Apart from the fact that last season's victory was presented and perceived to be as much a loss for the cheating chess player as it was about the winner, one wonders if Daryl Sommers sees the irony in this statement - a blatant separation of Dancing With The Stars from Big Brother - considering what has become the suspense du jour (the potential condemnation of the "liar") on the dancefloors where once frivolity and a reasonably clean-cut good time reigned supreme. Not so long ago, I would have agreed with him - if we remember, I did.  At the beginning of the last season, I confessed a fondness for Dancing With The Stars, the biggest reality show on Australian screens. But what happened after this article, by the end of the series, was a great departure for the show, and miles away from my review. Ratings had slid a little, but I must confess that I found the reaction of the show to incorporate the BB style Reality TV Scandal™ into the ending, somewhat rash and potentially damaging. As it was, the show clutched at straws, when it tried to turn a disputed dancing lesson of chess champion Arianne into a travesty (against getting your face slapped by a penis, it clearly didn't pack the same punch - or slap) - but regardless, the appeal of Dancing With The Stars, as far as I'm concerned, has always had at the core an ideology very much the antithesis to the Reality TV Scandal™. Why everyone at the helm seems so slow to catch on to what the controversy inevitably does - centering the future suspense around the impending explosion of a Scandal™, as well as placing a focus upon the contrived production of the show (manifesting a suspicion within the audience, and a willingness to turn upon the show for deliberately fulfilling the need it has itself created in the audience) - is beyond me, because I think the major problem facing reality TV currently is the eagerness of the public to crucify these productions for propaganda and manipulation (I think a certain little website, last year, proved the marketability of this - and the rest of the media has now certainly picked up on the fact that pointing the finger at these shows for contrived PR-whoring, sells), and the increasingly large percentage of the audience who, unlike the portion who enjoy the nastiness, are increasingly turned off by the unpleasantness at the core of these cash-in controversies (creating a polarised audience that is hard to please as a whole). It's a dangerous path to walk down, and watching tonight's much hyped premiere, I couldn't shake the feeling that Dancing With The Stars is fox-trotting on a very fine line. This show could be in a position where it finally stamps quite firmly on Ten's struggling reality cluster, but has it already sealed a similar fate?

Here's the problem. If you center yourself around the Scandal™, what you do is shift the entire focus of the programme onto it. To me, it's a case of what your shrink would call "delay of gratification". This is essentially the dilemma between doing something for immediate pay-off (but potentially jeopardising the long-term), and sticking with something that may not provide the immediate pay-off, but that works better, over all. The pay out of the Reality TV Scandal™ is instant - press attention sky-rockets, and the ratings quickly follow; and because their Scandal™ happened at the very end of their last season, that interest will translate into what I expect to be mammoth opening ratings. Unlike Big Brother, Dancing With The Star's Scandal™ was not sexual in nature, which means at least it's off the hook from any politically driven media inquiries raining on the parade - but it still plays off the same dynamic, regardless, and the rush of speculation may create an interest and ratings peak that in the moment may have propped back up their ratings and provided a huge amount of interest for this new season, but they have still now entered a dangerous zone of audience expectation.

The most interesting comparison my old article provided for me, was that despite the core content being no different - in fact, thanks to the new judge and the decidedly better celebrity line-up for this one, in some ways, I knew it had a little more flare than the past series (with the exception of a recurring reminder we will discuss in a minute, it was the mindset around the show that has so far changed more than the show itself - another symptom of the Reality TV Scandal™) - not long into the affair, I yawned. I never loved the show; the humour, in particular, was painful (something that I felt had been increasingly sexualised in tonight's show, which could be in line with taking the show further down a sense of the scandalous). But I enjoyed, however lightly, my experience. Not tonight; this time, I quickly became bored, and realistically, the only thing that kept me there was this article. And I felt kinda bad, because only a few months ago, I was (albeit , flippantly) declaring this show a breath of fresh, camp, fluffy air amidst a backdrop of the nasty demise of reality television; but I couldn't shake the feeling that this was no longer enough. I wasn't actually watching the last series at the time of the salsa lessons controversy, but like anyone, I couldn't avoid it in the media, and like everyone, I arrived at this series with this Scandal™ being at the forefront of my mind.

