My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

Your guest judges are Blake and Luther, which just feels less special somehow. Tonight we have one hour of show, because CTV sucks ass in ways I cannot begin to describe.

Melanie and Vincent: paso doble. This was extremely strong: Melanie is really good at just about everything and so is Vincent and predictably they nailed this absolutely mad-on. Natalli and Francis are show choreographers now! Woo for them. There is not much to say here because there is absolutely nothing to complain about at all.

Kim’s solo: Not her best; not bad, but not nearly so cool as previous ones.

Everett’s solo: The tap novelty wore off a long time ago and this felt self-congratulatory.

Amy and Cody: contemporary. This honestly wasn’t bad at all, but the judges were down on it, giving Cody the “you’re a hard worker” death-by-compliment and just telling Amy flat out she wasn’t good enough in it. Which, to be honest, I didn’t get: I thought their sync portions were dead on and I thought Cody’s partnering in particular was really impressive, but Amy’s character work was really heartfelt for me. But it’s not like I agree with the judges all the time or anything.

Jayme Rae’s solo: Hip-hop rather than contemporary, which would be a bold move if it weren’t for the fact that Jayme Rae is well proven as a sick, sick hip-hop dancer.

Austin’s solo: Probably the first solo he’s done where his tricks blended into the routine as a whole rather than just being showy stunts that hurt the flow, and thus his best one yet.

Tara-Jean and Emanuel: samba. Hey, a TonyNMelanie ™ routine that I actually liked for once! That sets their streak at one. Emanuel and Tara-Jean were both actually pretty strong in this, although neither one really worked the shoulder rolling necessary to make the samba really work at 100%. (Blake called Emanuel out on it a bit, but Tara-Jean was about as weak at it as he.) However, both worked the hip action necessary for the samba, and the hip movement is much more crucial to get that proper Latin feel than the shoulder rolls are: they both sat down a bit into their movements, not so much to become parodic but exactly the right amount. They also partnered each other well. This was much better than I expected.

Amy’s solo: Not up to her usual standard; she seemed a bit desperate, which is understandable given her recent panning. Seemed to be going to the Standard Contempo-Well O’ Tricks.

Cody’s solo: Probably the strongest one yet from him: fluid and funky, graceful without losing his gritty hardcore centre. Genuinely impressive.

Amy and Everett: jazz. The judges were raving and I don’t see it at all. I mean, the idea is fine, the choreo was fine, the dancing was fine (Amy much more than Everett, but he certainly wasn’t bad) – but this routine just left me cold and didn’t grab me at all. I just didn’t feel connected to it as a viewer: it felt forced to me in a way I have trouble describing. I’ll have to watch it again to see if I missed something (or a bunch of things); sometimes it takes a second viewing, but I dunno.

Melanie’s solo: Weak sauce.

Vincent’s solo: The same six moves he always does, which given that he’s a ballroom dancer is forgivable, but… yeah.

Jayme-Rae and Austin: hip-hop. Jayme-Rae killed this, but Austin was mostly ahead of the beat, and the unison was so important to the choreo that a lot of the spark got drained out because Austin was off-time (and looked cheerleaderish as a result). Could have been great; was mediocre, and that’s almost entirely on Austin.

Tara-Jean’s solo: Zzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Emanuel’s solo: Lots of jumping around and OH GOD IT IS LAST YEAR’S EMANUEL COME BACK TO DOUCHE IT UP SUDDENLY

Should go home: Amy and Austin.
Will go home: Amy and Cody.

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

I’ve also done another of those “hey look at these comments” posts , this time about David Miller announcing he won’t run for a third term as Mayor of Toronto.

And if you haven’t read this Leonard Pierce special, you should.

ONE

ME: And we have teams!
FLAPJACKS: Harlem Globetrotters!
ME: Christian country singers!
FLAPJACKS: Christian gay brothers!
ME: Christians dating since they were little kids!
FLAPJACKS: Did they say they were Christians?
ME: They met during a game of tetherball. Jesus played tetherball.
FLAPJACKS: I don’t think that’s quite right.
ME: I was raised Catholic. Don’t question me on these matters.
FLAPJACKS: There’s a team where one guy has Asperger’s!
ME: Lovable movie Asperger’s or real-life Asperger’s?
FLAPJACKS: Maybe he is like Bones on Bones.
ME: Bodybuilders!
FLAPJACKS: Who are also lawyers. Trial lawyers. Man, you need to bulk up if that is the standard for trial lawyers now. He could rip you in half.

