Natalie Bassingthwaighte told us to get ready to be blown away.

Were we? Hell yes!

The much anticipated screening of the Australian version of So You Think You Can Dance hit our screens last night, and the massive promotional drive which left us gagging for it to finally begin didn’t even come close to showcasing how good this show is going to be.

View a gallery of the action from the Brisbane and Perth auditions.

The audition road-train took us from Perth to Brisbane, along the way showing us the great (and the downright awful) dance talent that Australia has been hiding away for far too long.

We saw hip-hop, ballroom, modern, ballet, jazz, tap and everything in between as the judges Matt Lee, Jason Coleman and Bonnie Lythgoe sliced and diced their way through the talent to find Australia’s favourite dancer.

The show follows a similar format to Australian Idol, where thousands of hopefuls line-up in the searing heat as the host runs along giving people high-fives and hugs, before they are shuffled off to strut their stuff in front of the judges. From there they are either given the golden ticket straight to the top 100 in Sydney, asked to come back in the afternoon for a gruelling dance-off choreographed by Matt Lee or told to bugger off.

It seemed in Perth that everyone was going straight to Sydney, but somehow they managed to fill the stage with wannabes for the afternoon dance-off.

In Brisbane they were a lot less generous with the tickets to Sydney.

Carins’ 365 Crew, a three-man hip-hop ensemble impressed the judges to give one member a ticket to Sydney straight up, but they wanted to see the others under the pump during choreography where they managed to secure their own place in the top 100.

Ben Ikin’s little brother Anthony had the judges, crowd and no doubt the television audience in rapture with his captivating modern dance routine. The gymnast and acrobat proved that you can combine several art-forms and still make something sensational. There were no surprises when he was selected to go straight through to the top 100.

The highlight of last night’s episode was definitely 15-year-old Caleb from Innisfail. Although he was too young to audition, the producers still gave him a crack at showing his stuff in front of the judges. His beautiful dance routine had the entire theatre up on their feet in a rousing standing ovation.

When he said “Australia remember this face”, I am pretty confident that anyone watching the program is going to have trouble forgetting it. Had he been a few years older, they would have had to stop the show there, because Australia would have already found their favourite dancer.

Fingers crossed that the producers are smart enough to bring him back in the finale so we can see him again.

Despite the fact the show was brilliant, the judges left a lot to be desired. They clearly went to the Australian Idol school of judging and had drawn straws for who was going to play which character. Bonnie Lythgoe slotted nicely into the Marcia Hines role, Matt Lee is a better looking and more coherent version of Mark Holden and Jason Coleman played the Dicko/Kyle role to perfection.

Despite being experts in their field, Bonnie and Jason became a bit boring with their comments after each dancer … and did we really need to see Jason stopping the music with his flamboyant hand flourishes EVERY time?

There definitely wasn’t enough drama between the judges themselves. They appear to all love each other to pieces (except that brief moment where Matt disagreed with Bonnie and I thought she was going to fall off her chair) so instead they were reduced to creating drama from the contestants' life stories, which was moving but mostly irrelevant.

Fortunately for viewers, Nat Bassingthwaighte skipped the hosting lesson from Andrew G and James Mathieson and she was awesome, finding the right balance between being motherly, giving the contestants stick, and adding a much needed touch of humour.

All in all, yes Australia can dance.

Is the local version going to be as good as the American series? I think it will be better. The Aussie dancers seem to be blessed with more humility and much less pretension than their American counterparts, and Thank God for small mercies … no one has started squealing yet (if they do, the television is going through the window.)

Stay tuned to Couch Potato for regular updates and exciting news about So You Think You Can Dance.

So You Think You Can Dance screens on Channel 10 Sunday and Monday nights at 7:30pm.

—NATHANAEL COOPER