I saw a lot of my favorites go (Ferdinand, TK, Justin Johnson, several ballroom girls, Francesca), but if honesty prevails I am forced to admit that on the whole the top 20 looks extremely promising in terms of dancer strength – they cut out a lot of the more personality-based dancers with weaker technique while still keeping a final set with some real characters. It’s too early to tell yet, and we’ll have a better idea of how they compare after the first round of competition, but on the whole I’m very optimistic about the talent level for the first Canadian season of So You Think You Can Dance – it was especially notable how all the dancers kept saying how long they’d been waiting for this chance, emphasizing how much the show has impacted the dance community worldwide and especially in countries like Canada where the dance community is both extremely talent-rich and extremely under-recognized.

Also, I hope that when I am in my mid-40s I can still move like Jean-Marc Genereux.

Also also, I am so happy that Emmanuel Sandhu got cut. Go triple axel into a shark’s mouth, Emmanuel.

– I didn’t say anything about Sunday’s show on Sunday because I figure the non-watching-Dance portion of this blog’s audience can only take so much. See? I am thoughtful.

– That having been said: watching this with one of my new roommates (who b-boys more than a little, although not at the serious competition level) is entertaining because he picks out the flaws in hip-hop and breaker performances, and I can comment fairly knowledgeably on the ballroom stuff, which leaves us with contemporary, where we can go “oooh my” at the girls with the long legs. It is most equitable.

– Lindy-hoppers are the nerds of the dance world. Lindy hop takes an insane amount of strength and skill, and what do you get for all of it? The freaking Lindy hop. I ask you.

– Leah Miller: still a black hole from whence no charisma shall escape. She makes likeable dancers hanging out with her less likable. She is worse than Lauren Sanchez, for crissake, and everybody just pretends Lauren Sanchez never existed. (Admittedly, this is mostly because Cat Deeley is awesome, but Lauren Sanchez was pretty damned bad.)

– Speaking of nerds, I was very impressed with the SCA/NERO knight-wannabe who turned out to be arguably the best hip-hopper we’ve seen so far in the auditions. Holy shit, was that guy good.

– Also good – numerous ballroom dancers just smoking their auditions. Calgary was very good for ballroom. Montreal had the contortionists, Toronto the best hip-hoppers on the whole, Vancouver the best contemporary dancers, and Halifax made sure to give us all a bunch more white people.

– That Tiger guy’s dancing was visibly angry, which is something I genuinely don’t asssociate with b-boying; he danced pissed off. It made it oddly compelling, although I hope he has more than one speed.

– Emmanuel Sandhu needs to do a triple axel jump off a cliff.

– And people getting offended over that Dove girl, who was not a very good dancer all told but who got her trip to finals based mostly on persistence, need to relax. She’s not going to make top twenty, folks, not even close – not with the insane talent field they’ve got.

– Closing thought: A friend of mine who lives in Regina made the trip to the Calgary auditions a few months back (she didn’t make it past choreography). I teased her in an email saying “really? All that way?” She responded “look, every dancer in Canada has been waiting for four years to do this.” It’s going to be a very, very motivated group this year, which bodes well.

– Early favorites: TK the classical-music-breaker (who can solve a Rubik’s Cube in 45 seconds!), Lisa the cocky contemporary dancer, and the trampoliney-guy who mixed some amazing aerials into a reasonably good contemporary routine.

– Leah Miller is a black hole where charisma goes to die.

– Tre Armstrong looks to be a staggeringly good judge – she’s intelligent, observant and eloquent in her praise and criticism. Judgewise she is like a more lucid version of Li’l C. Also she is hotter than Li’l C, which is good.

– Bitchy Blake from America’s Season 1 is a judge and a choreographer for this show. This is so wonderful it makes bad people die inside a little bit. And then he shows up when the judges are about to send someone packing and DEMANDS that the guy be allowed to do his choreography, because he is Blake Fucking McGrath and he Gets What He Wants Dammit. HE IS SUCH A FUCKING DIVA AND IT IS FANTASTIC.

– I was prepared for Mary Murphy’s guest appearance to be as bad as Mary Murphy can get, but she was remarkably restrained for Mary Murphy. That is about the best you can hope for, really.

– My one concern at this point is that this show will follow the Canadian Idol path: namely, that the rest of the country will once again indulge their passion for hating Toronto and vote down Torontonian dancers over, ahem, slightly less talented dancers from other parts of the country, which is what happens on Idol every fucking year.

(Non-Canadians will not understand this, but you know how Americans from not New York City have this strange antipathy for New York City? Take that antipathy, multiply it by a factor of fifty, and you have what non-Torontonian Canucks think of Toronto. Which, speaking as a Toronto resident, I can assure you we simply don’t understand. My working theory is that Toronto-haters are working out their massively depressing envy in a fashion not unlike a third-grade boy smacking around the girl he secretly likes.)

Supah-deluxe edition.

Courtney and Twitch: hip-hop. Courtney and Twitch both danced a pretty mediocre routine by Tabitha and Napoleon reasonably well (nothing exceptional, just all right), with the exception of the overly elaborate end-lift, which kind of fell apart a bit. After a season of watching Napoleon and Tabitha’s routines, I am pretty sure I want Shane Sparks back worse than ever. Or just let Dave Scott be the primary hip-hop choreographer for this show. Or Nacho Pop or Supple from SYTYCD Australia, or Dan Karaty, or anybody else (well, not Cicely and Olisa) – all of them choreo straight-up, hard-hitting hip-hop better than Napoleon and Tabitha do, and frankly most of the N/T lyrical-ish hip-hop routines that are supposedly their specialty don’t even come close to Shane Sparks’ slower, romantic hip-hop routine he choreo’d for Ivan and Allison in season 2.

