Aw Shucks and All-Star Lauren: Bollywood. Judges’ tonguebath, as usual; this did not earn it. Not a terrible routine, certainly, but Kent’s dancing was not “finalist” quality here: his arms, especially in the second half of it, looked awkward – particularly in comparison to Lauren, who hit her moves precisely. Also, dork-face, as usual. His legwork was excellent, though, so all due consideration for that. Even so: not quite good enough for a finalist.
Lauren and All-Star Twitch: hip-hop. I really wish this routine had done more with the podiums: that was clever choreo while they were behind it. Anyway, this was basically the same as Lauren’s last hip-hop routine with Twitch: not as good as Twitch, because who is, but very strong and certainly above par for someone with not a lot of experience in the genre. (Of course at this point the show quite obviously only gives hip-hop routines to finalists who can actually dance it, so no surprise that Lauren got it.)
Robert and All-Star Mark: jazz. A rare misfire for Tasty doing jazz (as opposed to the routine misfire that is Tasty doing Broadway). This just felt very boring and basic to me: no feeling of an overall routine, lacking the feel of anything more than steps following steps. Robert danced it quite well, though. So good for him.
Robert and Lauren: contemporary. When I talk about “finalist quality,” this is the sort of thing I mean. Lovely.
Aw Shucks and Lauren: jazz. Oh my god that is the worst thing I think Mandy Moore has ever choreo’d for this show, and she has had more than a few clunkers. Even the Kent-screaming audience were completely unimpressed: that is how bad this was. Nigel actually called out Mandy Moore for sucking, which I did not think was humanly possible.
Aw Shucks and All-Star Allison: contemporary. Perfectly good contemporary routine. I didn’t lurve it as much as the judges – I think Stacey Tookey has done better – but it was a good routine and Kent danced it quite well, with the only exception being his goggle-eyes; he managed to get rid of the Aw Shucks mouth for this, and most of the expression, but was wide-eyed throughout, which detracted a bit for me. But only a bit, because he did dance this well.
Robert and All-Star Kathryn: Broadway. Boy, they sure are stretching Robert tonight, huh? Snark aside, he absolutely nailed this: his performance was flawless, much like everything else tonight. Simply put: Robert is peaking at the right moment. He has a very small chance to win, which previously I would not have given him.
Lauren and All-Star Pasha: cha cha. Very good performance from Lauren here, although she visibly missed handholds at least twice and Pasha had to overreach to compensate. Other than that, though, this was a very good piece of work from Lauren. Not quite as good as Kathryn last year doing her ballroom routines with Ryan (despite Nigel’s claims otherwise), but very good indeed, and the only time this entire season that Pasha has actually had a partner working on par with him.
Robert and Kent: malevos. This was achingly bad; it looked like stuntmen doing a bad job of work, not a dance. Neither Robert nor Kent looked comfortable, not even a little bit, and even with choreo that gave them the chance to lean on their classically trained backgrounds they still looked bad. Ugh. Kent’s had such a bad night; previously I thought he had this in the bag, but I think he’s actually performed poorly enough tonight that Lauren can snag it.
Final order should be: 1.) Lauren 2.) Robert 3.) Kent
Final order will be: 1.) Lauren 2.) Kent 3.) Robert
(Now bring on the Canadians already!)
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I strongly suspect Lauren has a fair amount of hip hop training. I’ve felt that way for a while, and when they let her shout out to her “mentor” I got a little more certain. Yeah, for all I know he’s an experienced contemporary dancer, but she’s also mentioned hip hop training, and it’d go with the pop/jazz that’s really her native style.
The only dance I found truly compelling to watch was Robert and Lauren’s pillow dance. It made me wish we’d had the chance to see more dancing by the competitors with each other. but then Kathryn was so awesome in the “Cool” number, and it showcase Robert really well–More Spencer Liff, please!
Why, oh why did they give Tyce the opportunity to screw up Mark and Robert’s chance to dance together? what a crap routine. Crap crap crap. He turns everything to crap.
Almost as bad as Mandy Moore’s, but I didn’t care about hers because I don’t care about Kent and Lauren, even if they are good dancers. I thought Kent was dumb for mouthing off at the judges even after Adam told them to get off the stage while the getting was good, BUT the twitter comments showed that the fans were glad he spoke up for himself. that and the tears at the end may clinch it for him. When Benji did it, it was mugging; with Kent it seems to be an uncontrollable facial tic, and he needs to grow the hell up already.
Pasha and Allison were great, I hardly saw their partners, but I did rewatch the cha cha, and Lauren did quite well for a non-ballroom dancer, although she understandably can’t do the actual partnering well because she is dancing in place rather than with Pasha. But he’s such a freakin’ pro, he covered for her really well.
The last routine wasn’t danced well because neither dancer had an idea of the basic upright posture they needed to hold for that kind of tang and they kept sticking their butts out. Oh, well, They all danced four routines and a solo, and most of the time, the let-down was from the choreo, not their efforts.
I just muted the judges, they were so offensively scripted. Yet, despite my crabbiness, the dancers’ joy sparked my love for the silly show again, and I actually voted for Robert.