Your judges are the usual band of idiots. Ashley is injured this week, because everybody who deserves to win this show gets an injury this season, apparently. Possibly Nigel is wandering out backstage with a hammer taking out anybody who can keep Not Legacy from winning due to his wonderful personality or Kent because the girls love him.

Lauren and All-Star Mark: “cultural.” Which is their new catchphrase for “traditional cultural dance styles too small to merit their own category,” apparently. This week, it’s Tahitian dance (I don’t think the specific style was mentioned, but I’m pretty sure it was ‘o’tea). This is difficult for me to critique because what the hell do I know about the technique involved, but Lauren seemed to be doing well enough and Mark was, well, Mark – I’m pretty sure he can sell any dance on the planet so long as it isn’t two-step. The long and short of it is that I was greatly entertained, and that’s as specific as I can get here.

Adechike and All-Star Anya: salsa. Dear everybody on SYTCYD: the fastest salsa in the show’s history is Benji/Heidi from season two and nothing else even compares. This was… not terrible, as salsas on this show go. Mia actually rightly pointed out that Adechike’s basic was a little underemphasized (getting those hip swivels to be instinctive takes quite a lot of practice; I know whereof I speak), and I’d add that he overcommitted to some of the tricks, dancing through them too fully rather than getting that hint of resistance that Latin styles need so much. And the big stunts came across as clumsy rather than awesome. There have been worse salsas, and Adechike definitely had the personality for the routine, but… eh.

Not Legacy and All-Star Courtney: Broadway. This was arguably the worst Jose has danced all season, simply because in every other routine he’s been at least able to project his winning personality into his character and thus seem appealing; when called upon to actually act, he froze into this horrific pain-rictus, which made his bad dancing all the more glaring. Judges actually say, straight up, that he was bad, as hell freezes over.

Robert and All-Star Allison: contemporary. That was really lovely, and probably the best piece Travis has yet choreographed, and frankly a great leap forward for him as a choreographer. I get annoyed when the most applauded routines are inevitably Very Special routines, but this deserved the plaudits because it was genuinely just about perfect and the ending choreo with the paired feet was a very smart piece of work. Easily the best Robert has danced all season; the only thing I can say critically is that even at his best, Allison is still visibly better than him, which is the problem with the whole All-Star concept but we’ve already discussed that ad nauseam.

Billy and All-Star Anya (again): jive. Billy started out really nice here (and isn’t it great to see Louis van Amstel choreo again, I might add), with terrific snaps on his kicks, but after a little bit he stumbled a bit and got a bit clunkier. Not terrible by any means, but after such a promising start the rest just fell flat because that opening was so good and the rest just decent-ish. Still, probably the best partnering Billy has done all season. Anya maintains her perfect record this season of blowing every partner away.

Aw Shucks and All-Star Neil: Broadway. This was a reasonable bit of Broadway from Tasty, if only because he found a different element of Fosse to relentlessly Xerox. Kent danced well enough, but he wasn’t in Neil’s league, and Neil is something of a proto-Kent in that he surpassed dancers of greater skill based largely on winning personality and a few big tricks in his season. Neil is a better dancer now than he was but he’s still arguably the least skilled of the All-Stars; that Kent can’t dance at his level tells me that Kent probably isn’t good enough to win the whole thing, popularity with tweens or no.

Lauren and Billy: jazz. This was charming and fun, the first Mandy Moore routine in a very long time I’ve actively liked (as opposed to tolerated). Both Billy and Lauren danced it very well, and again Billy actually engaged his partner rather than just doing a Billy solo to different music with somebody else on stage. Billy is stepping up his game precisely when he really needs to do it, which bodes well for him. Lauren is just plain good.

Not Legacy and All-Star Dominic: B-boying. This was so greatly dissappointing, because regulars will know that I think the show gives street dancing pretty constant short shrift and all too frequently treats it as a sideshow, so I wanted a really great performance, and Jose was so clearly not in Dominic’s league: moves not as sharp, power not as impressive, behind the beat for good chunks of the routine. I should stop calling him Not Legacy and just go to Not Good Enough, because that’s simply what he is. Of course, the judges eat it up with a spoon because he’s such a sweetypie and isn’t breaking fascinating and etc.

Adechike and Aw Shucks: contemporary. Okay, Adechike busting on Kent having a crush on Lauren was fucking hilarious. The choreo was conceptually interesting and both danced it well. This was a perfectly good bit of dancing and I have nothing else really to say about it.

Robert and Substitute All-Star Kathryn: disco. Probably the best Dorianna Sanchez routine since season three’s with Sara and Neil; the lifts were better integrated than most of her routines by far. Robert danced quite well. Kathryn, as usual, was brilliant, and presumably was picked as a last-minute substitute because Kathryn can do anything. “Okay, we need somebody to dance a polka through a hail of bullets on twelve hours’ notice.” “Eh, just get Kathryn.”

Bottom three should be: Jose, Billy, Adechike.
Bottom three will be: Billy, Adechike, Ashley.
Should go home: Adechike.
Will go home: Adechike (if Ashley’s injury proves not a big thing) or Ashley (if it is).

So apparently Alex Wong is wounded and may have a torn ACL, which would kick him out of the competition and remove ninety percent of the reason for watching this terrible stupid season in the first place. Get better, Alex!

Lauren and All-Star Pasha: cha-cha. Lauren got a tonguebath from the judges, which – I’m not going to say that she didn’t dance it quite nicely, because she did, but what was fairly obvious is that her parts were relatively basic for cha-cha – a lot of hip swivels and pivots and not so much with the steps. Her performance was fine, but this was at best, oh, 43% of a full Kathryn conquering of ballroom from a contemporary perspective.

Not Legacy and All-Star Lauren: contemporary. Mandy Moore, having stepped outside her 80s box for one week, jumps right back in that fucking thing like a smack junkie in withdrawal. Jose was not completely terrible this week; I mostly refuse to complain about choreographers using B-boy abilities in their routines because if it fits the music then what’s the point? That having been said, he wasn’t so much better than he deserves to be on this show; he just doesn’t have a sense of how to make moves look good (which is something Legacy had, and Dominic, and Gev, and most of the breakers and hip-hoppers on this show really). Also, let’s be honest: Lauren did most of the actual dancing and Jose just did lifts and gropes for the most part. Nigel then says that it’s all right for the judges to give Jose a pass on sucking because Jose is adorable. Shut up, Nigel.

Aw Shucks and All-Star Comfort: hip-hop. Kent expresses panic at having to live up to Alex’s standard from last week, which is silly because he won’t and nobody will care. Kent was actually quite decent this week; I mean, it’s still whitebread hip-hop, but at least it’s reasonably good whitebread hip-hop. (Like, the dance equivalent of Dijonnaise or something.) Kent managed to only do his “lookit me” gawk at the audience three or four times, which is, I believe, a personal record.