Courtney’s solo: A pretty damn good contemporary solo by any account. Courtney pretty much got thrown under the bus tonight in judges’ comments; always the recipient of “you were fantastic, but (x) was just a little bit better than you,” either said implicitly or outright. She’s been incredibly consistent through the entire competition, but it’s no secret that of the four finalists, she’s the number four fan-pick overall (even if she’s far from being the fourth best dancer).

Katee and Joshua: lyrical. Wade Robson’s back! Woo. Guess either those rumours about him feuding with Nigel were false, or they were true and they made up. (What a meaningless assessment I have just made.) This was what you expect from Wade Robson: imaginative, intelligent choreography, and the two of them danced it very well indeed. Joshua’s “uncontrolled control” was perhaps a little bit oversold by Nigel (it’s more “barely controlled chaos” from my standpoint), but he was excellent. Katee was good as she always is.

Twitch’s solo: Excellent as always, with a couple of new tricks he’d apparently been saving up. Of all the dancers in the finale, it’s clear that Twitch is probably the weakest (I’m a fan, but even I admit he shouldn’t have made top six, much less top four). That having been said, Twitch is ridiculously charismatic and he knows how to channel it into a performance, which is something that simply can’t be taught. I wish the judges had told him what he needs to hear, which is “take all the goddamned classes you can right now, regardless of whether or not you win.” Because, honestly? With more training, Twitch is the next Gene Kelly. Yes, I’m serious. He has the least technical skill but far and away the most potential.

Katee and Courtney: Broadway. I hate Tyce Diorio’s Broadway routines (I like his jazz and contemporary routines, mostly). This was no exception. Bleh, bleh, boring boring bleh.

Joshua and Twitch: trepak. Firstly, let me get the obligatory “holy shit, trepak on this show?” out of the way. Okay, then: as a routine this left me kind of cold, because there was way too much dead-time in it where they set up stunts, and the stunts themselves were only intermediate as trepak stunts go. (If Joshua had done his high split-leg leap three times in a row without pause, that would have been a serious trepak stunt.) But honestly, trepak stunting is meant to be danced in a circle of like, ten or fifteen guys, each of them getting three or four times as much break-time as Twitch and Joshua got while the other one did stunts. So, as a routine, this was lousy, but as a demonstration of Twitch and Joshua’s athleticism and dancing ability, it was pretty impressive. Especially when you consider that they were both hospitalized during the week for exhaustion. That’s crazy.

Katee’s solo: Boring. She’s just not very good at coming up with her own solos. But she’s consistently been the best girl dancer of this season. She’s gotten some criticism that she’s been catered to by being given more contemporary dances than other girls, but she killed Bollywood and samba and did a reasonable hip-hop. I just wish the judges had taken more opportunities to say that they were retarded for the way they treated her in the top 20 cut, rather than congratulating themselves for teaching her a valuable lesson.

Katee and Twitch: foxtrot. I was prepared for this to be terrible – foxtrot is traditionally one of the dances non-ballroomers have the most trouble with – and was pleasantly surprised by it being perfectly competent. Not dazzling (although Katee’s handstand flip was glorious), but no big flaws, and the lift at the end was tremendous as advertised. Katee was great, Twitch didn’t suck – although he was awfully stiff in the early going.

Joshua’s solo: Welcomingly understated for him; no giant stunts, just good popping and the good sense to show off by jumping up to the judges’ table. Joshua’s probably been pimped the most out of any dancer this season, but in fairness: he’s obviously gifted, learns very quickly and for someone so young he dances in a very adult way. He’s got the potential to go very, very far as a professional dancer.

Joshua and Courtney: jive. Oh god, this was terrible. Nigel got booed for offering criticism that was only a tenth as strenous as the routine deserved: the leg extensions were pathetic, the footwork sloppy, the form bad, the lifts laboured, and nobody mentioned that Joshua completely blew the ending backflip – it was pretty obvious from the way Courtney was set up that he was supposed to land on his feet way behind her so the camera could catch them both. This was easily the worst performance Joshua’s had all season, and, obvious exhaustion aside, it’s the worst possible luck that it happened tonight.

All four in a Mia Michaels contemporary: I think Mandy Moore really nailed it when she pointed out that the four of them looked like they could be in a company together: this was very enjoyable. I didn’t see Courtney and Joshua screw up that lift on the first watching, but it was a minor error at best. I really liked this.

Final order should be: 1.) Katee, 2.) Joshua, 3.) Courtney, 4.) Twitch.
Final order will be: 1.) Joshua, 2.) Twitch, 3.) Katee, 4.) Courtney. (Given that Twitch had a really good night and Joshua a fairly bad one, I think Twitch has a shot to snipe it, but Joshua is the frontrunner.)

SPECIAL BONUS: the top ten guy/girl partner routines of the season, as determined by me through Science:

10.) TIE: Katee and Joshua – paso doble (top 6) and Courtney and Will – samba (top eight)
9.) Chelsie and Mark – Argentine tango (top 18)
8.) Courtney and Gev – cha-cha-cha (top 12)
7.) Courtney and Mark – jazz (top 6)
6.) Katee and Joshua – contemporary (top 14)
5.) Katee and Will – pas de deux (top 10)
4.) Comfort and Twitch – hip-hop (top 10)
3.) Katee and Joshua – Bollywood (top 12)
2.) Courtney and Mark – Viennese waltz (top 6)
1.) Jessica and Will – jazz (top 12)

Since I missed last week, I just wish to briefly address the “Will was voted off so this show is bullshit because the best dancer never wins” whining that arose around the internets. (Okay, TWOP, but big shock there.) Firstly, the best dancer has at least won once (Benji in season two – yes, he was slightly better than Travis, who was a mediocre ballroom dancer at best). Secondly, the only time thus far that the best dancer clearly didn’t win was season three, where Danny was obviously the best but had the bad fortune to compete in a season where a girl was due to win. (Season one: maybe Blake was better than Nick, but not dramatically so.) And thirdly, Will started off slow with a few weak performances for whatever reason (nerves? I dunno) before ramping it up, all the while getting smoke blown up his ass, and if the judges praise the shit out of someone for what’s clearly not deserved and do so constantly, you’re going to get a backlash, and that is what happened to Will.