TWO

ME: Whoa! One team doesn’t even get to do the Race if they can’t find a license plate?
FLAPJACKS: That is a DICK MOVE.
ME: That is a total dick move. But in keeping with the spirit of the Race,
FLAPJACKS: Explain.
ME: The Race has no pity for a bad taxi, no sympathy for a missed flight. The Race only cares about speed and ability. You cannot talk yourself out of elimination. The Race is Darwinism as applied to reality television.
FLAPJACKS: That doesn’t explain all the Christians.
ME: Whoa, we’re down to the hulked-out lawyers and the hippie yoga teachers!
FLAPJACKS: Sadly, the result seems rather predictable.

THREE

ME: And we’re off to Japan.
FLAPJACKS: I love that the Harlem Globetrotters aren’t “Dan and Steve,” but rather “Flight Time and Big Easy.” If I ever go on the Amazing Race I will totally demand that my chryon say “Flapjacks.”
ME: Who would your partner be?
FLAPJACKS: What, you wouldn’t be willing?
ME: I think I’d rather race with a woman.
FLAPJACKS: I could wear a dress.
ME: A woman much hotter than me, who is also female.
FLAPJACKS: That seems unrealistic.
ME: Yeah, well, so is me getting my American citizenship.
FLAPJACKS: Touche.

FOUR

FLAPJACKS: Team Gay Brothers has a secret plan. They will let female teams flirt with them and think that it is helpful, but in reality it will not be. This is the stupidest plan ever.
ME: Every plan involving inter-team manipulation on the Amazing Race is the stupidest plan ever. It has never worked ever in the history of time, but twenty thousand years from now when teams are lining up for jet-pack trips, they will still all be “Kylie-9 and I will use our pheromone generator matrix to make Bobby-7 and Bobby-8 think we are hot for them so they will help us.”
FLAPJACKS: Shame that Bobby-7 and Bobby-8 are eliminated in the third leg when PH1L, the omnicomputer host, destroys their spacecraft with a gamma laser.

FIVE

ME: Stereotypical Japanese game show.
FLAPJACKS: Because as Westerners we know that the Japanese do nothing but go to offices and watch fucking weird game shows. That is their entire culture.
ME: You forgot about “writing rape manga.”
FLAPJACKS: They do that while they’re at the offices. They have to do something.
ME: Aaaaand the Race has determined that the other thing Japanese people do is eat sushi and wasabi.
FLAPJACKS: HEY EVERYBODY IT’S CULTURAL!

SIX

ME: I wonder how long it will take me to get tired of hearing “Sweet Georgia Brown” this season.
FLAPJACKS: I would imagine long, long after I get tired of hearing Asperger Guy’s squeaky voice. He is nothing like Bones!
ME: Or Hulk Lawyer go YEAAAAAH!
FLAPJACKS: Or GO GO GO GO!
ME: So we’ve pretty much decided that we hate Hulk Lawyer already, right?
FLAPJACKS: Oh yes. Based on less than five minutes of television exposure, I am already positive that he is the Devil.
ME: He’s too lame to be the devil. Maybe he is the Spawn of Hasslehoff.

SEVEN

ME: So Team Gay Brothers is lying to Team Poker Players about not being gay, and Team Poker Players have convinced Team Gay Brothers that they are actually passionate charity workers.
FLAPJACKS: I wish they would realize that their elaborate plan involves helping one another under false pretenses, which is exactly the same as helping each other and being open and honest.
ME: It’s not their fault that they didn’t get to be on Survivor.

EIGHT

FLAPJACKS: And now, having finished with Japan because they have done everything possible while in Japan, they go to Vietnam. Presumably they will get involved in the child sex trade,
ME: That’s Thailand.
FLAPJACKS: I’m positive that Vietnam has its own child hookers. They just don’t advertise it like Thailand does. If Thailand is the Wal-Mart of child hookers, then Vietnam is, like, the Costco or something.
ME: I’m absolutely sure that that was a horrible thing to say.
FLAPJACKS: I’m just wondering what country is the Target of child hookers.