Adechike and All-Star Courtney: jazz. Mia Michaels goes into full-on bitch mode critiquing Adechike, just moaning about absolutely everything after Adechike danced a perfectly decent routine (nothing brilliant, but perfectly decent), and after her completely undeserved slaggings of the likes of Brandon and Danny and (insert black male contemporary dancer here) you have to wonder if there’s a pattern. Mia, do not make me feel dirty for siding with Nigel. Mandy Moore continues to love her props even when they are bad ideas, as was the case here: that bar just got in the way of everything and made it harder for the dancers to connect.

Billy and All-Star Katee: Broadway. Motherfucking Cats? Ugh. But at least it’s Spencer Liff, who can do decent Broadway choreo, and although losing Allison sucks Katee is a more than adequate replacement (and, let’s be honest, probably better at the big-dance feel of Broadway than Allison, who works best in the small notes). This was perfectly good choreography danced quite well and Billy for the first time all season actually seems like a real contestant on this show rather than a consolation prize.

Ashley and All-Star Dominic: hip-hop. Well, Tabbynaps have made it clear that no routine can ever end near the judges’ table, because they will act like they are six. Ashley was genuinely quite decent in this, which hit that exact point between beaty jazz and actual hip-hop that’s Tabbynaps’ magic spot (whereas they’ve often strayed off the magic spot into overly lyrical territory); that split drop was fucking sick. Ashley’s booty pumps were, perhaps, a little less enthusiastic than they could have been, but mostly she was solid.

Robert and All-Star Kathryn: jazz. CHEESEMAN~! takes a page from SYTYCD Australia (which I still think did the “Ken and Barbie come to life and dance” idea better), but puts his own spin on it, which I quite enjoyed. The problem is that I enjoyed it mostly for Kathryn, as opposed to Robert, who’s been outdanced three weeks running and with no end in sight.

Adechike and substitute assistant person: Bollywood. Adechike gave it absolutely everything he had, which was more than I expected and honestly not bad despite missing some details. There have been many worse performances of Bollywood on this show than Adechike’s – for example, there was Not Legacy two weeks ago. Cat calls out the judges for being total hypocrites re: Not Legacy, which causes Nakul Dev Mahajan to stand up and applaud, and causes Mia to explain that the difference is that the judges wuv Not Legacy. Nigel starts blathering about “the journey” because he feels Adechike is not being sufficiently supplicative. Shut up, Nigel.

Aw Shucks and Lauren: contemporary. Kent and Lauren’s interplay is entertaining and reminds one of how good the old format is and how much this season’s format sucks. (Nigel: “Shut up! I like the new format!” Me: “That’s great. Seen your Neilsens lately? They’re the worst they’ve been since season one.”) Travis’ routine this time around was prom-themed (HEY TWEENS NEXT WEEK THERE WILL BE A “TWILIGHT” ROUTINE!) and seemed a lot like his Jason/Jeanine routine from season 5 minus the necklace. But that was a good routine, and this was a good routine, and Kent didn’t even gawk at the audience once! Then at the end they make out because if Alex is injured then Kent must win. Or Not Legacy.

Ashley and Robert: quickstep. Ashley was actually quite nice in this: good lines, hit her steps, looked comfortable. Robert looked terrified and moved like he was terrified; his form and carriage were bad, his turns were stiff and unimpressive. Bottom line: Ashley carried this to passability. Then Nigel and Mia explain that classical dance training should make Robert able to do the dance properly, which he has got and he didn’t, so shut up, Nigel and Mia.

Billy and Not Legacy: afro-jazz. Looking at the sequences where Billy and Jose had to do the same basic clutching jump just underscored that Jose shouldn’t be on the show. I know, I’m getting one-note here with Jose, but it’s really the only thing to say about him – “nice, but not good enough.” There were whole chunks here where he looked like a bad auditioner. Then, the judges actually say that Jose didn’t quite dance well, sort of! But he’s still very nice, and that’s the important thing.

Probable bottom three: Robert, Adechike, Alex.
Should go home: Robert.
Will go home: Adechike.

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.

Before anything even happens on this episode, there was this sequence where each contestant draws their All-Star and each All-Star then tells them the style they’ll be dancing, and everybody pretends to be surprised when everybody except Kathryn (who can of course dance anything) explains they’ll be dancing, amazingly, in the preferred style of that All-Star! This is the opposite of shocking.

Your judges are Adam, Mia, and Nigel, and Nigel really hits new lows tonight, be forewarned.

Cristina and All-Star Pasha: paso doble. JEAN-MARC (andhispartnerthelovelyFrance) REPRESENT. Pasha calls it a “Pasha-nate paso doble” because he is, beneath the leading man looks, a giant nerd. Cristina started off a little shaky (she nearly didn’t stick that first flying leap) but then found her footing and killed it. Pasha is Pasha, duh. This was good.

Adechike and All-Star Allison: contemporary. Mandy Moore reacts to criticism that she only ever choreographs to Eighties songs by switching it up and choreographing to a recent cover of an Eighties song! Anyhow. Last week, Adechike got to dance with the best all-around dancer who’s ever been on this show (Kathryn) in his style. This week, he got to dance with one of its best female contemporary dancers, again in his style. Last week, he was perhaps a bit cool and disconnected. This week, he was… again perhaps a little bit cool and disconnected. Strictly a B performance, perfectly enjoyable on its own merit, but nothing anybdy will remember six months from now, and this is supposed to be his strong suit and he’s dancing with the very best.

Alex and All-Star Lauren: Broadway. Out of all the Tasty Oreo Broadway numbers I have disliked, I believe I disliked this one most intensely: warmed-over third-rate Fosse imitation that was just fucking simplistic and actively annoying. Nigel suggests that Alex might not have heard of Bob Fosse, because Nigel is a stupid patronizing asshole, and because he can’t criticize EMMY AWARD WINNING Tasty for coming up with a bad routine and instead has to give Alex shit. Shut up, Nigel.

Ashley and All-Star Mark: jazz. I’m pretty sure Nigel must secretly dislike Travis Wall, because this is the first time I’ve ever seen anybody call out a choreographer on this show for using contemporary movements in a jazz routine. (God knows they don’t complain when they use contemporary in hip-hop.) The routine itself was perfectly okay and danced very nicely by both Ashley and Mark; I still think Travis is often too unformed as a choreographer, a little too prone to imitate his heroes/teachers rather than do his own work, but he’s growing and that’s not nothing. Nigel then complains that his core audience of teenaged girls are mostly voting for the pretty boys now that he’s using a voting format that lets them divide by gender, because Nigel is a dumbass.

Billy and All-Star Comfort: krump. Monumental failure on Billy’s part: after the first, oh, fifteen seconds of the routine he just completely lost his groove and danced it softly and smoothly, and spent the rest of the routine being outdanced by Comfort. (Of course, this format means that the eventual winner will likely be the person who is outdanced least.) Nigel congratulates Billy for trying hard because the people he likes get points just for showing up; Mia and Adam are honest and say it was shit, albeit nicely.

