Scott Kara: Our future stars are born
Rachel Hunter, has done a mighty fine job as a judge, and by crikey she's tall. Photo / Supplied
Sadly, no dancing dogs made the final of New Zealand's Got Talent. There were a couple of jugglers though.
But Zane and Degge, who look like the Proclaimers, have no chance of winning the top prize when it is announced on Sunday night (TV One, 7.30pm).
You see, Zane couldn't get on to his high-rise unicycle during their final performance on last weekend's penultimate episode and blew any chance they had of wowing the voting public.
It was one of those "oh no" moments, like when a race walker in the epic 50km event is at the point of exhaustion, weaving and wobbling drunkenly up the home straight, only to face-plant before crossing the finish line.
Our Rach - that's Rachel Hunter, who has done a mighty fine job as a judge, and by crikey she's tall, or is it just that Jase and Ali are short? - was lost for words. Poor Zane and Degge.
Oh well, never mind, because jugglers shouldn't be winning a competition like this anyway.
Join the circus lads, or even better, as buskers you could pay your way around the world many times over because you really are very good.
But the thing that struck me about NZGT is, well, the talent that was uncovered. Yes, many scoff at the star making potential of shows like this - and I was one of them, I admit it - but there are some among the 12 finalists who could (and should) go on to bigger and better things.
Yes, the show could have done with a few more "madcap Maori boys" like J Geeks (those are host Tamati Coffey's words by the way), and for many viewers, these four lads who "put the metro into Maori" (again, from Coffey's script) have been the favourites.
And I tell ya, instead of banking on The Hobbit to haul in the tourist dollars, New Zealand Tourism should snap up J Geeks, put them on a plane and trot them out around the world to astound people, make them laugh, and scare the living daylights out of them with their fearsome and futuristic kapa haka. That's the way to market New Zealand.
But while J Geeks are great entertainers, it's quite gimmicky, whereas the likes of powerful, pure and raw singer and musician Evan Stinton, young farmboy Fletcher Oxford (a star country music name if ever I heard one), who wrote a song about his cat Sushi, and sharp dressed man Logan Walker, who should stick to singing his originals, could all be bona fide stars.
And while I'm not a fan of mournful, sad face, woe-is-me singer-songwriter twaddle, the other one that impressed was Clara Van Wel whose poise and playing showed, to use a showbiz cliche, maturity beyond her years.
The real tearjerker - and one that truly wowed the judges - on finals night, was 11-year-old Jessie Hillel's rendition of Ave Maria. Now, there is no doubt she is a great singer but it's still too early to say if this talented young singer is the next Hayley Westenra.
Like I say, many scoff at the worth of shows like NZGT, but more so than, say, the Kiwi version of Idol, it has managed to weed out a handful of talented youngsters who are already accomplished musicians and performers.
Job done then I'd say, now all they have to do is back themselves and become famous.