NINE

ME: The Harlem Globetrotters are pissed that the poker players lied about being poker players.
FLAPJACKS: Well, DUH. They’re poker players. They play a game that is all about lying and memorizing a series of odds, and the memorizing thing isn’t going to help much unless there’s a really specific challenge. Are the poker players going to get angry when the Harlem Globetrotters are successful because they’re very tall?
ME: You would.
FLAPJACKS: Well, fuck them for being tall.
ME: You’re six three!
FLAPJACKS: But they’re taller and so I hate them forever.
ME: I’m five eleven and I don’t hate them for being tall.
FLAPJACKS: No, you hate them for being trim and fit.

TEN

ME: You know, if I had a hot girlfriend and I was considering marrying her, the first word I would use when describing her good qualities would not be “loyal.” That’s something you use to describe your dog, not a potential wife-to-be.
FLAPJACKS: It would be “patient.” Or maybe “understanding.”
ME: Had to go there, didn’t you?
FLAPJACKS: Oh! Oh! “Blind!”

LIKED

– Glee continues to impress, but here is the weird thing: in the United States it is doing slightly sub-average numbers, but in Canada it is a runaway hit getting a boffo huge audience. Someone has to explain how that works, beyond the simple and obvious truth that we clearly have better taste in teevee than you Yankees do.

– I don’t generally say much about them because they’re consistently good without being particularly showy about it, but anyway: Nova and Guardians of the Galaxy and War of Kings and all the other Marvel “cosmic” comics books are excellent. It’s just worth saying, because these books don’t get the praise that Iron Fist or Hercules (rightly) get, but Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning are writing the best outer-space superhero books since – well, their run on Legion of Super-Heroes. (Meanwhile, over at DC, they’ve given the “cosmic” franchise mostly to Jim Starlin, and that is… Not Working Out.)

DID NOT LIKE

– I finally played Hannibal: Rome vs. Carthage and do not understand the mega-high BGG rating it has. First off, given that it’s a total redesign, it would have been nice if they had bothered to come up with a better way to handle armies than the old-school “let’s stack counters in a precarious, easy-to-topple stack” design. (Also, although I can appreciate the spirit and artistry of a die with Carthaginian numbers on it, in practice it is completely stupid.) More importantly, though, the game hinges around the battles, and the battle system is entirely too random for my tastes: even drawing mass numbers of battle cards, too many battles were lost after one or two piddling exchanges. Put this in the “a bunch of 50-year-olds were feeling nostalgic for a mediocre game” category.

So I am watching The Good Wife which is a TV show that is all “what if a cheating politician’s wife had to be a lawyer and defend innocent people from the electric chair?” (Except that that’s not quite right because she is not defending from the electric chair. If lawyers had to do that nobody would ever be a lawyer.) And I am thinking “that’s good, but I bet I can make it better.” Like, what if the Good Wife, instead of having to be a lawyer, had to be a fireman? People like firemen! And she could fight fires and save kittens from trees. Do firemen still save kittens from trees, or is that something that never actually happened? I can never keep track.

Or wait, what if The Good Wife, instead of having to be a fireman or lawyer, had to be a cowboy? And she would herd cattle through New York City. I bet you could do that with computers. A long time ago I read this screenwriting book where they were saying that if you weren’t a star writer you couldn’t start off a screenplay with a thousand camels charging the camera, but now thanks to computers you can do that. Heck, you could probably do ten thousand camels. Or would that be too many camels? Is there really such a thing as too many camels?

I mean, I suppose if you’re in a zoo you could have too many camels, because all the other animals would have to share space with camels, and camels spit so the other animals would be in a bad mood. So would the zookeepers, probably. But then again, “too many camels” is a better problem to have than “too many lions.” The camels just spit. The lions would eat you. Hey, what if the Good Wife was a lion? Well. Lioness. But imagine this lioness defending criminals from the electric chair! Er, the criminals would go in the electric chair, not the lioness. I don’t think a lioness would fit in an electric chair. Maybe an electric couch.

Now, an electric couch, that seems like it would be more efficient for executing people than an electric chair. You could do ten at a time.

