My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

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).

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

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.

Obviously, this post is a few days late; what can I say, I spent the weekend at CONvergence (a Twin Cities-based sci-fi convention) and am just now recovered enough to think about posting something. I still haven’t thought of anything particularly impressive, though, so I’m just going to be lazy and throw out a few books that I think would make great movies. (Or, at least, could. Let’s face it; everyone thought there was a good movie in I, Robot, and nobody thought there was a good one in Who Censored Roger Rabbit?)

1. Phule’s Company. I’ve actually blogged about this one on my own blog, Fraggmented, but it’s been a while and it does belong here. It’s a scenario tailor-made for Hollywood; a band of misfit soldiers and failures gets taken over by an eccentric billionaire officer and becomes one of the elite fighting units of the Galactic Legion. David Tennant would make an absolutely perfect Phule, and there’s sequels ready-made (although the book series goes rapidly downhill once Aspirin stops writing the books himself.)

2. Those Who Hunt the Night. This Barbara Hambly novel would make an awesome movie; it’s got vampires and spies, and the Victorian era is something that it’s really easy to make good by throwing just a little bit of money at. Basically, think “Sherlock Holmes” in terms of design sense, and add in vampires.

3. World War Z. Yes, I know they’re working on it. WORK FASTER. I want to see soldiers battling zombies in an epic battle for the fate of the world, and I want to see it now. Screw “Walking Dead”, this is the zombie story America is waiting for.

4. Magic Kingdom For Sale Sold! Some people might prefer Terry Brooks’ Shannara series, but I always found them to be fairly bland fantasy, and bland “epic” fantasy at that. Nothing like a movie that needs to film in seventy-two different locations because someone had to transcribe every random encounter from their campaign notes. Magic Kingdom has a lot more personality, a smarter hook, and a strong ending to boot.

5. Undead and Unwed. Oh, look! More vampires! But this is as far away from Those Who Hunt the Night as it’s possible to get: It’s a smart, silly action/comedy/romance along the lines of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, with a vampire Chosen One named Betsy who doesn’t take the vampire “rules” seriously. And yet, it’s nowhere near as irritating and sucky as Twilight. You could even film it in the Twin Cities (where it’s set, and where author Mary Janice Davidson lives.)

Those are five of mine, but there are plenty more; feel free to add yours in the comments section!

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

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.

My weekly TV column (most of which I wrote on Friday) is up at Torontoist.

There might not be any updates from me for a bit, because I am incredibly sick right now; I was coughing and had a sore throat ever since Friday afternoon, and got gradually worse over the weekend (and being absolutely soaked to the bone in Sunday’s downpour probably didn’t help), and I think I was running mostly on adrenalin, and now that that’s over I’m crashing hard. I’ve got a little work to do on a final G20 policy results post for Torontoist, but in the meantime if people are bored they can always read my G20 coverage – particularly the last column, which I think is the best of the lot, even if they didn’t let me call it what I originally planned to call it, which was “Fuck Everybody.”

And now – lozenges.

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.