Robert and All-Star Anya: Argentine tango. JEAN MARC! Using “Libertango” by Bond, which already got used back in season 2 for Allison and Ivan’s tango, but whatever. You know how back in his heyday people would say Ric Flair could carry a broom to a three-star match? Well, when it comes to ballroom partnering, Anya is Ric Flair squared; she’s just that good. Robert was passable – clearly nervous, but didn’t bobble – and Anya made him look brilliant; but he was not brilliant.

Melinda and Ade: contemporary. Stacey Tookey continues the ongoing CANADIAN INVASION of the American show. (Maybe she can hit Tasty Oreo with a steel chair. Man, I am on a wrestling references kick this week for some reason.) This was a very nice routine danced quite capably by Melinda and Ade (who, I think, is probably the least distinguished of the All-Stars – not that he is not good, because of course he is, but… yeah). Nigel pretends that tap dance is easy, which is mindboggling because Nigel is a tapper and he should not say stupid shit like that.

Not Legacy and Kathryn: Bollywood. Well, on the one hand it’s always nice to see Kathryn totally fucking destroy a new genre. On the other hand, Nigel makes a World Cup reference (shut up, Nigel) rather than point out the obvious, which is that Not Legacy was very, very bad in this, embarrassingly bad, and that he’s really just not even in the league of the other competitive dancers let alone the All-Stars. Don’t get me wrong: Not Legacy seems like a nice enough guy and his work ethic is, I am certain, ridiculous. But he is not good enough and no amount of judge comments about how he’s a shining star of happiness is going to change that.

Lauren and All-Star Dominic: lyrical hip-hop. How do you distinguish lyrical hip-hop from just about all the hip-hop on this show, anyway? That having been said, this was actually pretty good – better than most of the Tabbynaps lyrical routines – and Lauren and Dominic both sold it really well. I quite liked this. It wasn’t quite an A-level routine, but it was very close.

Kent and All-Star Courtney: jazz. Oh god, Kent trying to be sexy is actively fucking painful to watch; he just comes across as tentative, prissy, virginal even. (I am also sick of the golly aw-shucks schtick.) Courtney stands up for him during the judging, and then kindly doesn’t answer Nigel’s gross question about “would you eat him alive.” Tasty’s jazz is, as always, much more tolerable than his Broadway. Nigel then compliments Tasty for choreoing jazz dance that is “actually” jazz, and you get to see Travis muttering something in the background that I am pretty sure is “fuck off, Nigel,” forever making him one of my favorite human beings.

Should be the bottom three: Kent, Jose, Billy.
Will be the bottom three: Ashley, Melinda, Jose.
Should go home: Jose.
Will go home: Melinda.

Your hosts are Nigel, Mia Michaels and Adam. No Mary Murphy! Now if they can get rid of Nigel

Billy and All-Star Lauren: Broadway. Kicking off the season with Tasty Oreo Broadway is always a touch worrisome. Billy hits his moves well enough (and has an Early DiCaprio sorta-goatee), but they are big and slow and boring. I don’t have the hate-on for Lauren that many fans of this show do, but this was generic and Lauren is not the sort of person who is especially distinctive as a dancer, and that didn’t help. Nigel applauds the slow, dull choreo because it let Billy do big stretches (which is of course so appropriate for “Footloose”) and makes a Karate Kid reference. Shut up, Nigel.

Cristina and All-Star Mark: jazz. A pretty good Sonya piece, and Mark is fantastic, but the problem here was that Mark was so good and the choreo so attuned to him particularly that Cristina seemed almost like an afterthought for large chunks of the routine, which I suspect will not be the first time this happens to a contestant this season. Cristina was not bad by any means, though.

Jose and All-Star Comfort: hip-hop. The B-boying Jose was called upon to do was a lot less organic than the b-boying Legacy did last season, which is unfortunate because it threw his strictly average hip-hop portions into sharp relief, especially when dancing next to Comfort. Not bad, but definitely not anywhere near strong, and this is the closest Jose is going to get to “his own style” all season. Tack on the fact that Jose’s group dance last week was probably the weakest of the night and I don’t like his odds.

Adechike and All-Star Kathryn: jazz. Oh, Travis Wall does like his props. I thought the routine was decent; I thought Adechike’s performance of it was quite strong and held my attention, which when dancing with Kathryn is especially impressive; I certainly liked this better than anything All-Star Jason did in his season, for example, just because his moves were so clean. Of course, this means that the judges hated him, because they can actually judge contemporary on its merits and talk about performance quality, whereas when they judge hip-hop it’s all “you were so fierce because you were a werewolf!” Adam says that since this is the top 11, that they’ve skipped the learning period that you normally get with a top 20 – ignoring the fact that since they’re only eliminating one contestant a week this is actually earlier than the top 20 starts, so to speak.

Melinda and All-Star Pasha: jive. A much better than average routine from Tony-N-Melanie. Melinda’s retractions were very sharp and she has a good dance-face, which I think is the most important thing for a week one jive, because if the retractions are good and you look like you’re having fun, the rest of the flaws (and her legs were definitely a bit askew) are minimized. Nigel complains and makes a World Cup reference. Shut up, Nigel.

Alex and All-Star Allison: contemporary. Well, that was a pretty much flawless thing right there.

Alexie and All-Star Twitch: hip-hop. Sometimes I complain that Tabbynaps routines devolve into mediocre jazz routines with a few beats. This is one of those times. I then die of shock when Nigel actually explains how Alexie, in this dance, is dancing hip-hop badly. We must at this point wonder who Alexie pissed off to have Nigel actually point out how she was not hitting beats. I mean, fuck, Evan got away with dancing bad jazz instead of hip-hop.

Non-All-Star Lauren and All-Star Ade: jazz. I see Mandy Moore and I know it’s going to be an Eighties song, but seriously, “Oh Yeah” by Yello? Can Mandy Moore get any more Eighties than “Oh Yeah”? I think not. But the choreo was extremely clever and the physicality of it was pleasant to watch. Nigel again complains that the non-all-star has no chemistry with her all-star partner, which WHAT THE FUCK NIGEL. You went and changed your show’s format specifically in a way to ensure as little partner chemistry as humanly possible, so do not complain when that actually happens.

Kent and All-Star Anya: cha cha. Wait, Anya got eliminated at top 12. That’s “All-Star” now? Anyway, once again a better routine than I usually expect from Tony-N-Melanie, which is unfortunate because Kent was a bit on the stiff side and clearly being led by Anya for three-quarters of the routine. (This is going to happen every week Anya dances, incidentally. She’s going to blow away every single dancer she dances with and make them look weak in comparison, even when, such as in Kent’s case, they actually were relatively competent.) It doesn’t matter, though, because Kent is like a giant teddy bear and will not get voted off anytime soon. Nigel makes a cougar joke which is so fucking creepy I do not think I can really do it justice by mocking it.

Ashley and All-Star Neil: jazz. Someday I’ll figure out why Tasty Oreo’s jazz pieces are so much dramatically better than his Broadway pieces. It’s like there’s some little switch inside him that controls the flow of lame. This was quite nice and that’s all I have to say about that.