Mark and Courtney: waltz and jazz. The waltz was surprisingly excellent considering Mark’s worst routines have been ballroom (his two-step with Kherington and his two foxtrots with Chelsie and Comfort); the two of them have excellent chemistry, the technique was mostly there (Mark’s lines could have been a little better and the last lift was a bit clumsy, but on the whole, really good), the performance quality was brilliant and the routine was superb. Jason Gilkison was easily one of the best things about the Aussie edition of SYTYCD – his ballroom routines were uniformly inventive and original without ever falling into the trap of cheesy, showoffy stuntwork (see: Da Silva, Alex). All in all, a terrific bit.

The jazz actually managed to be even better than the waltz. Sonya Tayeh was a snag for Nigel; as the show progresses through choreographers, it’s always nice to find one with a distinct individual style that stands out from the pack. (Maybe they won’t piss her off like they supposedly did Wade Robson.) Very little to say about this considering how near-perfectly Mark and Courtney danced it, frankly.

Mark’s solo: Surprisingly dull for him.

Courtney’s solo: Better than average for her; she usually goes with the Standard Contemporary Dance Grab-Bag solo, but this one actually seemed to have a point to it.

Joshua and Katee: contemporary and paso doble. The contemporary was an excellent piece of work, all around. Tyce’s choreo was decent – not the ball of awesome the judges claimed, but perfectly acceptable, non-cliched choreo for (ugh) Celine Dion music. Katee was, as almost always, better than Joshua, but Joshua really stepped up because he is an untrained dancer – well, you know, except for his training, which the show conveniently forgets whenever they want to give him more props. “Less trained” would be far more accurate.

The paso doble was the classic example of amazing choreo elevating dancers. Katee was excellent; Josh made a number of missteps, but was saved by the fact that none of them were too glaring – and by the fact that Jason Gilkison is fucking brilliant as a choreographer. He mostly carried off the performance, but over the course of the show one thing has become very evident: Joshua was carried to an extent by Katee in the early going and it benefited him tremendously. (And what the hell is up with the judges acting like Joshua is some sort of dark horse? He and Katee are the only dancers left who have never been in the bottom three.)

Katee’s solo: Arabesque pirouette fall-to-floor yaaaaaaaawn.

Joshua’s solo: His third solo on this show, and the third time he’s broken out the spinkick and the second he’s done the split-legged leap. Joshua’s solos progressively get duller as the show goes on; this is not to say he’s bad, but his trick range is limited and it’s really starting to show.

Chelsie and Twitch: mambo and hip-hop. The mambo was solid, nothing more. Twitch actually did a respectable job on the mambo, which is difficult, but not an excellent one, and sorry but saying “the mambo is hard because you dance on the 2-beats” is crap as applied to Twitch. He is a hip-hop dancer. He dances on even beats naturally. Mambo should be easier for him to pick up on than salsa (where you usually dance on the 1 and 5 beats). Chelsie was of course predictably fantastic at this.

The hip-hop was dreadful. A boring routine from Tabitha and Napoleon, given props for stealing an idea from one of Twitch‘s earlier solos. Twitch was great in this routine, as lame as it was, dancing rings around Chelsie because she’s just not that good at dancing hip-hop. Really – apart from some basic moves, she stood around and waved a wand. She really got exposed tonight.

Chelsie’s solo: Predictably awful. Look, I know ballroom is harder to solo as a style than the others, but Benji and Heidi were both able to do it in season 2 and well. There’s really no excuse.

Twitch’s solo: Predictably great. Twitch’s soloing strength is evidence of his ability to perform, which is frankly heads above anybody else in this season and most of the other seasons’ top 10s as well, and he’s been managing to stay alive thanks to that ability compensating for his relative lack of training.

Should go home: Chelsie and Twitch.
Will go home: Courtney and Twitch.

L’il C: s’rprisingly d’cent j’dge.

Courtney and Joshua: hip hop and rumba. The hip-hop was solid (Dave Scott! Finally a good hip-hop choreographer who doesn’t have to blend in lyrical form! About goddamned time); a charming mini-plotline, entertainingly danced. The judges more or less got it right: Joshua nailed it and Courtney didn’t but was entertaining enough that her weaker form didn’t harm the piece. The rumba was Perfectly Acceptable Top Ten Dancing; not as sultry as Courtney’s previous rumba with Gev by half, but more complex and with better tricks. Solid work all around from both.

Courtney’s solo: Extremely good, almost surprisingly so.

Joshua’s solo: Slightly underwhelming; the same big tricks he’s pulled every time we’ve seen him do a solo (the spinning leap kick, the backflip, the pec-pop), and just not as exciting and well-thought-out a routine as Twitch or Gev’s (the ones to compare him against). It won’t hurt Joshua because he is deservedly popular, but… yeah.

Kherington and Mark: country two-step and jazz. I strongly think that if Mark was still paired with Chelsie he would have ripped the two-step; he was actually holding his own throughout the piece quite well, but Kherington didn’t give him much to work with, missing several connects (only one of which the judges bothered to really point out, because it was so glaringly obvious). The jazz piece was boring, but the judges got it completely wrong: it was boring because it was a boring-ass routine, long and dull and with nothing really interesting in it, and there just isn’t a lot Mark or Kherington could do about that no matter how well they danced it (which they did quite decently). This new symptom of it’s-never-the-choreographer’s-fault is really annoying. (Granted, given that scuttlebutt is that Wade Robson is refusing to choreo for the show now after Nigel trashed his “two foxes” routine in last season’s finale, but the problem to Nigel being undiplomatic is not to go hard in the other direction.)

