That’s kinda how I feel right now.

When I noticed Mighty God King’s request for guest-bloggers to post in the blog, I very nearly immediately sent an e-mail; I’m only a sometimes-commenter, but I’m a pretty regular reader of these here posts. I’m doubting anyone has noticed, though, so I figure I’ll start with an uber-brief intro: I’m Will Entrekin, a writer who just moved from Los Angeles, where I studied at the University of Southern California, to Denver, where I’m now ungainfully unemployed. My only real credential to be here in Mighty God King’s blog is that one of my teachers was Irvin Kershner; besides that, I feel quite a bit out of my depth here.

Very much like anyone might feel having been given the keys to the TARDIS.

I’m new to Who; while I grew up receiving Star Wars toys every year for Christmas and had both Luke in his stormtrooper uniform and Anakin in his robe, I missed way more than I ever absorbed.

I can’t really discuss comic books, as I didn’t get my first one until my grandmother gave me a box of my dad’s old comic books when I was 14 or so.

The only comic books I remember are Peter Porker: The Spectacular Spider-Ham, and Scott Lobdell’s run on X-Men (plus: The Age of Apocalypse).

I discovered Doctor Who only this past year, when I saw someone mention the show as containing his single favorite depiction of Shakespeare. I’m a pretty big fan of all things Shakespeare, so I went and sought out the episode. I was, at first, more impressed by the somewhat-hot witch and the guy who played Shakespeare than by the Doctor, until the Doctor banished a Carrionite. But it wasn’t the banishing; it was in the way he did it, and the child-like glee that suddenly burst few during the confrontation.

That’s what hooked me, and that’s what kept me watching. Episode after episode.

Really, the thing I most love about Doctor Who is that it’s gotten me thinking about science fiction, genre, and stories.

Years ago, I read Patrick Nielsen Hayden of Tor discussing genre to state something along the lines that genre is an authorial choice; it is a deliberate decision that ultimately permeates the work. It is more about the scope and the thrust of the work than about the elements therein.

The longer I watched Doctor Who, the less it felt like science fiction (or any genre, for that matter). Oh, sure, Daleks and whizzy spaceships and the Ood and suchlike, but ultimately, for all the alien-ness of the series, for all its distant planets and incredible lifeforms, it truly seems to do its best when it concentrates on its human-ness, regardless of the Doctor’s actual origin.

(Being a new Who, I can’t compare Tennant to other Doctors. I’ve read about them and their personalities, but really the most I’ve seen has been a handful of segments/flashbacks in Doctor Who Confidential; to be honest, that may well be enough. I probably shouldn’t say that because you never can tell after all, but Tennant is now the ur-Doctor for me, and while I don’t necessarily worry that the others will pale in comparison (I can’t imagine Christopher Eccleston paling in comparison to anything, for that matter), it’s the comparing itself that bothers me. A bit like Daniel Craig and Casino Royale; I simply can’t imagine anyone playing Bond so well, while Connery, in my head, is now more associated with William Forrestor and the senior Henry Jones.)

When I think of my favorite books and shows and movies, they are usually the ones that reach just a bit further than they’re generally expected to, or handle stories in different ways. Jurassic Park and Quantum Leap spring most immediately to mind, being not so much about dinosaurs and time travel, respectively, as about reactions to those elements.

Tennant brings to the Doctor an amazing, child-like glee inspired by everything he encounters. When rumors circulated that he was going to depart and a new Doctor might be in the works (thanks to the season-finale cliffhanger, mostly, I think), I couldn’t really think of someone who’d perform the role as well (I gave a nod to Eddie Izzard. I’m not sure how he’d pull it off, but I’d watch it). But what really impresses me is that everyone is so human (and well acted); I’m thinking of the Master from last season’s finale, for one.

That’s what Who taught me, as a writer (and a reader); that you can tell the biggest, boldest, most epic story in the world on the most impressive canvas in the universe, but if you don’t have that human element, if you don’t focus on the characters in the story, well, it’s empty as space, really.

