't going to happen next.

Jess is off to Los Angeles. She wants to pursue some modelling work. Good luck to her: she deserves every success. Jess began the series as probably the biggest nobody of all the nobodies, has-beens, and weirdos who the producers had assembled to contest the 2018 season. Although her social media following is huge, adult New Zealand had never heard of her. But she emerged as the show's break-out star and anyone who saw her dance and heard her story was filled with awe at the courage and good humour it took for her to get on with life after having her leg amputated when she was just a kid. She provided moments of thrilling beauty in the series and can count herself desperately unlucky not to win last night's grand finale.

Samantha Hayes says she is thrilled to support the charity Riding for the Disabled. Photo / Three

Chris, too, was a strong contender. The judges were knocked out by his athleticism and focus. The dance he performed last night was that strange, intoxicating number he chose from earlier in the series — that one where he wore a kind of skirt, and openly flirted with a male dancer in a threesome which ought to have had Bob McCoskrie of Family First choking on his Sabbath tea and biscuits.

The dance was a potent reminder of something that Zac had said shortly before he was eliminated. You may or may not remember Zac. If you blinked, you'd have missed him, and would therefore be unable to remember him: he was only on the show for about five minutes. Anyway, he made a rather noble speech about wanting to change New Zealanders' ideas of masculinity.

He never got the chance to fulfil that ambition but Chris picked up the torch. With his heavy mascara, his swishing skirt, and his abundant joy at being in the arms of his male partner, Chris took Dancing with the Stars into exciting new territory of gender identity.

Shavaughn Ruakere was eliminated early. Photo / Three

Shav was the other unsuccessful finalist. She was on a hiding to nothing. She'd finished in the bottom two on three dismal occasions during the 2018 season, and it was no great surprise that she was the first contestant to be thrown out of last night's show.

The watching public just didn't seem to want a bar of her. How come? She danced thrillingly and joyfully, and seemed the most technically adept. The problem, perhaps, was when she opened her mouth. She spoke a language which seemed to be entirely in gibberish.

The winner was Sam. Fair enough. She danced really well. She had class, and elegance, and poise, qualities which will have no place in the next faintly entertaining minor distraction about to come our way — The Block.

The Sunday horrors continue.