Kherington’s solo: Bland.

Mark’s solo: Entertainingly quirky and enjoyable, but lacked a big stunty bit to make the crowd go “oooooh.” Problematic for him.

Katee and Will: Broadway and pas de deux. God, if this show could be any harder in the tank for Will I’m not sure how they’d manage it. First off, they pair him with Katee (easily the best of the female dancers). Secondly, their first routine is Broadway, which is like a free pass on this show: just dial the ham up to eleven and a half, do whatever relatively basic steps are assigned to you (they’re almost never particularly complex routines), and get a tonguebath from the judges. (Which is what they did and what they got, for a routine that was frankly boring as shit.) Finally, they get a pas de deux choreo’d by Desmond frigging Richardson, which is a huge coup for the show. (I am secure enough in my sexuality to enjoy modern dance. Shut up.) Yes, that last definitely had a high difficulty factor, but there was very little chance he’d screw it up if partnered with Katee. CONCLUSION: Show in tank for Debbie Allen’s boy.

Katee’s solo: I remember thinking it was good when I watched it, but ten minutes later I could not say one thing about it.

Will’s solo: Okayish, but nowhere near as good as his fantastic solo from last week’s elimination show (seriously, that solo was insane). This one was merely solid.

Comfort and Twitch: waltz and hip-hop. Twitch was pretty weak in the waltz, which doesn’t exactly square with his earlier, quite good waltz with Kherington, and I think I’m chalking that one up to a likely partner switch halfway through the week when Jessica was pulled out for medical reasons and he had to start fresh with Comfort. Comfort was also very bad in the waltz, big shock there. The waltz was easily the worst routine of the entire night. However, the hip-hop routine? Wasn’t just the best of the night, but also probably the best hip-hop routine this show has seen since Allison and Ivan killed it late in season two. (On par with that one and juuust behind Destini and Jamile’s superlative hip-hop in season one.) Seriously, just fantastic on every possible level, and unique and original. Dave Scott rules.

Comfort’s solo: The same as every other solo she’s done: wondering why she’s supposedly the best female hip-hop dancer on this show ever if she never dances a good solo.

Twitch’s solo: Very strong with several fun, unique tricks; not quite as good as his “conductor” solo from last week (which was simply brilliant), but very close.

Chelsie and Gev: contemporary and jive. The contemporary was a fun, neat little piece from Sonya Tayeh (who, I think, likes to work spaz-outs into her routines regularly, although that is based on very little evidence), and both of them did a really good job with it (Gev just seems to be really, really strong at partnering well). The jive was insanely difficult – Jean-Marc Genereux just seemed to say “okay, fuck it” this week and gave them a seriously professional-level jive, faster than any jive or swing routine I’ve ever seen on this show. That they even managed to finish it is an accomplishment; that they did it with style and elan an amazement. Gev was straining a bit but managed to mostly cover it, Chelsie rocked the house. Great work, and between the two routines I think Gev saved himself from the probable elimination.

Chelsie’s solo: A very, very boring ballroom solo. I know ballroom solos are tricky because, hey, partner dancing transferred to solo form, not easy. But come on – this was just tedious.

Gev’s solo: Easily the best of the night: an imaginative break routine with a couple of killer tricks (including his “remove the shirt midspin” one).

GOING HOME: Mark for the boys (he picked the wrong week to have a bad night) and Comfort for the girls (although there is an outside chance of Kherington going instead).

I am wonderfully thrilled that tonight we got to see Mean Mia Michaels. It is so awesome when she forgets she’s on television and just absolutely sticks a knife into a dancer’s back and acts like an insane bitch. Which, if she were critiquing an auditioner in a theatre where there were no cameras, would be perfectly acceptable, but yeeeesh, Mia. Also, I get that you believe contemporary dance is the be-all and end-all of dance, fine, that’s your thing, but I remember your shitty “this is the dance where I imagine myself dancing with my death father” routine, so your shit doesn’t stink, lady.

Chelsie and Mark: salsa and Broadway. I am sick to death of “Broadway”, which on this show means endless Bob Fosse homages. This is not a knock on Mark and Chelsie’s performance, which was fine; I’m just saying. The salsa was excellent. I have nothing else to say here; Mark and Chelsie have been consistently good.

Comfort and Thayne: hip-hop and contemporary. Man, I am really feeling for these two tonight, because they both performed really quite well (the hip-hop was better than the contemporary, but both were quite decent) and then got slagged off by the judges for not “connecting,” which is entirely eye-of-the-beholder (and also code for “we want you off the show now”). Ironically Comfort probably has good odds of making top ten, despite being the weaker half of the duo.

Courtney and Gev: cha-cha-cha and jazz. Snide comments about these two being weaker dancers on the whole than others in the competition, bar Joshua and Katee these two had the strongest night of anybody. The cha-cha-cha was simply fantastic (which is to be expected from Pasha and Anya choreo’ing it; Pasha in particular deserved to make top 4 last season, but sadly was not as pretty as Neil) and the jazz routine was fun, and they really are excellent partners for one another.

Jessica and Will: contemporary and quickstep. Firstly, I have to give props to Will on two fronts: firstly for defending Jessica when Mia pulled out the long knives (sure, he could have been maybe a little more emphatic, but I chalk that up to being blindsided by the comments in question), and secondly for finally doing a routine that justified all the smoke the judges have been blowing up his ass. That Tyce Diorio routine was genuinely one of the best ones ever on this show, and Jessica was every bit as good in it as he was.

