Dancing with the Stars (Australian TV series)

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Dancing with the Stars

Dancing with the Stars logo
Genre Entertainment
Picture format 16:9
Running time approx 90 to 120 minutes per episode
(including commercials)
Creator(s) BBC
Granada
Starring Daryl Somers
Sonia Kruger
Country of origin Australia
Original channel Seven Network
Original run 2004–present
No. of episodes 43 (as of October 17, 2006)
Official website

Dancing with the Stars is an Australian television series based on the British Strictly Come Dancing. It was the first adaptation of the now widespread format. The show pairs a number of celebrities (or stars) with professional ballroom dancers who each week compete against each other in a competition to impress a panel of judges and ultimately the viewing public in order to survive potential elimination. Through a telephone poll, viewers vote for the couples they think should stay, taking into account an average score as given by the panel of judges. Dancing with the Stars has been a huge success and a consistently high rating performer, usually finishing as one of the top 5 shows for every week. It is filmed live in Melbourne on Tuesdays at 7.30pm. It regularly rates as Tuesday's number one show with an average of two million viewers.

Contents

[edit] On Air

Daryl Somers, host of Dancing With The Stars
Enlarge
Daryl Somers, host of Dancing With The Stars

[edit] Hosts

[edit] Judges

[edit] Series

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details about the winners and couple eliminations of seasons 1-5 follow.

[edit] Series One (Late 2004)

The first series aired in late 2004 and featured the following celebrities:

Bec Cartwright and partner Michael Mizner were eventually declared the winners, beating Pauline Hanson and Sal Becchio.

[edit] Series Two (Early 2005)

Series two aired in early 2005 and featured the following celebrities:


Tom Williams and his partner Kym Johnson were eventually declared the winners, defeating Ian Roberts and his partner.

[edit] Series Three (Late 2005)

Series three premiered in late 2005 and featured the following celebrities:


Ada Nicodemou and her partner Aric Yegudkin were eventually declared the winners, defeating Chris Bath and her partner.

[edit] Champion of Champions

The winners of Series Two and Series Three competed to be crowned Champion of Champions.

  • Ada Nicodemou & Aric Yegudkin
  • Tom Williams & Kym Johnson


Ada Nicodemou and her partner Aric Yegudkin were eventually declared the winners, defeating Tom Williams and his partner on the basis of both scores from the judges (winning both nights of competition) and viewer votes.

[edit] Series Four (Early 2006)

Series four premiered in early 2006 and featured the following celebrities:


Grant Denyer and his partner Amanda Garner were eventually declared the winners, defeating Kostya Tszyu and his partner.

[edit] Series Five (Late 2006)

Series five premiered on Tuesday September 26 , 2006 and concluded on Tuesday November 28, 2006. It featured the following celebrities:

Celebrity Occupation Professional Partner [1] Status
Kerry Armstrong Actress Christopher Ryan Eliminated 3rd
on October 17
Arianne Caoili Teenage chess champion Carmelo Pizzino Eliminated 9th
on November 28
Fiona Falkiner The Biggest Loser contestant Serghei Bolgarschii Eliminated 1st
on October 3
Andrew Gaze Basketball star Linda DeNicola Eliminated 7th
on November 14
Chris Hemsworth Actor on Home and Away Abbey Ross Eliminated 6th
on November 7
Amanda Keller Radio Host Csaba Szirmai Eliminated 5th
on October 31
Anthony Koutoufides Carlton Football Club Aussie Rules player Natalie Lowe Winners
on November 28
Tamsyn Lewis Mid-distance runner Arsen Kishishian Eliminated 8th
on November 21
Gary Sweet Australian actor Eliza Campagna Eliminated 4th
on October 24
Tom Waterhouse Son of horse trainer and businesswoman Gai Waterhouse Alana Patience Eliminated 2nd
on October 10

Anthony Koutoufides and his partner Natalie Lowe were eventually declared the winners, defeating Arianne Caoili and her partner.

[edit] Controversy

Throughout all of the seasons there has been controversy. Some that revolved around the Dancing with the Stars contestants include:

  • All of the Home and Away stars competing in each season, consistently lasted until close to the end, with both Bec Cartwright and Ada Nicodemou winning their respective seasons, 1 and 3.
  • In Season 2, it was believed that judge Todd McKenney did not like Nikki Webster and thus gave her low scores.
  • Following this, in Season 4, Kate Langbroek locked horns with Todd when she disapproved of the way Todd had acted towards Webster.
  • Bec Cartwright (Season 1), Nikki Webster (Season 2) and Jennifer Hawkins (Season 4) all had previous dancing experience and many saw them as having an unfair advantage, despite the fact that they had experience in forms of dance, such as cheerleading and ballet, which are quite different styles to ballroom dancing. Bec Cartwright especially copped a lot of flack after winning, with many irate Pauline Hanson supporters using the excuse that she "cheated".
  • All of the winners thus far have come from Seven Network shows—Bec and Ada from Home and Away, Tom Williams from The Great Outdoors, and Grant Denyer from Sunrise—leading to accusations that Seven Network personalities are favoured in front of everyone else. Season five will be the first to have a non-7 personality final.
  • In the semi final of Season five, judge Todd McKenney stated that he believed Arianne Caoili had received professional dance lessons prior to the competition. Arianne denied this. Channel 7's Today Tonight supported McKenney's claims, producing video footage of Arianne attending Salsa classes, but on Saturday 25th of November Arianne said that everything that Todd said wasn't true, the only thing she's done was when the producers rang up to cast her for Dancing, she just started doing Salsa lessons.[1] This all started because Todd got a tip-off from somebody which how he knew this happened.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Couples - Dancing with the Stars. Retrieved on 2006-09-25.
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