Robert and All-Star Courtney: afro-jazz. CHEESEMAN~! (Yes, Sean Cheeseman gets the DVDVR tilde.) This was excellent, and probably the only performance all evening where the non-All-Star definitely outdanced their All-star partner. (Alex and Allison were on an equally high level of awesome so they don’t count.) At this point the judges have been all “this All-Star season is so awesome” like forty billion times now and SHUT UP JUDGES.

Bottom three: Alexie, Adechike, Lauren.
Should go home: Alexie.
Will go home: Alexie.

So this year’s top 10-instead-of-a-top-20 So You Think You Can Dance turned out to eventually be a top 11, because they just couldn’t cut down from five classically trained male dancers to four. This makes eight of 11 dancers (more than 70 percent!) from the various classical training disciplines (ballet, jazz and contemporary), plus your token B-boy, ballroom girl and tapper so they can still claim to be a diverse dancing show and have the season’s usual array of patronizing commentary about “journeys.”

I can’t help but think that the reason the show’s taken such a stiff right turn towards classically trained dance is that the Vegas weeding-out portion has become so inflexibly forgiving of it. Consider that now it’s pretty much set in stone that hip-hop and ballroom get done first, and only then do the remaining rounds – usually contemporary, ballroom and group dance in some order – proceed. Now, if you’re eliminating dancers at every step, this means that the later rounds are “tougher,” and it means that dancers who don’t dance well are less likely to be forgiven on the basis of excelling in their styles.

In turn, however, this means that if classically trained dancers are always dancing out of genre in the earlier rounds, they’re thus more likely to be forgiven on the basis of dancing out of genre badly. The most recent Vegas episode Wednesday night made this fairly clear: Giselle Peacock, absolutely stunning in ballroom, danced poorly during the final contemporary round and got cut, whereas Adechike danced badly not one but three times in a row (his opening solo, hip-hop and ballroom) and made it through to the top 11 largely on his strengths as a contemporary dancer.

I don’t think this is the only reason SYTYCD has so sharply veered into a contemporary-heavy focus. After all, there are quite a few other reasons one could name – for example, the idea that promoting contemporary means SYTYCD can better distinguish itself from Dancing With The Stars and America’s Best Dance Crew, which exclusively promote ballroom and hip-hop, respectively. Or the reflexive need to promote the idea of excellence through dance education (culminating in the rampant idiocy of calling Legacy in season 6 “untrained,” because clearly anybody can do airflares and crabwalks when they so choose). Or the fact that of the regular judging panel, only L’il C comes from a hip-hop background.

But it’s certainly part of it, and if you follow the various fan-run SYTCYD message boards, it’s apparently starting to affect the audition process outright, because increasing numbers of hip-hop and ballroom dancers are supposedly passing on the opportunity to audition1 – because why bother if you’re just going to get patronized by Nigel Lythgoe while contemporary dancers are applauded for performing poorly in your area of expertise? Hell, this season, they’ve brought back Comfort and Twitch and Pasha and Anya among the “all-stars” in what seems like a desperate attempt to cover up the continuing lack of ballroom and hip-hop ability in the supposed top ten eleven.

Shorter version: Show needs to get right quick.

1. Which would explain why this season’s audition episodes were so barren of anything other than contemporary and jazz dance; you could count the number of non-contemporary auditions in six hours of TV on both hands. [↩]

Your guest judge is Tasty Oreo, who is amusingly bewildered when Jason Coleman leads the crowd in a round of “Aussie Aussie Aussie/Oi Oi Oi,” which is not coincidentally also the cheer for Osgoode Hall law school students. (We stole it, of course.)

Top four: Broadway. And of course we start off with a Tasty Oreo Broadway, because that is what Tasty does and this is a final competition episode don’t you know. This was perfectly fine and decent and not nearly so cliched as a lot of Tasty’s routines can be. That is all.

Ivy and Robbie: rumba. It’s odd because I liked this, but on the other hand, throughout the whole routine as I was watching it and enjoying it, I kept thinking how un-Latin Robbie’s dancing was, and I think I peg that more on the choreo – which was really reminiscent a lot more of a smooth waltz with some ballet overtones than a rumba – than on Robbie, because really it was seamless. But a lot less Latin. Ivy’s flourishes were lovely, but Tasty makes a very good point noting the lack of resistance in the movements. So this was good, but not quite a proper rumba, to say the least.

Jessie and Philippe: jazz. Philippe is one of the best forklifts I’ve ever seen: he’s just seamless in his lifts, utterly without flaw. I liked this routine but I thought the choreo got just a bit frenetic in a few points, and the first unison section did suffer just a bit with a couple of very small missteps. Still, on the whole this was very good and I have little else to say.

Philippe and Robbie: hip-hop. GRATITUOUS SHIRT REMOVAL FOR ALL THE LADIES! This was probably the best two-man hip-hop routine out of all the SYTYCDs ever – even better than Benji/Travis from season 2. The judges were all over Robbie, but honestly, I think Philippe danced this better: it wasn’t that Robbie was bad – he was probably just about at his best all season and his improvement continues apace – but Philippe was just so completely confident that he didn’t need to up the intensity because he was able to dance the routine with pure cool.

Jessie and Robbie: contemporary. And it’s the Avatar-themed routine that the Twitters were telling me about in advance. Robbie makes me sad by saying how Avatar is his favourite movie of all time. This was… okay. Kind of bland, to be honest, and given that the choreography was obviously very difficult in its physicality that doesn’t really say too much for what was being done with it. Good unison, but I felt at points that both Jessie and Robbie were letting their exhaustion show. I wanted to like this and I didn’t.

Ivy and Philippe: contemporary. A lovely little number that three weeks ago would have been remarkable and at this point is just sort of in the middle. (It doesn’t help that this season has been really, really heavy on contemporary and jazz: there’s a reason you want to mix genres, it keeps them from getting stale.) Absolutely nothing else to say about this.

Ivy and Jessie: jazz. I will first express appreciation for the lack of a “hey look at the girls they are so pretty” contemporary routine where the two girls do a dance about feelings or rainbows. This was rough and dirty and brutal (good brutal) and a lot of fun. I thought Jessie danced this a hair better than Ivy did, relying more on her moves than facial expressions where Ivy occasionally did the opposite (Ivy unfortunately does have a tendency to be a bit of a ham). But it was a very slim difference and this was very good.

Philippe’s solo: Smooth and cool. The cane was perhaps a bit awkward for a few bars, but that is a minor complaint for a solo that was really very good.

Ivy’s solo: Unfortunately boring and sort of predictable. Dancing to “Missionary Man” by the Eurythmics should especially not be boring, and yet this was.

Jessie’s solo: A very good contemporary solo without anything that especially distinguished it from most other contemporary solos.

Robbie’s solo: Skillful controlled thrashing combined with solid technique: a strong piece of work.

Top four should be: 1.) Robbie 2.) Jessie 3.) Philippe 4.) Ivy
Top four will be: 1.) Robbie 2.) Philippe 3.) Jessie 4.) Ivy

Tonight: each couple dances once to live music. Such a simple little innovation, but a genuinely good idea; you probably couldn’t sum up why the Australian version of this show is the best any more easily than that, as well as why Nigel Lythgoe’s desperate flailing to remake the American version is so wrongheaded.