The quickstep, however, was horrible crap, almost entirely so, and I have no tolerance for people whining about the kiss of death because there have been tolerable quicksteps on this show and even excellent ones. So my summation of Will is thus: fantastic contemporary dancer, reasonably good hip-hop dancer, terrible-ass ballroom dancer. Hopefully when we get to top ten the blowjob train eases in intensity for Will.

Kherington and Twitch: krump and tango. Twitch absolutely murderered that krump – the only time in the history of this show that I have seen any dancer, period, do a krump justice. Kherington did not do that; her first half was the moderately acceptable watered-down hip-hop that passes for krump most of the time on this show, and her second half was horrible in just about every way. (But Nigel doesn’t mind, because she’s hot.)

The tango was uniformly bad; in fairness, it started off bad by being a bad routine (this was one of Jean-Marc’s bombs, every choreographer has them, it’s all right, he’s still good) and was compounded by Twitch being nervous and Kherington just being genuinely bad. The worst night this couple has had yet; I don’t think they’re in much danger, but a bad night for them, especially Kherington.

Katee and Joshua: waltz and Bollywood. This is the first night that Katee completely outdanced Joshua in both routines, establishing her pretty clearly as the leading girl in the show this season. The waltz was mediocre (Katee was fine, but Joshua was definitely not up to his usual standards and it showed; pity, it was good choreo).

The Bollywood, on the other hand, was absolutely insane; I don’t know much about Bollywood dance but I know people who do know it, and their opinon universally is “holy shit, did they nail that.” The knee-spins were the only part which came off as laboured and those are insanely difficult to do anyway; Katee and Joshua absolutely danced this with the energy and athleticism Bollywood routines demand. Just fantastic.

Bottom three couples: Jessica and Will, Comfort and Thayne, Kherington and Twitch.
Going home: Jessica and Thayne.

(NOTE: Due to a staggering lack of home internet connectivity, no Who’s Who entry this week. Sorry.)

The problem with having Napoleon and Tabitha as judges is that apparently the only other hip-hop choreographers available to SYTYCD right now are Cicely and Alyssa. This is problematic, because Cicely and Olisa’s specialty is a subsection of hip-hop popularly known as “shitty.”

Jessica and Will: Jive followed by jazz. The theme of this week’s judging of Will is “you’re just too good for Jessica.” Jessica gets buried by the judges and takes all the blame for her and Will’s mediocre jive routine, which is dramatically unfair because he was struggling just as much as she was. This is not to say that Jessica is great shakes; she’s arguably one of the weakest female dancers remaining. But that fact doesn’t mean Will is being held down by her; he’s just not as great as the judges keep pretending he is.

The jazz routine with the shirt is better (albeit still somewhat laboured), but the judges fall over themselves praising Will’s technique and carefully ignore the fact that his performance with Jessica was kind of bland; it was very much a “do the moves right” sort of performance, with very little connection or chemistry. Still, that is about as great as Will and Jessica ever seem to manage. SO HOORAY FOR WILL (but not Jessica).

Comfort and Thayne: Broadway and smooth waltz. The good news: somebody other than Tyce-fucking-Diorio doing choreo for “Broadway” style. The bad news: it still kind of sucked. Comfort is a one-trick pony and Thayne isn’t good enough to cover for her. Still, the judges give them both a reasonably nice judgement, mostly I suspect because they want Comfort to stick around until top 10.

The smooth waltz, though, was honestly pretty decent. Thayne’s hands were kind of all over the place, but his lines were decent and he led Comfort well enough. Comfort did not screw up and was entirely tolerable.

Kourtni and Matt: hip-hop and mambo. Nigel really doesn’t like Matt much, do he? Because in the hip-hop (which was barely a pop number, but oh well – btw, Cicely and Olisa are terrible) Matt was easily the better of the two, what with actually being on time and all. But every judge criticized Matt to death for not hitting the beats hard enough, while Kourtni was doing her best impression of Mr. Heavyfoot or something and got mostly ignored. With a better partner Matt would have been fine.

The mambo was genuinely good; a bit laboured in places, but what do you expect, it’s Alex da Silva, who gets off on creating insanely difficult choreo that untrained dancers will have an insanely difficult tie with. (I firmly believe he is genuinely an asshole.) The judges got nitpicky and went to the “no chemistry” well, which is a fair comment because Matt and Kourtni don’t have chemistry, and gee whiz sometimes that happens. This is the flaw in the “stick with partners for the first half” model the show follows. But what are Matt and Kourtni supposed to do, go to the Chemistry Store and ask for a half-litre of chemistry each? They’re a bad pairing and they’re suffering for it.

Chelsie and Mark: jazz and foxtrot. Mark’s really starting to remind me quite a bit of Rhys from SYTCTD Australia in that he’s a weirdo who can do just about anything really well. The jazz routine was excellent; he and Chelsie complimented each other nicely and it was just generally fun and exciting.

The foxtrot was a bit tougher for them; were this a first-week performance I think the judges would have creamed their pants, because really the only flaw was that it failed the Foxtrot Test of appearing completely effortless. You could see the strings, so to speak, and just as much on Chelsie as on Mark. Still, it was fine.

Kherington and Twitch: paso doble and contemporary. Well, this was a great week for Kherington, as she overcame her two biggest criticisms in one night: first, by dancing in heels and doing so splendidly (there is a conspiracy theory over on – you’ll be shocked here – the TWOP forums that Kherington can’t dance in heels) and secondly by not having a big fake smile for her performances.

Twitch got slammed for the first half of his paso doble, which isn’t entirely his fault because, come on, paired unison cape-swirling? Ugh. Once he got rid of the cape, he was actually able to enter into proper paso doble mode by pumping the macho up to 11 (seriously, that was some goddamned manly paso doble in the old-school “looks like he’s about to grab his woman and throw her across the room just to show her her place” way). And the Mia Michaels was a Mia Michaels in the good way.