In a couple of months, we will rock up to Big Brother with the turkeyslap in the forefront of our mind, and tonight illustrated everything so tenuous when a reality show becomes as good as the Scandal™ that's very difficult for the general content to outdo. An awful lot of that audience want that Scandal™. And that's whether they love the show or hate it. On the opening night of Big Brother, those housemates will be assessed for the potential for their chemistry to provide our outrage, and the show is now damned if it does, and damned if it doesn't. It's goal will be to somehow make the general content of the show interesting - minus the turkeyslapping. Because realistically, this show's consistently highest ratings came from a long lost period where there was no real Scandal™, and where the general content was compelling enough. But that's the problem of the audience anticipation of the Scandal™ - once it's there, once your audience has adapted to it and the mindset around the show has shifted, all else becomes dull. You wait - sit through hours of television - just to get that controversy. Whatever the pull of the show originally was, the hit of intensity we get (so popular now partly because of the current social climate where there's an awful lot of fear, frustration and suspicion that can easily attach itself to the pop culture the public are plugged into) can never be matched by the standard show-to-show narrative that once was absorbed for its own merits. But of course, the problem is that we were absorbing the show - now we just sit and wait for the thrill. All else is irrelevant. So, the shows may gain a short ratings spike, thanks to the controversy, but can then suffer a ratings slump because the show becomes comparitively lifeless (we all remember how mild Big Brother felt, after Camillagate had subsided).

 

And it pains me to say it, but even I am unable to shake this mindset from Dancing With The Stars. I can put up with Big Brother because the content is there, regardless - it's slowly devoured by the cross-promotion and weekly tasks, but there is something even in what the general public see as nothing. But this is different. Dancing With The Stars isn't a reality show in the truest sense of the word. In Big Brother, the Scandal™ is essentially an extreme of what is the normal mode of the show. But with this one, it's completely foreign to a bunch of smiling celebrities fox-trotting around the dancefloor, the deepest "reality" we see being nothing more than a 30 second grab of them rehearsing. The suspense of Big Brother - even if it's for all the wrong reasons - can still work, for a while at least (but not for the entire duration of an entire season, it must be said), because you can watch the general content of the show knowing that you're potentially seeing the birth of the latest Reality TV Scandal™, and that any minute, someone will say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing. How can that translate to Dancing With The Stars? What is it we're looking for? If not a dancing lesson outrage, then what?

You're guess is as good as mine. And so, what could the show do to stimulate what they were clearly aware was the very relevant past of their meaning as a show? They were left to tease us of the possibility of (yawn) yet another dance lesson controversy. And they did, every step of the way. When Home And Away's Tim put in a sterling effort, and - what a surprise - a judge asked, "Are you sure you havent had a couple of beginners salsa lessons?" Daryl responded, "Oh, don't go there. That's over." And there never was a moment of greater hypocrisy for the show, because not only had we just been conveniently reminded by the judge (as he knew he was to do), we had already been reminded countless times, and were reminded many more times after this ridiculous assertion. It didn't simply react to a knowledge that we were sitting there the whole time thinking about it - it made sure that anyone who wasn't, soon was. We were not going to forget about it. It is now what this show 'is", and I have a horrible feeling that the success of the following season will be inevitably connected to it. For better, or, as i'd imagine may be the case, for worse.

Because, really, how long can the show sustain this interest? And if it does provide another dance lesson Scandal™? The show will be accused of generating it, deliberately. This was part of the reaction to Camillagate (where it suddenly seemed more important that the turkeyslap had occurred on the show, the year before, than it did when the original incident actually happened), and has even surfaced recently in the UK BB Scandal™. Dancing With The Stars (like the current dilemma of Big Brother) is damned if it does, and damned if it doesn't. That salsa lesson drama poisoned the show - previously an experience so harmless, so removed from the nasty voyeurism that pervades the Big Brother audience mindset - and now the harmless fox-trotting and jiving seems limp, perverted by the potential for something dodgy to happen any moment, the fun well and truly sucked from the show.

And will it provide the moment? Surely not, you would think. But it's no accident that the previous experience of some of the contestants was brought out into the mix. I think some of this deliberately created the suggestion, put it out there to throw the doggies at home a bone that had only the purpose of being implicit enough to stroke the interest. And with the repeated referencing to Jamie Durie's dancing past - as a strip revue dancer for the Manpower group - I think we saw something quite opposite, as the show vehemently put forward that whilst sure, on the one hand it could look as if the excusing of Jamie Durie's past conflicts against what was supposedly so wrong with Arianne, we were to rest assured this wasn't the case. It's a tough, ironic karma, as far as I'm concerned, that - as Todd McKenny admitted - the public had already started throwing "a bit of flack" in Durie's direction (though it was hardly a main topic of recent media, it does show you the importance of last year's event, when people start applying the Scandal™ to a series before it has even begun!), because in reality, it does not want such an outrage and negative public judgement to so much as graze Durie. Durie is on the show, let us not forget (and they didn't let us forget, either) as an arrival as the new purchase of the Seven network, a shining star added to their list, and banked on to be a powerhouse for the network. Arianne was dispensable, and many of the others on this series are too; but Durie being marred by a Scandal™ would be the furthest thing from Seven's wishes. They needed him on that show, and he will no doubt steal the series and win the whole thing. Jamie Durie is hot, right now - riding high off his discovery by none other than Oprah Winfrey, and currently starring in the lead role of many middle-aged women's sexual fantasies.

