Your judges are the usual gang of idiots. All evening they hype up the fact that Alex WHO IS A GUY is dancing with Twitch WHO IS ALSO A GUY HOLY CRAP Y’ALL, which is maddeningly annoying, but not as annoying as the audience, which has never, ever been this bad in the show’s history.
Adechike and All-Star Lauren: hip-hop. Lauren gets hip-hop instead of Comfort? Okay whatever THIS SHOW IS ANTI-COMFORT RACIST! Joking aside, this was pretty good, as Adechike actually did not dance like a very skilled zombie but instead like an actual human being, and his hip-hop technique was honestly quite decent. A thoroughly good opening to the show.
Adechike’s solo: Complex and understated; a fairly bold choice given the show’s format. I liked it quite a bit.
Ashley and All-Star Forklift: contemporary. This is the third week in a row where Ashley has had either contemporary or jazz (and her jazz piece was Travis’ “I can’t believe it’s not contemporary” dance last week), so she’s not exactly being, like, stretched or anything. This was good, I suppose, but good in the way that it hits all the SYTYCD buttons: gorgeous lifts, staggering lifts, and nothing but lifts for practically the entire piece. This is not to say that being lifted properly is easy – Ashley’s core strength was obviously tested here – but come on now.
Ashley’s solo: “Hey look I can do a pirouette and an arabeseque and a…” Terrible.
Robert and All-Star Courtney: jazz. See, first week Sonya did that lovely contemporary for Alex and Allison and I was all “hey, maybe she isn’t just doing the same piece over and over again” and now here she is hitting F5 on her inner browser once more. Honestly, I could barely get through the whole thing, because I’ve seen it like ten times now. She doesn’t have a “distinct voice,” she has this one sentence she really likes to repeat over and over again. I suppose Robert was good in this, I guess, but when I can just look at individual moves and say “Mark did it better” and be literally correct that doesn’t help him.
Robert’s solo: Some will disagree with me, but I felt it was overly feminine on him – just a little too flowery at the wrong moments. I want to see him get a little more aggressive.
Melinda and All-Star Pasha: salsa. This was strained and clunky, to say the least; Melinda’s transitions were nonexistent and her steps were thick and heavy. I really wanted this to be decent, and it was only very kinda okay. Granted, there have been far worse performances of salsa on this show and she did her best to make up for it with personality. Of course, the judges then throw Melinda under the bus like they have every week, which I doubt helps. Sadly, Melinda made the mistake of not being a lovable stereotype! Bad Melinda! Maybe next time you’ll learn to adopt a cute accent or something!
Melinda’s solo: Technically accomplished, but completely lacking in musicality. Mia called it, sad to say.
Lauren and All-Star Neil: Broadway. Although the wardrobe malfunction got all the hype here (and Lauren and Neil handled it skillfully), the dance was muscular and entertaining. Mia complains that the dance is not sexy enough and that Lauren is too athletic, which: shut up, Mia. (Especially Mia, who loves to choreo dances that require insane levels of athleticism.) The choreo was lovely. They should just let Joey Dowling (and Sean Cheeseman) do all the Broadway from now on and put Tasty in a footlocker somewhere. Somewhere at the bottom of the ocean.
Lauren’s solo: Perfectly decent contemporary solo. Perhaps a bit generic, but the transitions were musical.
Billy and All-Star Kathryn: contemporary. Somebody finally got a good performance out of Billy – by letting him basically do one of his solos and have his partner dance around him. Congratulations, Stacey Tookey, for trying to play to Billy’s sole apparent strength! But even when this amount of Billy-stroking is done, he still dances like he’s doing a solo. Kathryn as usual tries to connect for both of them and nearly succeeds, because Kathryn is awesome (and underscores that if Billy had not been sick, he would have gotten knocked out of season 6 probably around the halfway mark).
Billy’s solo: Billy’s usual lovely solo, as you would expect.
Not Legacy and All-Star Anya: samba. This week the judges made it clear that they don’t expect Not Legacy to dance well or even at all! His shining presence is all that matters! He makes them happy, like a security blanket or warm cocoa. You think I am being sarcastic? No, this is pretty much exactly what they said. Then Mia wonders how Not Legacy keeps staying every week when he’s not dancing well. Shut up, Mia. Shut up, judges. Concentrate on Jose’s dancing, which was as usual Not Good Enough To Be On This Show, no matter how much magic is in his eyes and smile. Hey, remember Legacy? He didn’t need magic in his eyes and smile; he could actually do the steps. But as we all know, B-boys are apparently the special needs kids of the dance world in Nigel’s eyes. Fuck you, Nigel, you patronizing asshole, and fuck the rest of the judges too.
