The end of Dancing with the Stars (RTÉ One, Sunday, 6.30pm) comes knocking on chef Kevin Dundon’s door as the show’s country music special concludes with perhaps its most predictable elimination to date. The celebrity chef’s departure has, from the very start, been a question of “when” rather than “if” and, after two months of well-intentioned pratfalling, his race is finally run – though with a memorable sign-off that includes an epic valentine to the movie Footloose in the team dance segment.
Whatever about Footloose, Dundon is not fancy-free, as he places at the foot of the leader board and in the bottom two of the public vote. Up against the more accomplished Aishah Akorede in the dance-off, he receives the expected thumbs-down from the judges. It’s an inevitable end to a highly wobblesome DWTS journey and an unsurprising conclusion to an otherwise enjoyable episode that sets up an intriguing semi-final next week.
Dundon takes his exit in good spirits as he and pro dancer Rebecca Scott listen to the judges’ verdicts. “I feel great. I’ve had the best time of my life. I feel super fit,” Dundon says, adding that Scott, his mentor and dance partner, has had “the patience of a saint”.
While Dundon looks at the positives, you wonder whether former Miss Universe Ireland Akorede might feel hard done by, given that this is her third dance-off in four weeks. She’s always in the middle of the pack in terms of her judges’ scores, so it’s strange that the voting public continually singles her out. What’s up?
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Country Week doubles as a celebration of Ireland’s favourite musical genre. The night is packed with line dancing, cowboy hats and a rendition of the inescapable Wagon Wheel, as made popular in Ireland by Nathan Carter (“You could have picked a better song,” laughs judge Karen Byrne – partner of Nathan’s younger brother Jake).
But if the vibe is more Ranching with the Stars, in one respect the evening is entirely consistent with the rest of the season. The leader board continues to be dominated by Olympians Rhys McClenaghan (dancing with Laura Nolan) and Jack Woolley (with Alex Vladimirov), who scored 39 and 35, respectively.
Both are well placed going into the semi-finals and if the competition is judged solely on merit, then the contestant with the most to lose is probably Mrs Brown’s Boys comedian Danny O’Carroll, who scored just 30 for his quickstep (with Salome Chachua) to Johnny Cash’s Ring of Fire. And yet viewers insist on voting Akorede and pro dancer Robert Rowinski into the bottom two – and you wonder how she will feel should the inevitable happen and she ends up in yet another dance-off. All will be revealed seven days hence.
