Sorry guys, this is a long postThe real competition for Season Six finally started this week for So You Think You Can Dance. On Monday, the show decided to give America a preview of what this season's dancers can do with a one-hour special showcasing the dancers working in their own styles. It's a cute idea, but it didn't stop the show from being 80% a waste of my time. Wade or should I say the Robsons' opening number was the best part for me. They did announce that Adam Shankman is now a permanent judge and Nigel hopes to convince Paula Abdul to sign on as judge. Cute... I guess. Oh yeah there is a new stage which I don't like. It doesn't allow the people to be on the sides of the stage which gives me concerns on what camera angles the show can pull off. This stage seems similar to the finale-at-Nokia-Theater and I felt that stage made all the perfomances look extra distant and made the Breast Cancer dance look less than spectacular. For the most part, the mini-group performances were slighly sloppy -- granted they were asked to do an extra routine that previous seasons didn't have to do. So enough about Monday on to Tuesday where the judges had to eliminate one guy and one girl without America's input (due to World Series).
Apparently this season is already shapping up to be special. If the open seat with Abdul's name on it wasn't enough, Billy (the boy that made Adam Shankman cry & got his Juliard scholarship on hold for the show) is ill and left the show. Noelle, who I'm already indifferent about, injured her knee. Brandon, who got very little play for making it to the final cuts of the Top 20, came back to replace Billy. I was already WTF'ed out and nobody danced yet! Napleon and Tabitha and Dave Scott made some good hip hop routines. Legacy was decent, but his partner was distracting in my opinion. The judges clearly saw something in Peter's try at the Nappy Tabbs routine that I didn't. I thought he was too stiff, and his partner Ariana had better musicality. Rant warning!
I will own up in my bias against the tappers. I don't think it should be such a big deal that three tappers are on the show. I think they are over-hyped, and I wonder if I have the art appreciation in me to jump on board. As an art form, Tap is probably facing the same doomsday-degree apathy that the print medium if facing. So I want to have sympathy, but I the truth is that I usually find it boring as hell. As soon as I sense strain or discomfort from a tap dancer, I feel awkward and want it to stop-- a hurdle only amplified by the nature of watching something on TV, let alone HD TV. Tap Rant over.
Unfortunately, I didn't really get the judges' critiques this week. I felt differently about who did better in the hip routines, and I felt that the fish-out-of-water dancers with ballroom were EXTRA attacked, but most of the "good" dances seemed boring as hell to me. Phillip & Chelsea in the jive-- snoooze! Jakob & Ashley's broadway -- awkward! (How is she supposed to see him as a man when he wore sweat-short daizy dukes to rehersal?) Even Nathan & Mollee's disco was lackluster to me compared to the fire that Janette & Brandon brought just months ago. Alas the judges sent Brandon & Ariana home. Nigel stated that he would like to have the rules changed so that Brandon can have a real shot instead of a last minute promotion that set him up to fail. I think that's nobel and I hope it works out for Brandon.
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