 

And the irony? His past as a stripper - something that actually fuels the Durie phenomenon (unlike female stars who are treated very differently for such a history) just also happens to land him dangerously close to the core of their infamous media explosion (and one that was so painfully contrived, it made Big Brother look like a gritty doco). And while so many other contestants were deliberately subjected to the implications that perhaps they would be where the next Scandal™ would break, with Durie, the tables were turned, and the judge responsible for the original controversy, McKenny, now made it expressly clear that Durie did not qualify for the crucifixion (despite the fact that he had just danced with the stripper all too obvious in what was an unsurprisingly heralded performance). If Arianne had an unfair advantage, Durie certainly does - but we're not allowed to go anywhere near their new star vehicle with such a nasty view... even though it is a judging criteria the show itself set in place, last season. Good luck with that, DWTS, there's a danger sign all over your new series. You're lucky Today Tonight is on your own channel, or no doubt you'd be handing a counter-advertising story to them on a silver platter.

 

But here's the thing I can't help but mention. One of the dancers who didn't receive the implication of previous experience was Kate Ceberano. If we were going to be hit with a similar Scandal™ ("fed" is probably the better term), then in order for it to work in absolving the show, the show has to look completely innocent in such a finding. It has made it very clear - for no other reason than stroking our need - that some of the contestants have known pasts in dance (Home and Away's Tim admitted to having had training, but he called it "movement" training instead of "dancing"), but if any of these are to find themselves in the center of a public who decide they have effectively cheated, the show will cop it in the same way UK Big Brother recently was found guilty by the general public for "creating" the Scandal™ (when in actual fact, the problem was mis-management, rather than active manipulation to this degree). If there is to be an ongoing reliance on this Scandal™ (and I think it's a terrible idea, but if the show rates poorly, we should not underestimate the desperation that the original incident itself was clearly a product of), where would we find the best punching bag?

Kate Ceberano. It so happens that I know quite a bit about Kate, and while I like her (forgetting about the scientology thing, which she'll no doubt be smart enough to keep out of this show), I'm going to spill it (sorry, guys, but if this is the plan, then someone's gonna do this, anyway, so it might as well be me) - she spent a great deal of time abroad, where she left Australia with the express purpose of professionally studying dance - in particular, Flamenco. Not only that, but quite recently, she then taught flamenco classes in America. And make no mistake about it - they know that. Every other contestant with previous experience made express reference to it, so that even if there was a judgement to be made about this, it's still not something they've actually lied about. It's a different game, altogether. But not only did Ceberano not mention her dance experience, she actually made it clear that she not only had no experience in dance, but went on a wonderfully contrived monologue about how she has always been afraid of it because she has felt so uncomfortable with her curvy body (which is rubbish, because Ceberano's past persona was largely based around her vaguely overbearing - but wonderful - comfortability with who she was as a curvaceous diva). This was a marketing pitch, of course, so that the women in the audience could identify with her as a symbol of their aesthetic anxiety and their longing to overcome it (it even came complete with Christina Aguilera in the background, singing, "I am beautiful, no matter what you say"). But it also set up something else. Kate Ceberano was effectively lying. And the show seemed none the wiser. Seemed. So you heard it here, first - though I want to make it very clear that I personally couldn't give a flying feather boa about what Ceberano has done or not, if there's going to be a dance lesson cheat outrage in this season, you know where it's going to most likely come from. All that would be required, however, is for Ceberano to last the distance, and whether that will happen or not remains to be seen. She should outlast the bottom of the barrell - such as Kimberly (I've got no profile, whatsoever, but hey, I used to be on Neighbours) Davies - but unless the judges start pulling out some stellar scoring, I can't imagine her staying on the dancefloor for any great length of time.

 

Which, quite frankly, isn't all half as interesting as a Scandal™ involving Brokeback David being caught by Sydney Confidential for looking for the soap he accidentally dropped in Durie's shower (which they were sharing to conserve water for the farmers) - but let's not get our hopes up. And Durie, one of those ageless let's-forget-how-camp-he-is straight heart-throbs, made a lot of fuss, so central to his impending stardom, about his masculinity. He even went as far as referencing the exact term, when he told us that because of the imposed expectations of the performance, he was... wait for it... "struggling to maintain my masculinity". Struggling? Jamie, I think you've actually been doing a fabulous job. And I would have almost felt sorry for David - who is now amidst a league who won't for a second take him seriously (in the same way we saw - though we all ignored it in the larger context - Shelpa chastise Jade for, in the recent celebrity BBUK) - when not only did he become the butt of Sonia Krueger's gay jokes (as she stuffed $20 down the pants of Durie, in a reference to the stripping, before declaring, "That's from David"), but then became dispensable in Durie's awareness of how important it is for him to keep as far away from the gay inferences as possible, when he responded by holding it to David and demanding he take his $20 back (with a vicious, smiling display of the regard held for the ex-BB boy), taunting, "Here, put it towards the drought." Ouch.

