A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

SEVEN MONKEYS, JUMPING ON THE BED: Does SYTYCD need a new doctor? Losing Alex was a big blow for the show. Now it's Ashley's turn. Apparently she got hit by a scale that fell down as a result of the concussion from some dynamite that fell out of the pocket of a commuting anarchist rushing for the train. Or something. But Allison's okay, and previous-season injured person Jessica seems confusedly happy in the audience, so apparently the SYTYCD curse isn't fatal. Dancing after the break:

Overall, this is a pretty evenly matched top six. There was one slightly-better-than-the-rest performance from a perpetually undersupported (vote-wise) dancer, one typically bad one from a perpetually beloved (vote-wise) dancer, and four solidly good ones. It is hard to see much separation here. In order of how I think they did:

• Robert: Robert gave us this week's two highlights: (1) the Travis Wall piece about Wall's mother; and (2) not dropping Kathryn on her butt, like he did last week. There are caveats, though. The former was marred by the weirdly literal wardrobe choice of dressing Robert exactly like Travis, as if he were playing the role of Travis in Travis! The Travis Wall Story, and by the even weirder choice of ending a dance about a son taking care of his sick mother by having the son languidly cup his mother's breast. What? And the latter was marred by it being a Doriana Sanchez disco (to repeat my lament, why does the show insist on emphasizing the anachronism by using dated music and wardrobe, when it is perfectly happy to update music and wardrobe for genres like Broadway, tango, quick-step, etc.?), and by Robert threatening to drop Kathryn on her head during one lift, and by Kathryn completely blowing Robert away. I am pretty sure that I would watch a half-hour Glee-ish sitcom called Kathryn, where various poorly written scenarios culminate in Kathryn dancing, with the proviso that Kathryn's lines have to be dubbed by someone who can speak in a tolerable human voice.
• AdeChike: After adjusting for my dislike of ballroom, I liked the salsa more than the jidges. There definitely was some of the AdeChikeness that the judges don't like (like the head bob), but he threw himself into the sharp corners of a very fast dance, which is all I really notice. And he completely outdanced Kent in the paired contemporary. At times, that dance literally involved AdeChike dancing circles around Kent, leaping and yanking and replacing chairs as Kent thoughtfully stood up and sat down.
• Billy: The Mandy Moore thing didn't look all that hard, but it was fun to look at, and "Boogie Shoes" is fun-enhancing music. And the jive looked very hard, but Billy seemed to enjoy it. I didn't think he had a spectacular night, but he seemed to be having fun.
• Lauren: More or less gets the week off. First of all, who knows what with the Tahitian thing? The judges' response to anything they don't understand is condescension and insults dressed up as praise, like saying that Tahitian dance looks like ducks in heat right after the choreographer explained that it's the islands' most revered tradition. Lauren's second dance, the Mandy Moore sock hop with Billy, again seemed light on technique and heavy on fun. The upshot is that Lauren didn't have to do anything too hard, but did a lot of stuff that looked really enjoyable.
• Kent: The jidges were right about the dance with AdeChike -- Kent did well to underplay it, because it easily could have become some kind of grotesque slapstick about a yokel who just needed so sit down. And though I thought AdeChike was better, Kent was pretty good in an easier role. I did not like the baseball dance, though. I never like people to treat baseball as a precious anachronism, which was the point of the dance, and then I spent the whole dance criticizing it as a baseball fan, not as a dance watcher. Not Kent's fault, though I would encourage him not to slide head-first.
• Jose: The Broadway seemed slow and tired, but that's not the problem. Jose's biggest problem -- that he doesn't do anything superlatively well -- was most evident when Dominic outdanced him in the b-boy routine. Dominic had crisper motion, straighter lines, faster spins, tighter turns.

It's hard to guess who the bottom three will be, especially since presumptive audience favorites Jose and Kent are my bottom two. But it doesn't really matter, since I don't see how Ashley can survive being in the bottom three almost every week and then not dancing this week.