FLAPJACKS: Why are you watching Wheel of Fortune? This show sucks.
ME: I’m killing time in between games. It’s on the CBC for some reason. I don’t want to get up and change channels. I’ve got a laptop here, why do I need to get up and change channels?
FLAPJACKS: I mean, look at this guy spinning the wheel. You can tell this is the absolute peak of his life. In fifty years he will tell everybody about the time he went to Vegas and fucked a hooker, and the time he was on Wheel of Fortune.
ME: Three words. It’s an event.
FLAPJACKS: He’s got the S, and the C, and the L – “children’s music class?” That counts as an event?
ME: It does on this show.
FLAPJACKS: …he just bought all the vowels.
ME: Yes.
FLAPJACKS: In a row.
ME: Yes.
FLAPJACKS: NO YOU STUPID DUMBASS WHY WOULD YOU ASK FOR A “T”?
ME: Well, it is the most common –
FLAPJACKS: No no no don’t do that. “Music class” was already entirely solved. All he needed to do was figure out what began with “C” and ended with “N” before the apostrophe. Somehow this dipshit must have figured there was a T in there. “Chumpstain’s music class.”
ME: “Cranston’s music class.”
FLAPJACKS: “Chaplain’s music class.”
ME: That one doesn’t have a T in it.
FLAPJACKS: Neither does “children” and yet somehow he asked for a T. I’m pretty sure this guy is the stupidest person ever. They probably edited out the part where for his very first letter he asked for “Q” and Pat Sajak took a few minutes to explain that maybe he would like to pick a different letter.
ME: And now that there is no T, of course, Shwanda gets a spin.
FLAPJACKS: This show is so white trash. They get two midwestern white people who are so white they white white the white, and the black person? Is named “Shwanda.” That is like the ultimate White Person Imagines A Black Person’s Name For Laffs name.
ME: Yes, but Shwanda isn’t that imaginary black person. She’s apparently a working professional academic.
FLAPJACKS: I bet she actually applied for Jeopardy! and then the Wheel of Fortune people were all “crap, we need some black contestants, we’re short this month” and they went over to the Jeopardy! applications and saw “Shwanda” in the pile and thought they had struck gold. And then she shows up and they are all “…oh, well.”
ME: Shwanda just spun a “lose a turn” spin.
FLAPJACKS: That’s another reason this show sucks. Sometimes you just get fucked and it’s not your fault in any possible way. This show is entirely about dumb luck.
ME: As if to prove your point, the stereotypical midwestern mom just spun the eeny-weeny million dollar prize spin.
FLAPJACKS: That means she gets a million dollars?
ME: I think she has to solve the puzzle, first.
FLAPJACKS: Well, she’s successfully figured out “children’s music class.” Given that there were two letters left, not hard.
ME: And now she gets to start the next puzzle. I guess she has to win the show to win the million dollars.
FLAPJACKS: “Around the house” is the category. I have no idea yet.
ME: Something something “beach towels,” judging by housewife’s first four letters.
FLAPJACKS: When does Shwanda get another turn?
ME: Not until the housewife misses a letter or spins badly.
FLAPJACKS: This is bullshit. I demand justice for Shwanda.
ME: Yeah, well, it’s pretty obvious that the housewife has figured out that it is “fluffy plush beach towels,” given that she just named F when she got $3500 per letter.
FLAPJACKS: And now she’s buying vowels again. Why is she buying fucking vowels? She already knows the answer. She is literally just giving the money she has already won back to the show. “No, no, you and Vanna do such hard work, Pat. You should keep some of it.”
ME: Ben Stein wouldn’t let anybody give him back the money. That’s because Ben Stein is ballin’ and Pat and Vanna are still pretending it’s the Eighties.
FLAPJACKS: Vanna doesn’t even turn letters any more. She just walks in front of the screens where the letters are and kind of waves at them. I feel sad for her in a way. She was never exactly useful, but now she’s even less useful because she’s not even eye candy any more.
ME: Come now. It’s a lot of hard work to play straight man to Pat Sajak for the thirty seconds a day where she has to talk to him. I’m pretty sure I would stab him in the eye after about ten seconds of his patter. You can see that Vanna’s suppressing the urge to kill whenever they’re close together. She can do it because she has experience.
FLAPJACKS: Okay, so the housewife wins the show. Does she get the million dollars now?
ME: …it looks like she has to solve a final puzzle.
FLAPJACKS: And then she gets the million dollars?
ME: No, apparently the million dollars gets put in a second wheel and she spins that wheel and gets that prize if she solves the final puzzle.
FLAPJACKS: Okay, this is even bullshittier. Seriously, what is the point of the million dollar prize? “You have a tiny chance to win an equally tiny chance to win this prize, but only if you solve a puzzle first!” Has anybody ever won the million dollar prize?
ME: Wikipedia says yes.
FLAPJACKS: I bet they killed that person afterwards just so they could continue to make this show. This is a show where they used to charge $400 for a fucking blender. Wheel of Fortune is the cheapest, most skinflint show ever. I bet whenever the Jeopardy! people run into the Wheel of Fortune people on the lot, they look down their noses at them.
ME: As is right and proper. The Jeopardy! people haven’t forgiven them for stealing away Shwanda.

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

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. [↩]

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.