Top three girls: hip-hop. I am deeply, deeply over girl/girl hip-hop routines where the girls are bitchy fabulous divas. I like girls to dance hip-hop and kick ass, not be flirty extras in a Ke$ha video or something. That having been said: the opening with the backlit screen was visually really impressive, and Jessie in particular seemed to me to be underdancing here; if Jess hadn’t clearly had a major misstep right at the end she would have been totally outclassed. Still: this was just kind of boring, like every other Jet Verne hip-hop this season has been.

Ivy and Nick: contemporary and lyrical jazz. I have trouble listening to “The Flower Duet” without thinking of yoghurt commercials. That is my only criticism of this otherwise flawless little piece. Ivy’s feet speak motherfucking volumes, and although I have been critical of Nick quite a few times this season, he definitely pulled it out full stop. And the live vocals really only made the piece even better.

The lyrical jazz was enjoyable, but that was almost all Ivy; Nick’s fuckups were numerous (and worse, obvious), and he just wasn’t dancing up to par when compared to just about everything else tonight. Also, Ivy is slightly miscast as a total innocent because she just, well, isn’t. (She’s got too much cleverness in her face to really pull it off.) But, even with all of that, it was still okay.

Jess Hip-Hop and Robbie: hip-hop and jazz. I love that Jesse Rasmussen has, over the course of a single season, become one of this show’s go-to hip-hop choreographers (mostly because I love the groove and imagination he puts into his routines). This was probably the best hip-hop Robbie has danced all season; it’s been really amazing to just see him get steadily better with every hip-hop routine he’s danced this season, because his first couple of routines were just clumsy and now he’s hitting all his moves so sharply and his freezes are just great and goddamn, did he seriously just do that drop spin better than Jess did? Jess was predictably good in her specialty. This was honestly a lot better than the judges gave it credit for.

The jazz piece was just fucking spellbinding, every single bit of it, the concept (happy clown’s best clown friend is dying), doing it to a live strings duet version of “Heart’s a Mess,” the dancing was just perfect – new pick for me for “best routine of season,” and I am totally eating crow about everything I said about Robbie earlier in season because seriously holy shit guys.

Jessie Contemporary and Philippe: tango and contemporary. Wow, seriously? Everybody else gets to dance in their comfort zone (Nick and Ivy get to do it twice) and Philippe and Jessie get tango, which is probably the second hardest ballroom style to pull off after quickstep? Sometimes, this show is just not a level playing field. That having been said: compared to some of the butcheries that tango has been on SYTYCD, this was fine. It wasn’t Mark/Chelsie from US season 4 or Brandon/Jeanette from US season 5 or even Talia/Ben from last year’s Aussie show, but it was workmanlike, and if they were a bit stiff in the first fifteen seconds or so after a bit they settled into their movements and pulled it off quite respectably. It was still just dancing rather than being a full-on performance, to be sure, but the judges acted like this was a trainwreck and it simply wasn’t.

The contemporary was quite good, and Philippe really deserves full credit for dancing contemporary as well as he has all season: I wouldn’t name another hip-hop dancer in any season ever who’s danced contemporary and jazz as well as Philippe has (not even Joshua). It was excellent; maybe not as showy as some of the other pieces tonight, but just good in all ways, and there’s not much else to say about that, as there so often is not much to say about routines on this show.

Top three guys: contemporary. This seemed designed to be the ultimate “make the teenaged girls scream” piece of choreography ever. Not to say that it wasn’t good; it was really excellent, and all three dancers were just so fucking solid. But it is what it is, you know? (And of course Philippe gets stuck doing all the lifts.)

Should go home: Jess and Nick.
Will go home: Jess and Philippe.

Jessica P. Ballroom has a bad back and has to leave the competition, but luckily they have Jess H. to replace her, which is great because that way nobody even has to remember different names too much. (Also, Natalie Bassingthwaite is wearing an incredibly ugly dress. Is she pregnant? That could explain the dress.)

Jessie Contemporary and Nick: hip-hop and cha-cha. The hip-hop felt cheerleaderish to me; moves too far ahead in the beat, and both Nick and Jessie are capable hip-hop partners in that they’re good enough that were they paired with a hip-hopper nobody would have noticed the jazzy flowiness of their moves where sharper urban freezes would be required. However, they weren’t paired with hip-hoppers this week, but each other, which served to reinforce each other’s flowiness and make it stand out. I really liked Jesse Rasumussen’s choreo (he builds his routines really well), but this was merely average at most.

The cha-cha felt stiff. Great choreo (it’s Gilkison, come on), and I didn’t get the chemistry between Nick and Jessie at all: it seemed forced rather than natural, and so did everything else about this routine. The technique wasn’t bad, but Nick in particular seemed to be thinking through his steps.

Jess Hip-Hop and Kieran: foxtrot and contemporary. The foxtrot was so angry it almost felt like a rhumba, which is odd, but Jess and Kieran danced it just about perfectly for all of that: the lifts appeared just effortless despite their obvious level of difficulty and the entire piece felt organic and unchoreographed. Other than a bit of a bobble on the unison in their opening promenade, this was dead-on.

Australian Dance Theatre! I love ADT, they’re so fucking awesome. This was actually a bit more relaxed as ADT pieces go, but it was just good. Not the best ADT outing on SYTYCD – it didn’t have that sense of power that ADT routines usually have, and there were some lines that were not quite there – but it was okay.

Carly and Philippe: contemporary and jazz. I didn’t like the contemporary. This isn’t a commentary on the skill of the dancing, which was quite good (and Philippe’s emerging skill as a contemporary dancer is really impressive). It’s not a commentary on the choreography either, because I can’t say that the choreo was bad. It just wasn’t for me. It happens.

The Ken-and-Barbie jazz was funny and clever and danced just fantastically well. The final big lift was a bit clumsy, but I don’t care because I enjoyed all the rest of it so much (especially Philippe’s hilarious “Ken face”). Definitely one of the highlights of the entire season for me.

Ivy and Robbie: Broadway and hip-hop. Man, when ninety percent of your Broadway intake on SYTYCD normally consists of Tasty Oreo rehashes you forget how enthralling it can be when it’s choreographed and danced really well, and this was danced and choreographed really well. Jason’s comment that Robbie came across young strikes me as unfair, because “Cabaret” needs a vampish, powerful girl and a hesitant male lead.

The hip-hop was cute (although I HATED the opening with the bathrobes, but everything post-bathrobes was fine). Robbie’s mostly in the same category as Jessie and Nick in that when he’s partnered with a better hip-hop dancer his flaws (mostly his freezes; he tends to stay right on the beat rather than rushing it) are minimized; however, unlike Jessie and Nick, he was paired with Ivy, who’s proven herself to be much more credible at hip-hop than the average contemporary dancer. This was decent.

Should go home: Jess and Nick.
Will go home: Jess and Nick.

So apparently a format that was easy to understand and follow and which made a show quite popular isn’t good enough any more, so the SYTYCD Powers That Be are fucking around with the show’s format again, presumably because season six was such a huge success and all.