Katee and Joshua: contemporary and West Coast swing. On the other hand, this Mia Michaels started to veer a little bit into Bad Mia Michaels – when she’s on, she’s on, but Mia Michaels does have a definite tendency to occasionally just choreo a bunch of hyperactive flailing and call it a routine. (See: Danny and Lauren last year.) But it only went that way a little, and there were a couple of moments of genius in it (Katee’s suspended “run” across the dancefloor was brilliant). And they were both quite good in it.

The West Coast swing was frankly pretty bad; this was no Pasha and Sara from last year, and Joshua in particular didn’t seem comfortable with it and Katee wouldn’t stop with that hideous grin. Still, Katee is probably the best of the girls overall and Joshua is Joshua and will do fine, and the judges lurve them, big duh.

Courtney and Gev: hip-hop and broadway. Gev took a lot of slack for not doing Cicely and Olisa’s routine well, which to me says he understood that the routine was terrible: the same boring, generic crap Cicely and Olisa always seem to come up with for this show. (How do they get work? Are they much better professionally and just slacking off for the routines here?) Courtney was fine doing the boring routine. P.S. Napoleon has no business complaining about anybody not being “ghetto” enough. Don “No Soul” Simmons is more ghetto than Napoleon is.

The Broadway was pretty fun; it’s no shame on Gev that he couldn’t quite imitate Gene Kelly because most people can’t. And that’s all I’ve got to say about that.

Bottom three: Matt and Kourtni, Jessica and Will, Comfort and Thayne.
Going home: Jessica and Matt.

Dear god: please give Mary Murphy laryngitis forever and ever. Thank you in advance.

Kherington and Twitch: hip-hop. Passable, although as usual Kherington’s problems (most notably the Smile That Never Goes Away and more than one or two points where she just wasn’t hitting the beats hard enough) are glossed over in favour of Twitch’s plusses (which are, in fairness, pretty damned enormous). Not Tabitha and Napoleon’s best routine, either; they’re much better on the lyrical side of hip-hop than the street side of it, to say the least. (I think Shane Sparks or Dave Scott would have ripped this routine apart.) But passable, and Twitch remains excellent, and that’s all that matters.

Courtney and Gev: rumba. Firstly: whoa, that was a dress. Secondly, this is the third week in a row where Courtney and Gev’s obvious and excellent chemistry livened up a relatively straightforward and uninteresting routine; large chunks of this thing seemed to be run through at half-speed, like they were saving up energy for the really big tricks (which were excellent). There’s a limit to the amount of “stately” I can handle in one routine, and this one came up right against that limit. But it wasn’t bad. Then Adam Shankman makes the mistake of giving intelligent, constructive criticism and Nigel and Mary get bored with it because he’s not telling jokes or shrieking or anything.

Comfort and Chris: jazz. Firstly, Tyce Diorio’s “African jazz” routines are about as African as I am. (Which, since my father is South African by birth, means “not a whole lot.”) Secondly, this is the second routine in two weeks where Comfort and Chris needed to hit every beat with full force, and the second time where they did not do that, not even close. Interestingly, Chris was better than Comfort this time, and I think the novelty of Comfort being a talented female hip-hopper with very little ability to extend that talent is about gone now. So: bad routine plus bad dancing. Bottom three, no chance they’re not.

Jessica and Will: disco. The curse of Doriana Sanchez continues, because Doriana Sanchez knows what a disco routine needs: endless, endless lifts! She managed to wait a whole minute this time before going to a chain of momentum-sucking lifts (four in a row, for crissake), and it’s a shame because somewhere in there was a really, really good disco routine; what happened to first-season Doriana Sanchez, who understood that part of the fun of a good disco routine is doing the cheesy, fun handwork with pride? Anyway, this is the third week in a row where Will and Jessica have gotten a complete blowjob from the judges, and the third week in a row I’m hardpressed to call it anything better than passable. Jessica can’t keep up and Will is far sloppier than the judges are willing to admit.

Kourtni and Matt: contemporary. Hey, two contemporary dancers doing a contemporary routine! I wonder if they can do a good job of that. Sonya Tayeh gives them a routine where they flirt with one another, and it’s automatically an uphill struggle because Matt is either gay or really, really weird. (I’m not sure which yet, but I’m leaning towards the latter.) Anyway, it’s a fun, odd number, and they’re wearing ugly clothes, and mostly the judges talk about the clothes, because they are ugly, and because giving Kourtni and Matt compliments might be nice but it’s not like either of them are winning this thing and everybody knows it. Really, it’s hard to comment on their routines, because Kourtni and Matt are just marking time till they go home. It might be a while, but it’ll happen eventually.

Also, Matt has a HUGE NOSE.

Chelsea and Thayne: quickstep. “Hey, America! Here’s a thing about Thayne America doesn’t know: he’s gay.” (Oh, come on, you were thinking it too.) Anyway, this week they have the quickstep, and they laugh and laugh at the ballroom tradition of “having a given frame within which to dance,” because it’s so strange and odd to them! Look, if for some reason I was a contemporary dancer selected to appear on this show, I would spend the entire goddamn three months in between selection and the first show doing crash ballroom training and nothing more; quickstep and salsa and cha-cha-cha are only difficult if you don’t have any practice in them at all. Master the fundamentals and your lyrical training can handle the tricks, kids!

Anyway, their choreographer is some very white lady I have never seen before. How white is she? She sets their routine to Phil Collins. That is how white she is. Whatever, it sucked bag and they’re bottom three most likely. Mary goes to extreme lengths to keep her retarded Hot Tamale Train metaphor alive. THE METAPHOR IS A ZOMBIE NOW.