Not Legacy’s solo: He’s not even good enough to be on this show in his own fucking style, for crissake. He’s the worst B-boy, skillwise, to ever appear on this show: he’s miles beneath Ryan or Hok or Dominic or Gev or Legacy, or Gaz or Don or Emmanuel or Timomatic or Demi or Pania or Khaly or JD, or Jesse or Nicolas or Miles. Yes, I’m sure he’s very nice and works hard. Tough; he’s not good enough.
Kent and All-Star Allison: jazz. Two weeks in a row where all they want is Kent to dance not like a giggling schoolboy and he can’t do it. I am so fucking sick of Kent’s aw-shucks crap and the way he constantly plays it up for the screaming tweens. I now want to punch Kent in his fucking face. I’m sorry, Kent, I shouldn’t want to punch you in your fucking face. But I do. The judges keep blathering about Kent’s “magical quality,” which is I guess what makes me want to punch him in the fucking face.
Kent’s solo: Yeah yeah ineffable joy of dance whatever.
Alex and All-Star Twitch: hip-hop. HOLY MOTHERFUCKING SHIT. I’ve been waiting to see Alex dance outside of his comfort zone. I hoped he’d be good; I worried he wouldn’t be. (Yes, I am rooting for Alex. Fuck you. He’s Canadian, I’m entitled. We didn’t get into the World Cup this year.) I wasn’t expecting him to basically match Twitch – who is genuinely now one of the best hip-hop dancers in the business – step for step. Alex and Twitch fucking nailed this. Tabbynaps basically redeemed all of their prior mediocre routines in one go with this; this is genuinely one of the best hip-hop performances in the show’s history. For those keeping track, that makes two weeks out of three where Alex has contributed one of the best [genre] performances in the show’s history.
Alex’s solo: Excellent, as you would expect.
Should be bottom three: Melinda, Jose, Kent.
Will be bottom three: Melinda, Lauren, Jose.
Should go home: Jose.
Will go home: Melinda.
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Thoughts, arranged in order of the contestants this time!
-Adechike has personality! I would have liked cleaner stops and starts on the hip-hop, but it was one of his best performances to date just because he wasn’t dancing it like a dance student. I begin to wonder whether that’s simply what he does when he does contemporary. Liked the solo.
-Ashley, yeah. You pretty much said it all. Boring solo, and while the routine was a lot of fun to watch and required great core strength, there wasn’t a lot of substance to it.
-I really liked Robert’s solo, actually. I thought it had excellent musicality and an actual theme, which is more than one can say about most SYTYCD solos. Sonya gets good work out of him, but he is not in the same league as Mark. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen another dancer quite like Mark, and the judges need to stop with those comparisons, because they are not flattering.
-Melinda is… okay. The salsa was fun and energetic, but Pasha had more hip action than she did, and while he’s Pasha and is genuinely one of the best ballroom dancers ever on the show, as the girl she should not be out-hipped by the guy. The solo was technically good, but I just compare everything she does to Bianca’s *brilliant* solo to Tootsie Roll in S6 and it falls flat. Inexplicably, the judges dumped Bianca after that solo.
-Lauren had a really good night and I’m really learning to like her. Excellent work in both numbers.
-Billy just kind of bores me. He’s technically brilliant, but only slightly more engaging than Jakob, and Jakob had all the personality of a rock while on-stage. He danced very well, but Kathryn owned the fuck out of him by showing a commitment to the emotional core of the piece, and a mature musicality that he just does not have. His solo left much the same impression on me. Lovely, but hollow.
-Jose just needs to go home. I’m curious what you make of his breaking skills relative to Sara. Personally I thought she was a mediocre breaker, but she was so damn good at just about everything else that it didn’t matter so much.
-Apply everything I said about Billy and Kathryn to Kent and Allison, only Kent is actively annoying, as you pointed out. I liked Kent’s solo slightly more than Billy’s, because I thought it was well-constructed and a good fit for the music, but it’d have been a lot better if he didn’t dance it like a giddy twelve-year-old.
-Alex again completely owned the night, and if he does not win this competition I will choke a bitch.
I was genuinely worried that Alex was going to end up as the ‘best dancer by far who never quite connects with the audience and ends up going out in the top 3/4’. I’m not so worried about that anymore.
