Dancing with the Stars review: Dear Irish Voting Public, please take a long, hard look at yourself

The 100th episode of Dancing with the Stars (RTÉ One, Sunday, 6.30pm) proves an unhappy anniversary for Fair City’s Stephanie Kelly, who becomes the latest contestant to leave the series. Always a straggler, her departure is no surprise – the real shock is that front-runner Jordan Dargan has been relegated to the dance-off for the second week running.

Dear Irish Voting Public, please take a long, hard look at yourself and stop singling out Dargan, whose only crime was sucking up a bit to Alan Sugar on the Apprentice.

Kelly went above and beyond in making it so far and seems appreciative of her time on the show. “It was so much more than I anticipated,” she says. “I got so much more out of it. It did so much more for me. I’m not even emotional in a sad way – it’s great.”

Marking the big 100, the show welcomes back former host Westlife’s Nicky Byrne as a guest judge. Just like your grandparents spoiling you with sweets when your parents aren’t looking, he is soon sprinkling out nines and tens as if they’re going out of fashion.

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Not that front-runner and reigning Rose of Tralee Katelyn Cummins needs any special treatment. Dancing a Viennese Waltz with Leonardo Lini to You Are the Reason by Calum Scott and Leona Lewis, she clocks up a perfect 50 – including the first 10 of the season from Brian Redmond.

“It’s such an amazing song – I wish it was a Westlife song. With a great song comes extra pressure,” raves Byrne. “Why am I getting so sad? It was brilliant,” agrees Karen Byrne.

Kelly and Merfeldas perform during the show. Photograph: Kyran O’Brien/kobpix

Propping up the table as per is The Traitors’ Paudie Moloney, who conjures existential horror when he reprises the Des Cahill “Dessie Swim” from series one – a sort of “you had to be there” slide across the floor with pro Laura Nolan, which earns Paudie a paltry 25.

Even Cahill – one of the former contestants brought back as mentors – looks aghast.

But that’s not enough to convince voters to bump Moloney down to the dance-off, and yet again they inflict this cruel and unnecessary punishment on Jordan Dargan and Rebecca Scott, whose jive to Bruno Mars earns an entirely respectable 43, and see Dargan execute a spectacular jump over Scott.

What more does he have to do to say in the contest? Don’t ask the great Irish voting public, who, based on the past few weeks, wouldn’t know a jive from a nose dive.