Strictly Come Dancing has been one of my absolute favourite shows of the last few years. I laugh, I cry, I get utterly over-emotionally involved and was gutted when the Americans did a version and it wasn’t shown here … until now!* How excited am I?

Following a routine from the professionals, the stars were introduced: “TV and Broadway star” Ian Ziering, supermodel (and “model lit” author!) Paulina Porizkova, actor and singer Billy Ray Cyrus, talk show host Leeza Gibbons, *NSync star Joey Fatone, Boxing World Champion Laila Ali, actor and author John Ratzenberger, Miss USA 2004 Shandi (Shandi!) Finnessey, “NBA Hall of Famer” Clyde Drexler, “Charity Campaigner” Heather Mills (“our first performer with an artificial limb!”), Olympic Gold medallist Apolo Anton Ohno. I don’t know about half of these people, but I don’t care.

* Turns out other series were shown on ITV. Why didn’t anyone tell me? Why?

As everyone knows, Ian (pronounced “Iron”) Ziering is from Beverly Hills 90210, god love him. He was up first and he looks exactly the same. I think he’s pretty familiar with Mr Botox. His partner, Cheryl, has won this twice before? I’m missed two previous series? What the hell, BBC? They did the Cha Cha and I thought they were fabulous. I got a little bubbling up inside that reminded me how much I love this show (and also how much I loved Beverley Hills 90210).

Lovely Len Goodman and Bruno Tonioni – both judges from the British version – are also judges in this version. The third judge is someone called Carrie Ann Inaba.

Paulina Porizkova’s partner Alex won the first season (how many seasons have their been?!). Paulina claimed to be a klutz, but she did a beautifully elegant Foxtrot. The judges weren’t particularly enthusiastic (apart from Bruno, who’s pretty much always enthusiastic), but I liked it.

The audience actually screamed for Billy Ray Cyrus who’s lost the mullet, but looks like a Stars In Your Eyes Keith Urban. He and his partner, Karina, danced the Cha Cha Cha to something called I Want My Mullet Back. Heh. He was clumpy and talked to himself throughout, but he threw himself right into it, bless him. He was also, I think, supposed to pull the dancer’s hairpiece off at the end, but didn’t manage it. It was pretty funny though. Bruno said he was like “a crazy bear lost in a swamp.” Turns out the song is actually from Cyrus’s latest album. “And that’s how you turn a bad score into a good plug,” said the presenter. Nice one.

The “fat one” out of N*Sync, Joey Fatone Cha Cha’d to You Should Be Dancing in a slightly over-snug white suit. It made me laugh, but he should perhaps have started with something a bit slower since he couldn’t quite keep up. Seems like a good laugh though and the judges loved it.

Laila Ali’s partner Maksim is obviously their Brendan: arrogant and tough. Laila seems pretty tough herself, so it should be a good match. Their Foxtrot gave me the shivers, I think because she’s so sexy and confident and they’ve got such great chemistry. She’s definitely one to watch. As Bruno said, if her Ballroom was so sexy, what’s her Latin going to be like? Yikes.

Clearly they saved Heather Mills til almost last because they knew she’d be the one everyone wanted to watch. “I’m Heather Mills and I’ve also got an artificial leg,” she said, which was weird because usually she doesn’t like to mention it, does she? Okay, I’ll stop harping on about it now. I’ll only mention it as often as she does. Or maybe half as much. Or a tenth. I’ll try and pretend I don’t know anything about her and say that, for a woman (who I’ve never heard of) with an artificial leg, she did a great job. You wouldn’t have known she only had one leg from the dancing. In fact, she danced a lot better than Fiona Phillips did on Strictly.

The rest were okay, but not brilliant. There are no real clunkers in there, which is mixed really (it’s always nice to have someone to laugh at), but I’m just so happy to have a bit of Strictly back in my life.

And to give them a couple of chances to show their stuff, no-one was voted off the first week’s show and the second show will be shown on BBC1 on the 29th July.