Hopefully the Canadian and Australian versions of the show will continue their track record of ignoring this stupid bullshit.

Carly and Matt: jazz and hip-hop. Occasional guestblogger Karen often accuses me of being a 14-year-old girl when I like certain routines, but the jazz was 14-year-old girl personified: hyperdramatic and extremely emotional. Jason complained about Matt looking “too determined” when he one-hand-lifted Carly, but I’m gonna go ahead and suggest that it wasn’t “determination” and portraying the character correctly so much as it was Matt trying not to let his arm collapse when he was doing a one-handed lift. Carly was a bit thrashy at times. Those minor quibbles aside, this was quite good.

The hip-hop I enjoyed greatly, partially because it’s always great to see Supple (whose choreo is traditionally so difficult and intricate that they never bring him out before top 10) and because seeing voguing on SYTYCD is awesome and fun. This wasn’t quite top-quality voguing, though. It started out really sharp and with lots of attitude, but as it progressed Matt stumbled on a couple of moves and Carly lost a bit of energy in the middle. So it wasn’t perfectly fantastic, but I still really liked it, because voguing!

Jessie Contemporary and Robbie: hip-hop and contemporary. The hip-hop was just about completely rock-solid, which is a first for Robbie (who’s had a lot of trouble in this area) and Jessie (who hasn’t had a really good hip-hop performance thus far). There were a few touches where hits could have been slightly harder or glides slightly more elegant, but only a few, and the unison was dead on throughout the performance – that double aerial cartwheel was fucking sick. This was really, really good.

The contemporary was wild and fun and visually really entertaining, what with the way they used those alien-spinny-chairs and the way Jessie’s hair was done up and everything else. It looked great, and with the exception of a few bobbles (Robbie’s stumble while lifting Jessie, Jessie spinning a bit out of place at one point) it was dead-on. This was great.

Jessica P. Ballroom and Nick: contemporary and quickstep. As much as the idea of a Fifth Element-themed contemporary appeals, this was really bad. It’s understandable that Jessica wanted to protect her back given the back injury she’s suffering, but she looked like the sort of dancer who gets flunked out during the SYTYCD audition process here: sloppy, ugly-looking leaps, slow cumbersome transitions, et cetera. Nick was technically better, but he had next to no performance quality apart from looking vaguely worried.

The quickstep choreo was… both obviously difficult and somehow underwhelming? I didn’t see any point where they were dancing steps clumsily, but I also didn’t see any point where the choreo that they danced mostly on point was particularly in sync with the music. It felt lackadaisical and lazy, and a quickstep should never feel that way. I put this more on the choreo than the dancers.

Jess H. Hip-Hop and Kieran: samba and hip-hop. The samba was reasonably strong. One of the reasons I love the Australian judges so much is that they can sum up what dances should be concisely and accurately – witness Jason Gilkison starting out by saying “samba is really a ladies’ dance” and it is, and that explains why the samba was good but not great – because Jess, while looking confident and dancing reasonably well, didn’t quite get up to the level that it needed to be. Close, but she was a little hesitant in sections, like she was thinking “okay, now it’s Part B,” and then getting into Part B, and then “okay, now time for C” and so forth. But, those gaps aside, she was decent. Kieran was as strong as you’d expect.

The hip-hop bored me. It wasn’t danced badly – Kieran was certainly whitebread, but not as bad as some have been, and Jess was as good as you’d expect – but the choreo was just so fucking boring. I watched the entire routine and ended up thinking “wait, is that it?” Juliette Verne again. Go figure.

Ivy and Phillipe: contemporary and jazz. The contemporary was very good and there really isn’t much to say about it other than that it was very good and danced near-perfectly and that Ivy is now one of my favorites in the entire competition.

The jazz was exactly what you’d expect from Project Moda: big jokes and high-energy choreography throughout. (Not many choreographers would end a routine with the male partner accidentally throwing the female partner off the stage, but Project Moda would.) It was fine. Not the best performance of the night, but not the worst either: in the happy middle.

Should go home: Jessica and Nick.
Will go home: Jessica and Nick.

Ivy and Robbie: contemporary and Bollywood. The contemporary was a nice little piece that the two of them danced well and which was both exuberant/joyful and not really surprising – it was exactly what it promised to be and there were no revelations or anything, but it was very fine for all of that. Bonnie noted rather astutely that both dancers communicated the concept of “openness,” which worked well very nicely with the theme. This was really quite good and I think I’m underselling it a bit with this very mild criticism.

The Bollywood was more a Bolly-jazz fusion than a pure Bollywood, but enjoyable on its own merits. Robbie looked somewhat ill-at-ease whenever he was into the more Bollywoodish portion of the routine; I strongly suspect that short sharp movements and especially tutting (and a lot of Indian dances resemble tutting) are his Kryptonite and he’s scared of them. Everywhere else, he was good. Ivy was absolutely tremendous the entire way through.

Jessica P. Ballroom and Heath: Broadway and hip-hop. I love how Broadway is suddenly so far away from contemporary and jazz ballet when ninety percent of Broadway is fucking jazz ballet. Anyway, choreo to Mary Poppins is definitely going to win votes because who the fuck doesn’t love Mary Poppins, and both dancers did a more than capable job here: Heath’s dancing was better than Jessica’s, but his Dick Van Dyke impression wasn’t quite as strong as Jessica’s Julie Andrews. Solid, though.

There was nothing about the hip-hop that wasn’t a disaster. Terrible costumes. Unison frequently nonexistent. Soft-sauce when they were hitting all the moves (Jason nailed it when he said it looked like a jazz routine), and they missed a lot of them. Choreography didn’t impress me, but maybe if it had been danced properly it might have been entertaining, I dunno. This was bad, bad, so goddamn bad. Probably the worst routine of the entire season so far.

Renee and Phillipe: hip-hop and rhumba. Renee was rushing a good chunk of the hip-hop, and unlike their first hip-hop routine in week one she didn’t look nearly so comfortable doing this piece. Phillipe was insanely good. The judges mostly let Renee go because “not quite as good as Phillipe” is still pretty decent for a dancer not really trained in hip-hop, but: she wasn’t as good as claimed.

Anya and Pasha rhumba! (Are they moving down under or something?) Choreo was intensely good and dramatic, and I was extremely impressed with Phillipe, who not only sold the chemistry as he did last week but whose carriage had exactly that precise Latin strength to it that the rhumba needs. (He did botch one lift quite badly and made Renee look bad, so points off.) Renee had the dance quality but not the performance: she looked just nervous too often to sell it.

Jess H. Hip-Hop and Nick: lyrical jazz and jive. The jazz was weak sauce: Jess looked incredibly uncomfortable at the beginning and although she got better and less stiff as the routine progressed, and Nick didn’t have a whole hell of a lot to do. As routines go, this was one of the less difficult ones of the evening, and they didn’t sell it.

