So You Think You Can Dance: Vegas Callbacks

Memo to future seasons’ So You Think You Can Dance auditioners: Please wear better clothes.

Seriously, why don’t more people dress well to try out for this show? The ballroom dancers always have their fabulous costumes, and some of the hip-hop folks wear cute ensembles, but most of these people seem to go out there wearing spandexy things that I can only assume are the norm for real dance auditions – presumably they’re easy to move around in and all that. But come on, people, when you try out for this show, you know your audition is going to be on TV. If you’re going to wear a sports bra, you could at least wear a tutu with it, is all I’m saying.

Anyway, we’re in Vegas this week for the callbacks from the previous hideous audition round. And, as everyone promised me, it is better now that we’re down to a bunch of mostly good dancers. Mia, Lil’ C, Adam, and Debbie Allen are judging along with Nigel and Mary. All this is happening at Planet Hollywood Vegas, which doesn’t look anything like it did in Race to Witch Mountain.

They start out by making all the auditioners perform a solo again, but thankfully the judges don’t comment on them, and we get to watch a nice montage. You know, if the judges weren’t involved, this show would be totally tolerable.

And at the start of the episode we meet two guys we didn’t see in the previous audition rounds. The first is Alex, a professional ballet dancer, who does a non-ballet dance sans shirt that involves jumping around en pointe (I know about en pointe from when Jessi Ramsey took ballet).  The second is Tony, a hip-hop dancer who does a theatrical solo that involves lots of pictures of Nigel. This is apparently hilarious to the people watching.

After the solos they cut some people, including Travis the gay football coach’s son who was so brave, Talia (oh no! I liked Talia!) and Chimezie, the less memorable of the two guys with unpronounceable names.

Then they get taught some hip-hop choreography and perform 10 at a time. More people are cut. We see Gabi with the rheumatoid arthritis, who Nigel had predicted would make the top 20. She does not do well in the choreography, but they ask her to stay anyway because she was so good in her solo.

And then it’s day 2. There are 97 dancers left, and they’re doing ballroom choreography today. They keep bringing our attention to the choreographers of each of these styles. Am I supposed to care who all these choreographers are? And the 97 contestants? And the 47 judges? I have things to do, here.

Featured in the ballroom round are popper Philip and his partner from the L.A. auditions, Arielle. Philip performs badly in his waltz – Adam accuses him of not knowing how not to pop. Which is funny sounding. But he makes it through. Arielle, however, despite wearing a very pretty dress, gets cut.

Also featured is Nobuya, the Japanese pop-locker (or I guess just “popper”?). The judges claim to have been pleasantly surprised by his waltz, since he’s very out of his element. He cries. There is a lot of crying in this episode. And, okay, I like Nobuya now. Yes, I’m one of those people who finds it endearing when funny guys cry.

Next, they have to do a “jazz” dance. And again I know nothing about dance because nothing about the weird routine they get taught makes me think of jazz music at all. It looks just like the hip-hop routine. Only not as fun to watch.

We see Natalie, who auditioned in Denver wearing that terrible tunic outfit. Apparently she does not do well with the jazz routine, although everyone who performs it looks awful to me so I can’t verify that. But Mary gives a speech about how the judges have all been pulling for Natalie and wanted her to make the top 20. Then she tells her she’s cut. Nigel hugs her. She cries. I’m kind of sad for her, since she’s so disappointed, even though I never cared about Natalie before now either way.

But then I remembered (because they told me) that Natalie had been friends with Brandon, another past-season auditioner, who did that really cool stuff and was the only nonwhite person in Denver. The cutting of Natalie is portrayed as a very awful thing, especially for Brandon, and they play super-sad music like Natalie has died. I think this is also being used to build up Brandon. Really? This is the only thing they can think of to do to make us care about Brandon? That is not a good sign.

Brandon proves to be a polarizing figure. Lil’ C and Mia are not Brandon fans following his jazz performance. But Nigel thinks Brandon is brilliant and “bloody fantastic” and “without question one of the best dancers we’ve ever had on this show.” So Brandon’s staying.

They keep showing ads for the summer House reruns. Hee. I did watch the season finale again recently on Hulu, while doing spreadsheets for work late at night. It’s fun to try to figure out which scenes with Wilson were real and which were hallucinations. It’s very hard to tell because the actors played it totally straight, so it comes down to how predictable you find Wilson as a character. And honestly, at this point, I’m not sure where I stand on that.

We’re back with the jazz routines, and watching Gabi again. The judges all think she’s awful, and Nigel in particular seems really sad. Debbie tells Gabi she’s breaking Debbie’s heart. They make Gabi “dance for her life,” which I naively assumed was something they had invented on the spot just for Gabi, but it turns out to be a thing that they’ve been doing on the show for years. So Gabi does her dance, more of the same kind of thing she did in her first solo audition. Everyone votes to keep her, but Nigel sternly warns her that she needs to be able to pick up the styles of her choreographers. Gabi agrees and cries.

Then Sammy, yet another pop-locker, gets dismissed after the jazz without fanfare, which is fine with me.

For the next day, the contestants get broken into groups and forced to choreograph their own routine to randomly chosen music. This involves staying up all night. Ugh, why would anyone want to be on this show? You get hurt all the time and you have to stay up all night and you have to learn two different routines in different styles in one day for four days in a row and then “dance for your life.” Not to mention having to suck up to Nigel. Poor Natalie even had to hug him. Well, though, I guess dancing isn’t the easiest career to break into. Did you see that interview with Adam Lambert where he talked about how no one gets “discovered” anymore so you have to be constantly seeking out platforms to promote yourself, and that’s why he auditioned for American Idol at age 27? And it worked out for him, obviously. I would imagine dancing is even more like that, because if all you do is dance you’re unlikely to even get in as an understudy for Fiyero on an L.A. production of Wicked. So if you want to make this a career, I guess reality TV is as good a way as any. And then it’s also good if you just like having people look at you. Even if it involves Nigel mocking you in front of millions, because that’s how he copes with his own need for attention.

