Let's start with Cat Deeley, all Veronica Laked up à la Kim Basinger in L.A. Confidential. I am actually a little concerned about Cat. In both the Monday night Ice Capades episode and last night's two-fer, she came across as decidedly more self-conscious than usual -- as if she's playing the role of Cat Deeley, Warm Fuzzy SYTYCD Host and Den Mother, instead of just being Cat Deeley, Warm Fuzzy SYTYCD Host and Den Mother. The beauty of this show, as I have said approximately three kabillion times, is that it's the reality equivalent of Cheers -- you walk in, and everybody knows your name, pours you a beer, and offers you a stool at the bar. We don't need Cat to wink at the camera or to remind us that the cue to shout "jidges" is coming in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, go!
Offsetting all of Cat's unusual non-geek-goddess-style awkwardness last night was the supreme fabulosity of brand-new permanent judge Adam Shankman. Nigel, please put away the Paula chair and focus on the guy sitting two seats to your left, for he is solid SYTYCD gold. We here at ALOTT5MA SYTYCD HQ have always worshipped Shankman. He's knowledgeable, he's funny, he can dance his ass off, he brought the film version of Hairspray to Cosmo Girl, and he's just so darned cute! Between the aooga and the similarity of the musicality -- I'm charmed. (Can you tell??)
So that's it for today. Oh wait, darn it, I knew I forgot something. There was dancing, too!
Channing and Phillip (Jason Gilkerson / jive). Jive must be a lot harder than I think it is, because the jidges always complain a lot about the quality of the jiving. I thought this was cute but not terribly noteworthy. Phillip was better than Channing, although I may just have been distracted by the fact that her outfit did nothing to help her thighs. (N.B. Phillip is our favorite babysitter's good friend.)
Ashleigh and Jakob (Tyce Diorio / sultry Broadway). I am oddly intrigued by what kind of four-year-long illness Ashleigh had. I also thought she danced this well. Yes, Jakob is a miles better dancer than Ashleigh is, but (a) I was annoyed by the weight of the sledgehammer the judges used to beat Jakob's talent into our heads, and (b) I found all of his leaps and spins, gorgeous though they were, to be too light and airy for the supposed "sultriness" of the number. The jidges like to tell people to get down and dirty, and this seemed to be a situation where that comment would have been appropriate.
Ariana and Peter (Tabitha and Napoleon / robot hip hop). I enjoyed this, although I have to admit that I was so busy realizing that Peter is the tap guy who vanished without a trace in Vegas in Season 5 that I wasn't watching as closely as I should have been. I thought it was fun, and pleasantly non-literal for T&N, who I refuse to call NappyTabs.
Noelle Melanie and Russell (Tony Meredith and Melanie LaPatin foxtrot). I adore Russell. I thought he was amazing in Vegas, and have been looking forward to seeing him in the top 20. There's a certain star quality in his performance level that's unusual in the show's hiphoppers. I want him to be great, and so I was a little concerned when he and Noelle drew foxtrot. I have to assume that switching partners at the last minute didn't help him, but getting one of the pros in the eleventh hour sure beats getting some kid who didn't make the top 20 initially airlifted in with a day-and-a-half to rehearse. I agree with . . . Mary? . . . that he got a little steppy in parts, but the parts that were great were great.
Bianca and Victor (Travis Wall contemporary). Last season we saw Travis choreograph one amazing partner dance and one jazzercizey group number. This dance proved that the Jeanine / Jason necklace number from last season wasn't a fluke. It was lovely, and Bianca and Victor danced it beautifully and connectedly. I get Adam's comments about Bianca's shoulders and toes, but of all the tappers, Bianca's the one I'm hoping manages to stick around for the long haul.
Karen and Kevin (Tony Meredith and Melanie LaPatin cha cha). Two useless comments: (1) is there a difference between a cha cha and a cha cha cha? (2) Dancers named Karen and Kevin sound much more suburban married couple than the usual names on this show. More substantively: I hated the music, hated the costuming (if you actually want anyone to pay attention to the male half of a partnership, you can't dress a black guy in all-black while peacocking up his partner), and had trouble paying attention to the dancing because of the things I hated. Maybe I'll watch it again tonight on mute. Shankman obviously liked it, though. Aooga!
Ellenore and Ryan (Sonya Tayeh contemporary jazz). I have a big huge soft spot in my heart for Sonya because of Season 4's "The Garden," but I am the first to admit that she is wildly inconsistent. The top 3 girls superheroes dance from last season, for example, was just terrible. This dance was more of the Sonya I like, although I felt like it didn't go as far as it could have. (I did like Nigel's comment about how it's hard to critique a Sonya dance because you have no idea what she told the dancers to do.) As for the dancers: I have high, high hopes for Ryan. I didn't get a single whiff of ballroom from him. Ellenore, who incidentally has a beautiful speaking voice, initially gave me pause with her "this might be one of the best dances ever on SYTYCD" thing and so I spent the whole time waiting for her to fall on her head or something.
Billy Bell Brandon and Pauline (Jason Gilkerson smooth waltz). I think this was handled poorly. I would have had Pauline dance with Gilkerson (cf. Melanie and Russell) and then brought in Brandon immediately thereafter so that he could have the same amount of time as everyone else to get up to speed for the following week. That being said, it was a charming enough waltz, especially given that Brandon was told "hey, you're now in the top 20 and you have a day and a half to get your head around the situation and get your smooth waltz into gear with a brand-new partner."
Kathryn and Legacy (Dave Scott caveman hip hop). Loved this. Especially the eating of the fleas. I did not have high hopes for Legacy (and still don't), but he danced the hell out of this one. And I had no idea until I reread Isaac's preview post that this cave chick was the cryer from Vegas. We've seen a lot of contemporary dancers struggle with hip hop over the last couple of seasons, and this felt a lot more like seasons 2 and 3 when people actually managed to pull it off successfully.
Molleeeee and Nathan (Doriana Sanchez disco). I don't care if Doriana sets her choreography to Gloria Estefan and calls it Mexican wrestling disco, I don't care if she sets it to klezmer music and calls it hora disco. It's the same high-impact aerobics that she's been doing on the show for years now, and it must go. And not only that, but Janette and Brandon have done what can be done with Doriana's stylings and to see Molleee and Nathan do it at about 50% of the tempo and energy just didn't do anything for me. They're cute as buttons, though, as Shankman appropriately noted, and their average age is approximately 12. Giving these two moppets disco was the equivalent of getting a first-round bye.
As for the results: I almost don't want to talk about them because I'm angry at the jidges for threatening to take krumpy boy away from me. And Russell was obviously angry too, and danced his solo angry. Which is sort of the point of krumping, right? And it was awesome. So maybe the jidges do know what they're doing -- if they knew they were going to send Brandon back home again after his day and a half in the sun, then why not remind America why Russell's here? I didn't really care about the girls' outcome one way or the other, except to say that they probably got it right.
One last last thing, since I didn't post about Monday's show. The small-group routines were fine, except that they suffered from suboptimal filming. (They filmed them like results-show group numbers, with lots of wide angles that didn't give the viewer much chance to see what the dancers were actually doing.) But the full top-20 dance was one of Wade Robson's best. No zombies, but just enough of Wade's signature moves to make it obviously and undeniably his. (As Mr. Cosmo put it: just like we say that a dance is very Fosse now, before long we'll be talking about how Robson a dance was.)
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