The jive was hit and miss, more hit than miss. The last lift was really bad, but I chalk that more up to the choreo than the actual dancing. Their kicks flicked back pretty nicely for most of the routine, but when they went into their assisted spins they lost momentum every time and needed a second or two to get back into the routine. Still, not bad.

Carly and Kieran: salsa and hip-hop. This is the third year in a row that this show has used a new Potbelleez single for a salsa routine. Huh. Anyway, the salsa was mediocre at best and “at best” is probably unfair because Kieran was reasonably strong and Carly was just plain bad: her ass-shaking wasn’t that great (it was really loose and thrashy) and it was the best part of her dancing in this. She blew a couple of spots (notably her shimmy over Kieran) and whenever she wasn’t shaking it, her footwork was either clumsy or stiff. Disappointing.

The hip-hop is what more experimental hip-hop should be: original and clever and for the most part executed very well, taking hip-hop out of its genre without losing the sharp movements. Carly’s moves were occasionally a bit softer than I would have liked (her float up was laboured as well) but mostly were quite decent. Kieran’s moves were gorgeously clean. This was really a nice surprise.

Jessie Contemporary and Matt: contemporary and jazz. The contemporary was fucking excellent. That is all. No, really, that is all. Christ. what a great performance. (If music rights allowed I’d post a Youtube of it, but no. Fucking Warner Music Group.)

The jazz piece was just underwhelming because “When I Grow Up” has been used on both of the other SYTYCDs in jazz routines much like this one and this one wasn’t nearly in the league of, say, Nico/Lisa dancing Blake McGrath’s jazz/funk from SYTYCD Canada season 1. I think they danced it quite well; I just think what they were given to dance was kind of boring.

Probable bottom three: Jessica and Heath, Jess and Nick, Renee and Phillipe.
Should go home: Jess and Nick.
Will go home: Renee and Nick.
(And actually it is: Renee and Heath.)

Your guest host is Kelley Abbey. She is pretty.

Top seven boys: Broadway. I was kind of meh on the whole idea of a top seven boys’ performance because there didn’t seem to be any reasonable way to choreo a routine that would showcase all of them equally, so I figured they’d end up just doing a sort of bland bit that would showcase them all equally not-at-all, and I was unfortunately correct about this. I also nailed both Broadway selections for just going with the most predictable options (in this case, West Side Story for the boys). I love the Australian show for tinkering with format, but this is one of their failures.

Issi and Don: “funky street Latin.” This was probably the best Issi and Don have danced together so far: Issi finally had performance quality when not dancing in her genre and Don was dead on the beat throughout and not rushing. Both had a few weak bits – Issi mostly at the start, Don a bit after her – and the confidence was occasionally lacking (Jason’s comments about “finding Broadway versions of yourselves” was actually pretty brilliant) but on the whole this was danced reasonably well for something that’s about as far from being a formal genre as possible.

Jessica P. Ballroom and Heath: contemporary. Killed it, again – which is not surprising because these two have danced contemporary, jazz, one tango and now back to contemporary. I’d really like them to do anything else at this point, but I can’t say this wasn’t good.

Ivy and Robbie: paso doble. Okay, Robbie needs to have facial hair pretty much forever, because it ages him about five years. Actually, since he normally looks about fifteen, maybe ten years. Anyway, Jason Gilkison is brilliant, but even with Gilkison I was skeptical that a prop cape would fly. But it did, because he’s brilliant. This is Ivy’s second paso (I can’t remember the last time one dancer danced paso twice in a single season) and the improvement was massive; Robbie finally danced well enough to convince me that he’s not just a great soloist. That double développé was fucking insane. Fantastic work.

Carly and Kieran: contemporary. Other than Calry maybe overemoting a bit in a couple of sequences, there’s nothing to say other than: yes, another excellent contemporary performance. See, this is the problem with recapping this show: so much of it is just good and there’s nothing for me to say except banana monkey hamburgers and pretend that it is meaningful.

Jessie Contemporary and Matt: jazz. Clever concept with a ton of character and danced excellently by both of them. I’d really like to point out that Jessie’s leaping split into the catch by Matt was a total moment of trust on her part, which says a lot about this partnership. (I know that this is a very SYTYCD Judge thing to say, but I’m not saying it about a basic lift but instead about a pretty difficult stunt. I don’t think, as Bonnie did, that Jessie outshined Matt; she had the showier role but Matt danced just as well as she did.

Renee and Phillipe: Viennese waltz. This started out with such pleasant chemistry, and indeed the chemistry was ridiculously good throughout: the looks on Renee’s and especially Phillipe’s faces were so amazingly genuine. In terms of character quality this was probably the best waltz SYTYCD has seen since Mark and Courtney’s in season four of the US show. Unfortunately, the dancing was clunky and clumsy and just plain bad, which was a massive disappointment; if it had been on par with the chemistry this would have been an incredible tour de force.

Jess H. Hip-Hop and Nick: hip-hop. My love for Tiana Canterbury knows no bounds, and especially for choreographing 90s-style hip-hop, which any hip-hop dancer who’s tried it can tell you is insanely difficult, and there were a few stretches in this routine where Nick especially was just falling behind and even Jess was clearly struggling to keep up. This isn’t to say that the routine wasn’t fun and danced relatively well, but in a field this strong it’s unfortunately second-class.

Top seven girls: Broadway. I would like to put “Cell Block Tango” on my list of Music I Never Want To Hear On This Show Ever Fucking Again. That is all.

Probable bottom three: Issi and Don, Jess and Nick, Renee and Phillipe.
Should go home: Issi and Don.
Will go home: Jess and Nick.

Your guest judge tonight is Mary Murphy. Yes, that Mary Murphy. Uh huh.

Grace and Nick: hip-hop. Oh lord, they’re bringing in Mary Murphy for the rehearsal vignettes too? How did anybody start thinking Mary Murphy was this popular with fans? Anyway, the choreo by Tiana Canterbury was excellent, but Grace didn’t look that comfortable doing it – which is not to say that she didn’t hit her moves, but I particularly thought she underplayed any portion of the routine where she was supposed to be grinding her hips, and during the “jump-rope” segment she didn’t really look like she was jumping rope. Nick was very strong, which I expected. Mary Murphy screams about the hot tamale train because that is her gimmick.

Carly and Kieran: Viennese waltz. After an interesting sequence during the rehearsal vignette where Carly was expressing her worry about dancing properly to 3/4 time (a sentence I don’t think I will ever come close to writing in describing any other version of this show), Mary Murphy shows up and does she have any advice about this, her specialty? No. *sigh* Kieran’s carriage in this was absolutely perfect. Carly stumbled a bit a third of the way through with her heel catching in her dress. Mary as a judge this time around makes some good points – specifically that Carly’s lines were mediocre, which they were, but also commiserating on the caught heel in the dress, which was nice of her – and at this point, I’m pretty convinced that Kieran is the power player in this couple.

Jess S. Hip-Hop and Doug: jazz. Instead of Mary during the vignette, it’s Bonnie, who says things that aren’t cheap gag lines. (Thank you, Bonnie.) And after two weeks of Doug and Jess being thoroughly underwhelming and clunky and just blah, they finally delivered with a performance that was lively and felt up to the standards of the show. Adam Williams’ mummy-themed choreo was clever and they did it justice, and Jess in particular finally felt like she wants to be here. This was really great fun.

