A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

I THINK HE'LL BE VERY SEXCESSFUL: I know it's taken me a while to get around to posting about the season premiere of So You Think You Can Dance, but honestly, I was kind of annoyed by the first episode. I appreciate the entertainment value of a delusional non-dancer thinking he's Pavlova as much as the next person, but I felt like the premiere went a bit overboard with things like the second and third outings of Golden Inferno and that ridiculous airtime slut whose name I shall not mention here except to note that it rhymes with hex, as in "a hex on Nigel Lythgoe for agreeing to bring this guy back year after year and giving him the same condescending 'get real and stop dancing' speech every time." There were great moments -- the redemption of Twitch, the popping wonder with no bones, and the judges calling attention to season three finalist Dominic's reaction to the hot girl dancing on stage, for example -- and it's impossible to hate Cat Deeley's sunny good humor. That being said, like AI, this is a show that blossoms when it gets to the Hollywood Vegas round.

I haven't seen anything in the press that would indicate that the format for this season has changed, and so I am assuming that season four will progress much like season three; to wit: in Vegas, the judges will winnow the dancers down to ten guys and ten girls. For the next five weeks, we will see assigned pairings dance assigned dances, from samba to krumping to lyrical to jive. America will choose the bottom three couples, and after each of the bottom six dances a quick solo in his or her own individual style, the judges eliminate one guy and one girl. The partners of the eliminees become partners the next week, and so on. Once we're down to ten contestants, the pairings and the dance assignments become totally random.

During our coverage of SYTYCD, you will undoubtedly hear me opine about the strategy behind the judges' choice of comments, and you will hear Isaac ruminate on the show's complicated relationship with homosexuality in the world of dance. This is a show that really challenges its competitors and rewards its fans -- if you haven't watched it during prior seasons, consider giving it a try this time. But you might want to wait until the audition episodes have come to a close -- otherwise, you might find yourself wondering why it was only AI that got the "stop focusing on the talent-free performers during auditions this year" memo.