Chelsie and Mark: lyrical hip-hop. Really, really good. More lyrical than hip-hop, to be honest, but so what. I have trouble finding things to say about this; that’s how good it was. No, wait, here’s something: Chelsie is dancing up to Mark’s level now! Which is pretty damned impressive, all things considered. Hm. What else can I say about this routine? “Tabitha is hot and Napoleon is lucky,” maybe, but that’s not strictly about the routine. Still, I suppose it will have to do.

Katee and Joshua: samba. This was fantastic. They raved about Joshua, and rightly (although I do wish they’d stop pretending he’s just some breaker off the street; he’s got contemporary training at least and possibly some ballroom as well), but Katee is one of the strongest girls in the competition this year and she absolutely fucking owned this piece. Great Latin dance demands a passionate performance, and Joshua and Katee skillfully made it look like they wanted to fuck on the dancefloor through the whole piece without ever being tawdry. And then Nigel demands to see Joshua’s father’s ass, just to see if it is genetic, because that’s exactly what a piece of this calibre deserved to be associated with.

Bottom three: Comfort and Chris, Chelsea and Thayne, Kourtni and Matt.
Going home: Chelsea and Chris.

Cat Deeley is awesome.

Chelsea and Thayne: “jazz” (contemporary). Predictably, the judges praise Mandy Moore because on the American SYTYCD it is almost never the choreographer’s fault when a routine is bad. Except this time it very clearly was; Mandy Moore took an exciting piece of music and choreographed a lot of stately walking to it. Chelsea and Thayne did their best with it, and got shit on. (Thayne in trouble has problems dancing in the strong, masculine style expected on this show; it’s just not his forte. Which is fine, but if you’re going to be gay on this show, you’ve got to be able to hide it, or the teenaged girls won’t vote for you.) It sucked. Potential bottom three.

Chelsie and Mark: Argentine tango. Excellent, intricate work here; Mark in particular deserves mention for exquisite partnering. Chelsie was perhaps a bit standoffish at points, but Mark made up for it fantastically. Arguably the best tango on this show, ever. (Which, in fairness, forces one to consider that previous tangoes on this show have been, at best, a mixed bag.)

Jessica and Will: hip-hop. Will did a serviceable job here this week, much better than last week – which, the judges’ insistence otherwise, was fucking horrible – and Jessica was mediocre at best, hitting most of the moves reasonably well but continually a beat behind Will, who was perfectly on time. That having been said, although I think Will is decent, I don’t understand the judges’ need to keep giving him fucking verbal blowjobs; he hasn’t particularly demonstrated anything so far to show that he’s more than just a good contemporary dancer who can cross genres acceptably. I’m not saying he’s not potentially better than he appears; I think he very well could be. But he hasn’t done it, and it’s annoying to see Nigel prematurely blather on about him being a lock for the top 4 when he has yet to deliver an honest-to-god killer performance.

Kourtni and Matt: foxtrot. Foxtrot is one of the tougher nuts on this show. Kourtni and Matt did an okay job, but nothing particularly memorable, and certainly not effortlessly classy in the way a good foxtrot needs to be. You could see the cracks, in other words; Kourtni especially seems to be trying all the time, and that’s not good. Matt is the most boring human being alive. Potential bottom three.

Courtney and Gev: contemporary. This was a nice little routine, although I suspect Gev’s early role was toned down a bit considering he just mostly lay around for the first twenty seconds or so. The judges were a bit unfair, but apparently this year they’ve decided on favorites early on. This was fine, a Perfectly Acceptable Bit of Dancing.

Katee and Joshua: Broadway. The judges all came in their pants, and I don’t get it; this was an incredibly hyperactive routine from Tyce Diorio (wait, Tyce Diorio choreograph a routine like he has ADD? I am shocked) and they performed it well enough, but just because it was reminscent of Nigel’s youth doesn’t make it a showstopper. Joshua gets mad props and pimping from the judges especially, which makes no sense; the musical theatre style this show calls “Broadway” is one of the easier routines for any good dancer to morph into, and last week Joshua had hip-hop, his specialty. I’m not saying Joshua isn’t good, I’m just saying maybe the guy could dance in something dramatically opposed to his niche before the fellating begins, is that too much to ask?

Susie and Marquis: salsa. Firstly, Alex da Silva is an asshole; street salsa is “real salsa,” not the overproduced ballroom routines he invents. So fuck you, Alex da Silva. That having been said, this was absolutely terrible. I think Susie took way too much flak for the laboured turns; I’ve danced a fair amount of salsa myself and believe me when I say that if a turn is bad, more often than not it’s because the guy is wrenching the girl’s arms the wrong way and she’s trying to compensate without breaking her wrist. But she wasn’t dancing in her hips, either, and you need that in salsa. Marquis is simply terrible and needs to go home; Susie is fairly limited and after the judges’ crusade against her will likely go home tonight. Likely bottom three.

Kherrington and Twitch: “Viennese waltz” (contemporary/waltz hybrid). Okay, so two dancers, dressed all in flowing white, dancing a contemporary waltz routine to a 3/3 time Celine Dion song while barefoot? Where have I seen that before? And it was better that time. Of course, in fairness, Kherrington and Twitch did an excellent job with this as well, both dancing very well; Twitch’s footwork was perhaps at one or two moments a bit clumsy, but he covered it very well and his lines were excellent, and Kherrington’s smile might not be entirely organic but it didn’t jar with the routine, and they partner together very, very organically. And the routine was excellent. Canada (thanks to Jean-Marc Genereux) representin’.