Agreed on pretty much everything else. I did have a somewhat more negative opinion of Melinda’s salsa; she was giving it her all, but her footwork was a hot mess and she doesn’t have enough charisma to cover for it. And yeah, Jose wasn’t good (although he had some really nice lines at points), and he should probably be one of the next few to go, but there’s something to be said for having enough charisma to cover for your technical missteps. Jose has it, Melinda doesn’t, which is why she’s probably going home and he’s gonna survive a bit longer than he probably should.
Not Legacy’s continued presence on this show is so wrong. Melinda may be the weakest link in some aspects, but even if her salsa was not great, it still had the character of the dance while Jose was doing Not Samba.
Having said that, this episode was the first time the new format gelled for me, and the allover level of dancing was much better. But if they are going to cut out the “cute couples” aspect then they should work with dancer who are more mature. Kent and Lauren have all kinds of potential and charisma but they are like puppies. Melinda and Ashleigh are beautiful and talented but they are not sex kittens.
Alex finally got to show us why he wanted to be on this show so badly.
I’m beginning to really hate this format. It used to be that everyone got better together and so you could see the people learning and growing but now everyone is always out danced by who their dancing with and most of the contestants look just freaking awful in comparison.
I liked Alex since he auditioned the first time and I am seriously cheering for him.
Melinda is just not ever fun for me to watch, even when soloing in her specialty, even for just a few seconds. I’d rather see her go home tonight than Jose.
Alex is definitely my favorite at the moment, although I like Lauren, too.
This is my first season watching SYTYCD, and I know absolutely nothing about the technicals of particular dances, and don’t have memories of prior contestants to use as reference points to decide that a contestant is sub-par. I can only judge on my impression of the totality of the performance.
Under these conditions I can easily understand why Jose is still hanging around. He has charisma and manages to make it through the routines with enough confidence and a sufficient level of skill that it doesn’t look like he is doing the dance obviously wrong (to someone who knows nothing about dance). He may be skipping some expected steps or making technical mistakes, but generally it seems to flow as a cohesive performance.
He probably also owes a lot to the all star format. His partners pick up the slack and his mistakes don’t horribly detract from the overall entertainment value of the routine for clueless viewers like me.
As the lower tier dancers reasonable on technicals but lacking in charisma/entertainment value continue to say their goodbyes, Jose will eventually hit a wall where he’ll be up against dancers with great technicals and reasonable charisma and his smile won’t be enough to save him.
Jose’s samba was *strong*. I’ve seen far worse performances get much better reviews, both from the judges and right here on MGK. I agree that overall he’s weak, and needs to go, but I think credit should be given where it’s due, and this week he did good.
A trouble with the new format is the resident latin dancers Pasha and Anya. They’re incredible, but they don’t allow the same kind of variety as the numerous contemporary and hip hop dancers that can fit any contemporary, jazz, theater, “cultural” situation you put them in. Unlike the old format where there were typically 3-4 partner dance routines got to pad the show, there’s only two. Furthermore, latin dancers are teeny tiny people. Itsy bitsy little mole people. So when a kind of slight guy like Pasha dances with kind of tall Melinda, they’re practically the same height. They square up pretty exactly. That’s why things like that jump up to her shoulders, drop down to the floor trick didn’t work. On a shorter woman, it wouldn’t look like he was trying to knock his partner out with his dick. Without Dmitry or Benji or Jamie or Stanislav, etc—Pasha, as incredible as he is, won’t exactly fit all the women on the show. And to have two of her routines with Pasha, Melinda got the short stick… and it smacked her in the face.
Meanwhile, where the fuck is a ballroom (non-latin or social/nightclub) routine?
Jose’s not going into the bottom 3 for a while. Not because he’s good, since he isn’t, but because he’s wildly popular. Over on the official Facebook page, his showday posts are getting more likes than anyone but Kent and Alex.
Meanwhile, after all the fuss about a guy/guy routine, next week’s show will have both All-Star and contestant dances. If the six remaining guys and two remaining girls all have to do a routine with each other, that’s going to be at least two more guy/guy routines. If they’re smart, they’ll do all same-gender partners to avoid bias. We’ll see.
I don’t watch SYTYCD. I just watch what you put up here.
Wow, Alex is AMAZING. That was a hilarious and rockin’ routine.
I also want to punch Kent in the face, or find someone to fuck him until he loses the ah shucks face; I wouldn’t do it but I’m sure I could find someone who would.
I loved Alex and Twitch in that routine and cannot wait for more of Alex out of his comfort zone.