But what do you think? Am I missing something not watching the Eccleston run, or Baker’s episodes? Is my story theory way off?

Anyway, thanks to Mighty God King for allowing me to guest-post. Anyone who’s interested can find my blog here and my debut collection here, and otherwise, I’ll catch you again soon.

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

(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.

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

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.

ITEM! The Middleman debuts on the teevee. Unlike a lot of the comic blogosphere, I didn’t read the comic first, so I have the benefit of not having any expectations when considering it as a TV show, and I will say this: while entertaining enough, the dialogue (wherein you can practically hear the panels changing) often errs too far on the side of tweeness. Yes, I’m glad there’s a television show with gun-wielding gorillas and ray guns and robot receptionists, but it’s a bit too stylized in its execution for me to be completely blown away. I’d give it a solid B with room for improvement, and pilot episodes frequently have kinks they need to work out. We’ll see if it continues being overly precious.

ITEM! You know what’s surprisingly good? The “JLA Goes To The Tangent Universe” miniseries DC is publishing. Now, given all the immense amount of crap DC has published regarding different universes over the last year, I honestly expected this comic to be terrible, and Ron Marz on the writing skills didn’t particularly give me hope as I’ve never been a fan – but it’s really quite decent in an understated way. Partly it’s because the Tangent Universe was always pretty decent and revisiting it is pleasant (and Marz is doing a decent job not overplaying the “JLA reacts to different universe” bit in a hamhanded manner), and partly it’s because the path of the Tangent world (with the Tangent’s Superman, a near-omnipotent psychic, taking over as a dictator) is dramatically different from standard superhero fare in a way that seems unforced and genuine, and partly it’s because Marz is really hitting all the character voices really well. It’s just a decent little superhero comic, and that’s just fine.

ITEM! I’ll just echo again what everybody else already said: The Incredible Hulk is pretty good. Not Iron Man good, but good. And Lou Ferrigno remains awesome.

ITEM! Trinity continues to underwhelm me. I mean, never mind that the whole “entire DC Universe jerks off over how awesome Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman are” thing is one I have never particularly enjoyed, but additionally it smacks of telling-not-showing. I figure, if you’re going to write a comic about the three of them, I don’t need to be told over and over again how special and important they are. Presumably if someone buys the comic they already think Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman are pretty great shakes, and do not need to see the rest of the JLA getting their asses kicked and then praising Heaven when the almighty frigging Trinity shows up.

But beyond that, the comic is just kind of bland. I say this with disappointment, because Kurt Busiek is probably one of my most reliably favorite writers; I greatly enjoyed his run on Superman – I thought the Prankster issue in particular was one of the best in years. (Honestly, somebody should just pay him a lot of money to write a series where he gets to write short arcs about minor nobodies in a superhero universe if we can’t get Astro City on a regular basis.)

ITEM! On the other hand, Secret Invasion continues to be mostly pretty good, with most of the tie-ins both recognizing the comic-book lunacy of Earth being invaded by little green men and running with it while simultaneously managing to successfully convey the paranoia of the Body Snatchers-like plot points. It’s a really tricky balancing act to pull off and Marvel is doing it with nearly a dozen books, all simultaneously. Sure, there are some minor gripes to be made about how the third issue of the main series was basically a placeholder, or how Mighty Avengers serving as a backstory book is probably a bit of a waste, but these are at best secondary complaints; the primary issue is the quality of the story being told. And it’s really good. (High point: the return of Lyja in the Secret Invasion: Fantastic Four mini, which also has the Richards children operating a tankbot.)

ITEM! Chuck Dixon John Nee Dan Didio blah blah bling bling blah. I have literally no opinion to express about this; like many comic fans I don’t like the direction DC has taken over the past year, but like many comic fans I am also relatively clueless as to how much of that is Dan Didio’s fault, and I don’t like to rely purely on gossip when offering forth opinions (well, not always, anyway). So I got nothing to say there.

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

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.

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

Via Norman Wilner.

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.