Anyway, so we’ve got the Good Wife who is now a lioness fireman. She eats the Dalmatian at the firehouse (all firehouses have Dalmatians, it’s a rule) and becomes their new mascot. Also she is a lawyer. Isn’t this a way better show already? Like, imagine an episode where the Good Wife and her fire brigade get called out to a fire, but the building is owned by a herd of antelope! What does she do? What does she do? Clearly, she goes and puts all the antelope on an electric couch, and then serves antelope steaks to the hungry firemen before telling her cheating ex-husband (who is a camel) that she’s stronger now that they’re apart.

See? My version is better.

Your guest judges are Mia “America’s Stacey Tookey” Michaels and Rex Harrington.

Tara-Jean and Everett: musical theatre (but actually tap). As impressed as I am that a tap routine – and really, this was just about entirely a tap routine – made it onto a So You Think You Can Dance stage, the partnering portions of this were sometimes weak, and I put that almost entirely on Everett, who’s clearly the lesser half of the pairing. He’s not bad, but he’s hit his level. However, the judges gave this a sloppy blowjob that one might expect of a Bollywood routine, and completely ignored the badly blown final spot where Everett nearly dropped Tara-Jean. So my guess is that even if they make bottom three, they’ll be safe.

Melanie and Cody: jazz. First Melissa Williams routine of the season that didn’t A) kinda suck or B) suck really bad. It only took till top 12! Anyway, even though the routine didn’t suck it was pretty generic, with a couple of awkward pauses (the couple of seconds they had to spend tying on a blindfold that only stayed on for another couple of moves was kind of excruciating). Melanie’s performance quality was amazing, but at this point anything less than “holy shit” from Melanie would be a disappointment. Cody was fine; he needs to be more than “fine” at this point because he’s been with Melanie so long that she is seriously outclassing him.

Corynne and Austin: salsa. Why do we need to import TonyandMelanie ™ when we have Gustavo Vargas, who is almost always better at Latin dance choreography? Answer: I dunno. Anyway, this was an epic clusterfuck, with the judges giving credit for a little hip-shaking on Corynne’s part and completely ignoring her lifting her feet way too high in the basic steps (it almost looked like she was marching at times) and giving Austin too many props for what was only a competent performance on his part. Mia actually nailed it when she called it “forced sexiness” – I kept thinking “my god, just because you wiggle your ass, it doesn’t mean you’re dancing proper salsa.”

Kim and Emanuel: hip-hop. Emanuel was better this week than he was back in top-20 when he and Kim did old-school hip-hop. Granted, that performance was terrible, so perhaps that is damning with faint praise. It was the sort of performance where you say “that was… good,” and you mean the word “good” but still, there is that little pause, you know? And the observant eye doesn’t miss that the most intricate parts of the routine had Kim literally performing in front of Emanuel. Kim, incidentally, murdered this, then dug it up and murdered it again.

Jayme-Rae and Daniel: contemporary. Not one of Blake’s best routines, I think. Ah, well, he was due for an off night. Other than that, there wasn’t much notable about this routine other than the judges’ willingness to throw Daniel under the “you’re such a hard worker but you didn’t quite do it” bus, considering he was better out of his style than most of the other boys tonight.

Amy and Vincent: jive. TonyandMelanie ™ serve up another dull jive. Have they ever choreographed a really good jive? I am trying to think of one and am coming up short. Both Vincent and Amy were fine, performancewise: it was a perfectly decent piece of work on both their parts at performing a perfectly dull routine. The judges tonguebathed it, though, so maybe they will survive.

Probable bottom three: Amy and Vincent, Corynne and Austin, Jayme-Rae and Daniel.
Should go home: Corynne and Austin.
Will go home: Corynne and Daniel.

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

Your guest judges this week are Dan “Best Judge In SYTYCD History Who Is Not Jason Coleman From Australia” Karaty and… Karen Kain? For reals? Holy shit.

Melanie and Cody: hip-hop. There isn’t too much to say here: this was fantastic, another example of how Luther Brown can choreo hip-hop without any need for elaborate stuntwork and still be better than just about anybody else. Melanie continues to be ridiculously good at almost everything. Cody was in his element and did not disappoint. Karen Kain starts off an entire evening of being absolutely goddamned awesome by admitting that she can’t accurately judge hip-hop technique, but then critiques them on their general physicality and presence absolutely brilliantly.