Comfort and Chris: krump. This show seriously needs to give up on krump already; it just doesn’t air on TV well, Like, not at all. Every krump routine they do just sits there and sucks, sucks, sucks; even moreso than quick step, krump has become the ultimate kiss of death on this show. I mean, they’ve had L’il C, one of the inventors of krump, come on the show and stink up the joint with an uninspired performance, and I’ve seen Rize and I know krump can be visually exciting, but it needs to be in-your-face in a way that TV cameras just can’t manage. This was no exception; Comfort held back so as not to make Chris look completely pathetic (which he was, but it’s krump, I can’t blame him) and as a result hamstrung herself. Possible dark horse for bottom three.

Bottom three couples: Susie and Marquis, Chelsea and Thayne, Kourtni and Matt.
Going home: Susie and Marquis.

No doubt some of you wish I would shut up about this show, but tough.

Rayven and Jaime: hip-hop. First routine can be tough, but then again Benji and Donyelle got first routine in season 2 and it established their dominance of the show right from the get-go. Rayven and Jaime… do not do that. The judges are being nice tonight, because they always try to be complimentary on the first actual competition episode, but this wasn’t that great; the unison the routine needed just wasn’t there and when they needed to hit a move hard (which wasn’t all of them – Napoleon and Tabitha have a smoother style than, say, the average Shane Sparks number), they didn’t always do it. Still, they both danced with a good deal of enthusiasm. Potential bottom three.

Susie and Marquis: smooth waltz. Smooth waltz needs to be dreamlike; this was practically the opposite of that, with Marquis particularly struggling through even basic footwork. The judges gave it a tonguebath of highly unreasonable proportion, but used the codeword of “so difficult” over and over again to quietly tell the dancers that they were getting first-week props and nothing more. Marquis’s lines were good whenever he extended outward, but when he was, you know, doing steps, this was pretty goddamned clunky.

Kourtni and Matt: jazz. First solidly entertaining routine of the night, cutely done up in black leather ensembles and acting tough. Matt’s probably a bit of a better dancer than Kourtni is; Kourtni is a better performer than Matt is. Good complementary pair; no idea how far they go. I have nothing further to say.

Chelsea and Thayne: cha-cha-cha. The judges gave Thayne all sorts of “you kept up with her” compliments which, to be fair, he only barely managed to do. Chelsea was fantastic in this, oozing personality and flavour. The dance was sold as being extremely difficult, which – look, it wasn’t even the most difficult cha-cha-cha routine ever performed on this show let alone “of all time.” It was a pretty medium-level routine with a few clever tricks. But Chelsea owned it, which is the most important thing.

Chelsie and Mark: contemporary. A Mia Michaels routine on the first show? They liked one of these dancers a whole lot in advance; Mia routines usually almost guarantee an advance to the next round. (Yes, her hippieseque blather and occasional fits of self-righteousness can really make me grind my teeth, but almost all of her routines are spectacular.) Anyway, this was fantastic, as much for the choreography as it was for the dancers’ skill. Mark was better, but he’s a contemporary dancer so that’s to be expected; Chelsie was fine.

Twitch and Kherington: Broadway. “Twitchington?” Oh, Twitch Twitch Twitch, you let your fans come up with the diptych name, you don’t do it for them! But this was thoroughly excellent, and Twitch and Kherington have obvious chemistry as partners (not just “doin’ it” chemistry, but obvious connection to one another as dancers). Kherington impressed me particularly for finally showing off skill and personality I didn’t quite get in the audition episodes. And Twitch is of course Twitch – whatever Nigel Lythgoe might say about there not being front-runners this season, that’s bull, because Twitch is the front-runner and absolutely everybody knows it, and he deserves to be.

Comfort and Chris: jive. Okay, but not A+ fantastic or anything; they didn’t miss any steps or screw anything up, and they partnered well together, but the routine lacked the snap that a good jive routine has; I especially note that on the kicks they weren’t extending their legs nearly as much as you expect when seeing a really top-quality jive. Some of this can probably be attributed to Comfort’s injury and the nature of most choreographers to take it easy on the first week.

Katee and Joshua: hip-hop. It’s always cool when the judges are honestly blown away by a great performance, rather than simply giving obligatory comments, and this was the first time in competition this year that it’s happened, and it was wholly deserved; easily the routine of the night, marrying the energy of a great hip-hop routine with the storytelling you’d expect more from a lyrical piece. And the unison moves were spot-on. And Katee’s solo lived up to Joshua’s (and given that he’s a fantastic hip-hop dancer and she’s not, that’s amazing). And Joshua made it all look easy, which of course it was not. Amazing work.

Jessica and Will: tango. Blaaaaaaaaaand. No fire. Needed a lot more and didn’t have it. Technically, the two of them danced just fine. But the chemistry just wasn’t there for me; good tangoes make the dancers look hungry for one another right there on stage and this, well. This looked like two people thrown together a week ago and given time to practice. Which is what it of course was, but that’s no excuse.

Courtney and Gev: disco. The disco routines on this show are fan favorites, which is weird because there honestly hasn’t been a good disco routine on So You Think You Can Dance since the first season, when there were three and they were all show-stoppers. Ever since then, Doriana Sanchez has come back every season and thrown mediocre disco routine after mediocre disco routine at hapless dancers who would probably like to dance, you know, something good, but no, we get endless Doriana routines with incongruous lifts in place of any musicality or rhythm, because we have to pretend she didn’t peak in the first season or something like that. Nigel Lythgoe savaged these two, which is weird because they did a passable job of turning the boring routine into something watchable.

Predicted bottom three couples: Rayven and Jaime, Susie and Marquis, Courtney and Gev.
Going home: Rayven and Marquis.

Yeah, I know this is kind of beating a dead horse, but – Australia’s So You Think You Can Dance instantly was the best season of an already top-class reality competition show.

Also, it is my blog, so nyah.