The problem is that David Graham facilitates his own degradation. He happily degrades himself - which is an easy enough thing to do when you are a slave to an idea of yourself as someone you're actually not. And boy, did we get plenty of it, tonight. David  (gay activist - slash - National Party member - slash - struggling farmer - slash - international model - slash - heartwarming monogomist - slash - chaser of straight boys - slash - someone who gets his sense of patriotism off on watching John howard jog in the morning) Graham may very well have made it clear how glad he was to be out of Big Brother world, but at the end of the day, this wasn't so different, and the show was happy to exploit his fame (because however much the show implied it was above the rival show from whence he came, the bottom line is that David is there for no other reason). What's amusing is that I was only last night re-reading Eyeonbigbrother.com (something I have never even once so much as glanced at, since it ended), and came across my reporting on the finale, where David was (as we'd discussed all along) further heterosexualised (something so sadly vital to his acceptance as the gay character, in comparison to the standard gay archetype who is used as a tool of repulsion). One of the lines Killeen used on the eviction stage was, "You even dance like a straight man". And whaddya know? In the middle of a pre-performance package designed to again heterosexualise the gay man who, on one hand, presented himself as a gay activist (David, hot tip - that's a big call, and useless, so long as you play into their heterosexualisation of you), among which he complied and bended to his innate drive to be accepted on the basis of a pseudo-heterosexuality ("I've definitely got the hottest partner in the competition!" he beamed, "She's hot as!"), what should come out of his partner's mouth?

"He dances like a straight man!"

Deja vu, Dancing With The Stars, deja vu. And just when you think it can't get any worse, on comes the farmer who's just too straight to dance (for the affirmation of the hetero public - ten bucks says he's much more at ease on a podium in a gay bar), and what does he dance to? The theme of Darif, Belinda Carlisle's "Summer Rain". In a new series that hadn't made me giggle anywhere near as much as the past shows, I finally got my laugh. But it was a black kind of humour, just the same. Never mind that only moments before being picked up by the show, he confessed on his blog that him and Sharif were over (which tends to happen when the publicity runs out), here he was, dancing to their theme song - chucking on the sexy facial expressions (he was always good at those, after all - work it, baby, work it!), while what was once the contrived vision of conventional gay romance became heterosexualised along with everything else, as the Lebanese homosexual was replaced by a tanned, blonde dance partner with big tits and an FHM contract waiting for her if the dancing thing ever runs dry. Straight women of the world, rejoice! If Jamie Durie fails to push the "on" button on your vibrator, there's always Brokeback David. There always was. Somewhere in your heart, he was always dancing with you in the Summer Rain. Go on, admit it.

And just in case any of us missed the pre-press interviews, he again assured us that the summer rain is about the only thing better than Dancing With The Stars. "Getting the call to come on this show was almost as good as getting rain." Yes, David, we know that, you've used those exact lines, already. It sounds much less like the PR spin it is, when you at least re-word the sentiment from interview to interview - something your current more experienced co-contestants could no doubt teach you a thing or two about.

And that's really about it. Naomi Robson was far less compelling as the former slag of Today Tonight trying to convince us she's actually better than being the former slag of Today Tonight than she was... well... being the slag of Today Tonight. Please don't try to convince me there's more to you, Naomi. There isn't. But she did provide the golden line of the evening, I'll give her that.

"I'm sure people will have a good laugh at me in one way or another," she confessed. "It can only go up from here."

I think that pretty much said it all. As to whether this new series - one very much changed since that moment of weakness at the end of last season - will provide the incline she's hoping for, remains to be seen. Time will tell. Bruno, their guest judge, provided some more welcome newness to the show, but at the end, we discovered we have only one more week with him (which could then also work against them, as his exit from the show leaves the remaining judging looking deflated). The rest was poisoned by the Scandal™, and the only thing worth watching for is to see if we'll get another one. But that, as I said, is the problem. Firstly, because of the format of this show in comparison to Big Brother, the chances of this happening on an actual show are slim (meaning we don't really have to watch it until we pick up the paper, one morning, and hey presto, Dancing With The Stars suddenly has a reason to watch it). And if we do get it, what does it say about this show? And yet, if we don't, a lot of people are going to get awfully bored, awfully quick (even many of those who would have been quite happy with the show's original pull will now be distracted by a rather displaced conventional contemporary reality TV dynamic, and without giving us the new Scandal™, the mere suggestion that we saw all through tonight's show will not be enough). The Durie may be in, but the jury is still well and truly out. Ten's Losers are failing to weigh in for the ratings, and reality continues to shoot itself in the foot. For this show, it leaves just the one to foxtrot on. Everybody dance, now.