Renee and Phillipe: contemporary. Not much to say about this routine, because it was just so good. Phillipe’s performance in this was arguably one of the best contemporary routines I’ve ever seen a hip-hop dancer perform: strong and confident and the unison was dead-on. Renee was as brilliant as you would expect. Just gorgeous work all around.

Jessica P. Ballroom and Heath: tango. You know, I only just realized that Heath is a dead ringer for a young Patrick Swayze this week? Anyway, Mary didn’t like the routine because she felt Heath wasn’t strong enough, and I can see the argument for Heath not being as good as Jessica obviously but as novices performing tangoes on SYTYCD go, I thought this was definitely in the top third or so: his intensity of character was very good and although there were a few points where he was obviously too tentative in his movement, it was only inconsistency rather than outright failure.

Jessie H. Contemporary and Matt: hip-hop. Travers Ross choreographs very lyrical-ish hip-hop – that lyrical hip-hop he did for Lamb and Timomatic last season remains a favorite, but the downside is stuff like choreographing hip-hop to “Mr. Jones” like he did last season as well, which was a fucking disaster. In short, Travers Ross routines are generally either home runs or major strikeouts. This was one of the latter; the choreo was blocky and rough and impenetrable and I am full-on with Jason in disliking it.

Issi and Don: contemporary. Don had great performance quality and partnered Issi exquisitely, but I agree with Matt that his flaws were distracting – it wasn’t so much the feet for me as it was, of all things, his groundwork. (Mostly because I don’t get distracted by unpointed feet as Matt does.) Issi was actually watchable for the first time thus far this week, so all things considered I’m willing to give this a thumbs up despite the choreo being kind of confusing.

Ivy and Robbie: jazz. And apparently the question of how Robbie would lift Ivy has been answered by mostly having Ivy lift Robbie instead. That having been said, even with Robbie’s obvious issues with being a tiny human being, he’s still better with Ivy than Mikhaela. The choreo wasn’t especially difficult outside of a couple of major tricks (mostly on Robbie), but it was clever and the costuming was inspired, and visually it was extremely entertaining. So I’m saying it was good.

Probable bottom three: Matt and Jessie, Jessica and Heath, Issi and Don.
Should go home: Issi and Don.
Will go home: Issi and Matt.

Your guest judge is Jason Gilkison, who is of course just as good as the other three.

Ivy and Gaz: hip-hop. A Superman-themed hip-hop routine? It is like they choreographed this just for me! And Gaz is, it turns out, a dead fucking ringer for Clark Kent, and Ivy’s reasonable as Lois. This was really great up until just after the lift, and then they kind of lost a bit of pace (I agree with Matt that they slipped ahead of the beat), but on the whole I’m going to give it a thumbs up because it genuinely was a cute routine, and because it had Superman flava, and the performance quality that Gaz kind of lacked last week was here in full force.

Issi and Don: foxtrot. Issi’s hurting ribs were pretty evident in some of the moves (that arabesque on the bench, for example) and Matt’s right in that Don’s tendency to rush through his moves is starting to become more evident, but he was still much better than Issi – she just felt clunky in a lot of places for me and this is the second week where I just wasn’t feeling any connection to her character at all. She’s not as bad as, say, Mollee was by any stretch, but she’s got a lot of the same flaws writ small, and I think her fear over the injury isn’t doing her any favours.

Jessica P. Ballroom and Heath: contemporary. Pretty standard “love falls apart” storyline here, but damn, what dancing. Heath is genuinely excellent at partnering, which I simply didn’t expect out of him at all; I don’t notice the lack of pointing in his feet at all but then again I don’t really look for that sort of thing. Jessica was very, very good. I want to see these two work outside of technical-training dance now to see what happens; I am optimistic.

Jessie H. Contemporary and Matt: jazz. Project Moda are one of my favorite things about the Australian show because nobody else choreographing for any show anywhere is as consistently hilarious as they are, and because unlike a lot of jazz choreographers they stick to what jazz dance should be, which is “mix of absolutely everything” rather than “ballet with a beat.” This is the second week Jessie and Matt have absolutely nailed their choreo, at least in my eyes; maybe a few points where the unison movement was a hair off, but only a few and only by a hair, and the ridiculous stunts Matt assisted Jessie into were just stunning – that backward somersault lift near the end was fucking insane.

Mikhaela and Robbie: boogaloo. Boogaloo! Haven’t seen that since season one. And… yeah, there’s a reason, because it’s not that audience-friendly: it lacks big moves and it’s hard to do. (Compare to house, prevalent on the Canadian show, which is hard to do but has plenty of big moves.) Robbie looked terrified through the entire thing and frankly didn’t dance this well; his pops were better than Mikhaela’s were but on the other hand Mikhaela at least looked comfortable doing the moves, even if her pops were mediocre. Jason Gilkison blames their problems on lack of chemistry, which seems like it is not necessarily the entire problem but definitely contributing.

Grace and Nick: contemporary. And right off the bat it’s a Very Special Routine about a couple that loses their baby Inspired By Real People and the dancers say things like “we have to do this routine justice,” which always irks me. But on the merits of the routine itself I don’t really have any complaints; it was danced very strongly and the choreo, while not especially original, was completely serviceable. I thought both Grace and Nick were miles ahead of where they were last week. This was very good, and both are frankly better off without the partners they lost last week.

Carly and Kieran: Broadway. I’m at a loss to find enough ways to compliment- this: just a great goddamn routine, clever choreo and danced just about perfectly. Kieran’s ability to bring out his character – last week it could possibly be described as heavy-handed, but then it was a heavy routine. This was light and, yes, “frothy,” and he was understated without being boring. Carly was very strong as well. Easily the surprises of the competition so far.

Renee and Phillipe: paso doble. Terrible music. I mean, the idea of a paso to “Bohemian Rhapsody” isn’t a bad one, but because of all the really blatant music edits and skips I just kept having these “wait, they skipped a line” moments which distracted me and pulled me out of the dance. Jason Coleman summed up my feelings on the routine itself by saying that the intensity needed for a paso was present for the first third of it, missing for the second and then showed up again for the last third. Not nearly so good as last week for these two.

Jess S. Hip-Hop and Doug: contemporary. I had the over/under on “Fireflies” by Owl City getting used in a routine at week two, because if there’s a song that screams out “YOU CAN USE ME FOR ANY FORM OF DANCE” it’s that one, and here we are. This, unfortunately, did not justify using it; it was choreo that managed to be both complex and trite all at once, with so many lifts that the dancing itself was more or less missing. I thought Doug did better on the lifts than Jason Coleman gave him credit for doing, but not so well that I was especially impressed. Jess was only okay.

Probable bottom three: Mikhaela and Robbie, Jess S. and Doug, Jessie H. and Matt.
Should go home: Jess S. and Robbie.
Will go home: Jess S. and Robbie.