Amy and Vincent: cha-cha. Amy was a lot better this week than she was in her first week doing salsa. This is not to say that she danced it like a white girl, because she did, but at least she danced it like a skilled white girl rather than an awkward, clumsy white girl. Vincent was as predictably excellent as always. Karen Kain, who is awesome, notes that her feet were a bit off in parts, but then politely thanks them for good work. Amy and Vincent are really developing good chemistry together; it’s a pity that I think they’ll have a bit of a challenge making top ten.

Tara-Jean and Everett: house. The judges went wild for this: Dan accurately explaining how difficult house is as a dance style, Karen Kain (who is awesome) admitting her unfamiliarity with the style again but then explaining how good Tara-Jean and Everett’s chemistry is (and it’s very good), Tre just offering props and Jean-Marc being Jean-Marc, but justified for once. This wasn’t quite as good as they said: Everett in particular shorted his steps just a little bit and they were probably lucky that the brief bit of floorwork was brief. And it wasn’t as good as Vincent and Lisa’s house last year. That having been said, this was very strong overall and the first time Tara-Jean and Everett have really impressed me.

Kim and Emanuel: contemporary. Stacey Tookey is mega-exploding-laser levels of hot. I am just saying. This was pretty much perfect. Karen Kain (who is awesome) pointed out quite eloquently that unlike a lot of routines on this show, there was a lot of quiet, non-melodramatic artistry here. GODDAMNIT, KAREN KAIN, STOP BEING AWESOME BECAUSE YOU ARE QUEERING UP MY GIG HERE.

Jayme-Rae and Daniel: disco. Much better disco routine from Melissa Williams this time around after that disaster in the top 20 week. This was… okay? Good, even. But not great: whenever the two of them went to close holds, their footwork got a bit hesitant, and disco needs full commitment, not only to the characters but to the steps. Jayme-Rae also seemed a bit unwilling to really embrace the cheese factor of disco: in comparison I thought Daniel nailed that. Still, they’ve been justifiably popular until now, so they should be safe.

Natalie and Danny: West Coast swing. Pretty much the entire judging panel went “okay, maybe it’s not really West Coast swing, but hey, Benji Schwimmer says it is, so what the hell.” Which is pretty much what it was: Benji being a dance dork and doing whatever the hell he wanted in terms of choreo, throwing in hip-hop and contemporary flourishes wherever he felt it appropriate, and making it work. (SYTYCD nerds will note that Donyelle was his teaching partner and that she’s apparently learned a lot of ballroom since season 2.) Anyway, this was weird (and I fucking hate “Love Lockdown” – fuck you, Kanye, fuck you sideways for your shitty-ass song where you pretend to be minimalist) but very good. Karen Kain (who is awesome) nailed it on the head when she pointed out that Benji designed the routine to take advantage of Natalie and Danny’s respective dancing strengths.

Corynne and Austin: jazz. Choreographed by John Byrne – not the cranky old comics John Byrne but the choreographer John Byrne. (That having been said, please take a minute to make up a John Byrne joke in your head if you are so inclined. I personally like the one where he angrily yells at the dancers not to call Batman “Bats.”) This was very good, a worthy cap to one of the strongest overall episodes of SYTYCD I’ve ever seen. Corynne doing that super-fast running leap in heels was just ridiculous, and Austin’s tricks didn’t feel out of place given the storyline of the piece.

Probable bottom three: (Christ, this is hard this week.) Amy and Vincent, Jayme-Rae and Daniel, Natalie and Danny.
Should go home: Amy and Danny.
Will go home: Amy and Danny.
Should come back every week: Dan Karaty and motherfucking Karen Kain.

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

Your guest judges this week are Sean Cheeseman and Melissa Williams, bringing the Cancon and the actually capable judging.

Kim and Emanuel: jazz/funk./ I am coming to understand that “jazz/funk” as a genre actually means “Blake McGrath is a pervert.” This is the sort of routine that really serves Emanuel well: heavy on character, so he can vamp it up (which he does very well) and the sort of technique required was the sort that he already has. Kim was great as always. It was very strong and, of course, very perverted.

