I adore writing couch potato blogs. It’s a definite bonus of my job and it gives me an excuse to sit around and watch television.

But sometimes there is a little gem in your career that really stands out. For me, one of those gems occurred on Sunday night.

Now I am a firm fan of So You Think You Can Dance (Ten, Sundays, 7.30-9pm; Monday, 7.30-8pm). If you ever find yourself on the Nicklin Way on a Sunday or Monday night and a white BMW hurtles past you at a dangerous speed, with the driver looking like an insane maniac, please don’t reach for your mobile phone to call the cops, it is merely me trying to get home in time for SYTYCD.

Fortunately for me (and other drivers on the Nicklin Way), I didn’t need to break the sound barrier on Sunday night, and it wasn’t because I parked myself on the couch from 9am in anticipation (although that does sound like a mighty fine idea).

If you caught Sunday night’s show and happened to be scanning the crowd and thought you saw someone vaguely resembling me, well you would be right … there I was in the back row of the grandstand, grinning like a maniac as I watched the live taping.

I managed to restrain myself from creating a hand-painted sign throwing my support behind Brizzy boy Jack, so I was harder to spot than I had planned (okay, truth be told, I left the sign in the taxi). Anyway, you could catch glimpses of me in my television debut.

Now if I wasn’t a fan before this, I certainly would have been afterwards. Not only was I treated to seeing all the dances unfold right before my eyes, but also the squealing hot tomali train of American judge Mary Murphy.

SYTYCD is filmed in what is possibly one of the coolest venues I have ever been too. Carriageworks, in the Sydney suburb of Newtown, appears to be a converted railway workshop or something, and it oozes trendy. Rocking up there for the filming on Friday night was a highlight in itself ... despite having to lock all the doors as we drove through the dodgy end of Redfern.

We were led from the quaint reception/bar area into the studio, and the first thing I noticed was how small everything is in TV land. I’m still baffled by how the dancers manage to dance on the tiny little stage.

As we were guided to our seats, the energy in the room was incredible – possibly due to the fact that there were about 100 screaming girls all wizzed up on red cordial, or may because, unlike with other reality TV shows (not mentioning any names, Big Brother), the audience was about to be entertained.

Soon after we took our seats, a strange little audience warm-up man trundled out to fire us up, and then came the disappointing part – they filmed a bunch of audience reactions before anything had actually happened!

This required me to summon up all I had learned in my Year 10 drama lessons to pretend I was clapping at something (because the audience warm-up guy was certainly not worthy of a clap).

Once that was out of the way, the judges made their way onto the stage, followed by the exceptionally saucy Natalie Bassingthwaighte, who is a much better presenter in real life than she seems on the box.

Nat B stood in the crowd to do her little piece to camera, with a little (everyone is little in TV land) executive producer standing by to tell everyone when it was all right to scream – a theme that was continued through the night.

Then suddenly it was all happening. Dancers were being wheeled out to do their routines, judges were making comments (Jason Coleman was firing off pretentious twaddle) and Mary Murphy was squealing like a schoolgirl.

I'll be honest and say that I didn't think much of Mary Murphy when I tuned into the American series last year; I thought the squealing was a little odd. But after seeing her do it live in the flesh ... well, I am seriously considering taking up the squealing thing. She was sick, she was frozen.

Another surprise for me that evening was that Jason Coleman wasn't as supremely pretentious and annoying as he comes across on TV. After most of the routines he wandered up into the grandstand and congratulated the choreographers (although not the ones he slagged off). His comments also seemed more justified when I was there in the flesh, and made a welcome change from Bonnie saying she loved everything.

The best part of being there for a live taping was the fact that you can feel the dancers’ energy bursting off the stage, through the audience and right into your heart.

They are doing what they love and they do it with such an immense passion that you can't help being swept away by it.

Although a lot of what happens in TV land is a bit contrived, if I was ever going to become a permanent fixture at the live taping of a show, it would be SYTYCD.

Apart from anything else, it is good old-fashioned entertainment ... just a bunch of dancers up there doing their thing. And it’s made even more special when someone gets bonked on the head by a camera on a massive mechanical arm.

— NATHANAEL COOPER