Amy and Vincent: hip-hop. I’m willing to declare Vincent the new Pasha at this point – he’s just good at everything, seemingly regardless of genre, and he absolutely killed this routine (which, incidentally, I liked – Flii Stylz is a welcome addition to the SYTYCDCA choreographer roster). Amy wasn’t quite as good as Vincent was, but she was only a little off Vincent’s level. This was great.

Corynne and Austin: contemporary. Ah, Stacey Tookey: “Canada’s Mia Michaels Except Better.” So the routine is good. Corynne’s facial expressions are great, but for a routine that demanded physicality I felt that she was very… light, really. Which is to say that it was pretty obviously that she was a ballerina from the way she danced: airy and light on her feet, even when the choreo demanded more forceful steps. She didn’t miss anything, but she brought a fragility to the routine that I didn’t quite care for – your mileage may vary. As for Austin, all the hype about him “finally getting to dance” rather than just doing tricks was a little tiresome, especially when I don’t think his connections were quite as good as claimed. They were okay; not great. But these are by and large nitpicks for a well-danced quality routine.

Melanie and Cody: mambo. I love Gustavo Vargas’ Latin choreo, and I love Melanie thus far (Cody is okay but only that), so I was looking forward to this, and was slightly disappointed on all fronts. The choreo felt very stop-and-start, although that might have been in part the fault of the dancers, who didn’t transition between the tricks well at all. Cody’s Latin flavour was distinctly lacking; Melanie was okay and nothing more. The judges oversold this quite a bit.

Tara-Jean and Everett: quickstep. Oh god this was awful. It really annoys me when people call quickstep the “dance of death,” because some of my favorite routines on the show ever have been quicksteps: when it’s done well there’s almost nothing quite as fantastic. But this was not “done well.” This was bloody terrible, even with tons of Charleston choreography thrown in to make it more crowd- and dancer-friendly. There was just too much of this routine that came across as awkward and clumsy to call it good or even passable; even the big tricks were done poorly.

Jayme-Rae and Daniel: hip-hop. I like Luther Brown’s choreo because the guy is such a hip-hop traditionalist: no stupid big lifts to make the crowd scream like Pavlovian dogs, just solid, entertaining floorwork the entire way through. Of course, since he doesn’t go in for huge stunts, that means the dancers have to be fully on their game to make the routine work. Jayme-Rae and Daniel were beyond fully on their game: they’re probably the best and most balanced partnership of the season, and both of them are stunningly good at hip-hop (and for Jayme-Rae that’s quite impressive given her contemporary background). Second week in a row where these two have had the best routine of the night.

Jenna-Lynn and Nicolas: hustle. Benji Schwimmer didn’t get to choreo once in the most recent American season, but frankly I’ve always been a big fan of Benji’s work so hey, more for us. I liked the choreo here but Nicolas and Jenna-Lynn didn’t sell it for me: there were too many parts where they were rough, even with nice chunks where they got to work in their own styles. Also, Nicolas needs to stop with that freakish Joker-like grin of his. It is downright unsettling.

Natalie and Danny: rumba. Danny isn’t a bad dancer by any means, but he’s just not a memorable dancer, especially given that he’s paired with Natalie, who has so much performance ability it is scary. This rumba was a case in point: it came across as Natalie in the role of classic Cyd Charisse dancing in a old movie, and Danny as a background dancer who lifts her around a few places. It doesn’t matter how good Danny’s technique is (and he is good, he hasn’t really failed to do anything yet) if he dances like a supporting cast member.

Probable bottom three: Jenna-Lynn and Nicolas, Tara-Jean and Everett, Natalie and Danny.
Should go home: Jenna-Lynn and Nicolas.
Will go home: Tara-Jean and Everett.

this is probably the closest we will get to a Rex The Wonder Dog teevee show any time soon.

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

Also, now that I am the Managing Editor and Big Chief Hoo-Hah at thecourt.ca, I don’t really write posts there any more so much as I run the place. That having been said, this post about the Prime Minister’s office appealing the Khadr case to the Supreme Court by new staffer James Gotowiec is, I think, a hell of a read.