When morning comes, all these people who have been up all night have to perform. Some of them are in makeshift costumes, which is cute. Their dances, however, are not cute. I really hope that when the real show starts next week, everything they do is professionally choreographed, because these amateur routines are not working for me at all. (Although, neither did half of this week’s professionally choreographed routines. Which is… kind of worrisome.)

The first group includes my favorite, Erik the Tapper! Yay! We’re told there have been some personality and/or dance style conflicts in Erik’s group, and their dance is very bad. They dismiss two girls we’ve never seen before and ask Erik to dance for his life.

We also see Nobuya and Brandon’s teams perform, and they’re both pretty boring. Brandon still really does look like Sean Patrick Thomas. Mia threatens to cut Brandon and even scolds him for smiling, but he and the rest of his team gets through.

Then we see a team calling themselves “Nerdography.” They wear kind-of-funny costumes and do some stuff Nigel calls terrific. Adam says they made him tear up because he misses dancing. Nigel makes fun of Adam because Nigel is a real man.

We’re down to 68 dancers now.

Erik’s solo for Dance for Your Life involves more tapping, a cappella. He’s not as much fun when he doesn’t have “Thriller” backing him up, but he does some cool backflipping. But the judges send him home. Well, my favorite is gone, so I guess I can stop watching the show now. Oh, wait, people keep telling me I’ll like it when the voting starts. I’m hanging in there just for you, people!

More Glee ads. I watched that on Hulu at work that night, too. I can never watch that Rehab sequence too many times. You know what, I think I’ll go watch it right now.

Okay, I’m back. And, as Tina Cohen-Chang would say, we’re d-d-d-doomed, because it’s time for contemporary choreography, led by Mia. I guess Mia has quite a reputation on this show. And also, I don’t like her because she was mean to Brandon, and for some other reasons that I’ll get into later. (Yes, it’s another long review. What am I supposed to do? This show is three hours long.)

Tony, who we’re told did well in all his performances so far (why didn’t we see Tony in his first audition, I wonder?), is featured in the contemporary section. The dance itself looks bizarre. Apparently Tony is particularly bizarre though, and the judges ask him to do a repeat performance. He stresses out about this a lot, and cries very dramatically on stage, but they ultimately put him through. Everyone freaks out, but I think that’s because it’s the end of the day and they all seriously must be exhausted. I’m exhausted and I’m just sitting here watching a clip show of it eating chips and salsa.

Then they cut Amanda the Barbie. Her mascara is dramatic, but it doesn’t run when she cries. She needs to let us know what brand she uses so that the other girls on this show can pick some up, because I got tired of watching mascara-run faces in the first half hour of this episode.

But then, they cut Nobuya. No! I was just starting to like him! And you already cut Erik the Tapper! What is this about, show?

But while I’m fuming about that we get reminded of one of the sibling pairs, Megan and Caitlin, blondes who are so dull that their only distinguishing trait is their being sisters. Megan makes it through the contemporary round, but Caitlin gets asked to Dance for Her Life. She’s really upset, which can’t make this easy. It’s not fair that some people have to wait hours before Dancing for Their Lives and some of them have to do it instantaneously. Caitlin’s dance is pretty but her shiny blue sports bra top is a bit, uh, much. She gets Nigel, Debbie, and Mary’s votes, and a no from Mia and Lil’ C and Adam. She’s through, just barely.

Then we see Evan and Ryan, the two brothers who did the Broadway stuff in Memphis while wearing hats. They both make it through. Evan and Ryan are indistinguishable to me, so I hope they don’t both wind up on the show. That season that Spike and Andrew were on Top Chef was really hard for me to watch, because despite being unrelated they looked and acted exactly alike, and they kept both not getting cut, and I couldn’t stand either of them. (That said, Spike’s burger place is around the corner from me and quite tasty.)

Finally, thank the lord, the contemporary round ends, and we’re down to 54 contestants. I have no idea how many we’ll wind up with so this means nothing to me. I know eventually we’ll have a top 20 but is that happening after Vegas? Or is there a semifinal round like on American Idol where we’re supposed to know enough about 36 people to vote on them? Even when all we know is that their wives are dead and/or they have a baby and tattoos?

Oh, but now we’re onto the last day. The theme is Broadway. That irritating guy Tyce is choreographing them, and their dance is set to music from West Side Story. Awesome! I like West Side Story. But… isn’t it already, you know, choreographed? What is Tyce doing, other than taking up Nigel’s camera time (not that I’m complaining about that)?

They split the dancers by gender. The women will perform first. While they’re learning the routine, we have to watch the guys hang out by the pool with their pasty white bare chests.

The women are dancing to an instrumental version of America, predictably. There are lots of shots of girls’ feet bleeding in their strappy high-heeled sandals. Man, I would die if I ever tried to do this. But I like watching their performances, and I like their poofy skirts. I only wish they’d had to sing too. And that they were more in sync with each other. Bianca, L.A.’s consummate tap dancer, is in the first group, and she looks great to me, making cool faces like from the movie. Priscilla falls down at the end of her routine, but she laughs about it. Bianca and some other girls get cut, and then, Priscilla, Megan of Megan-and-Caitlin, and Gabi all get cut too. Wow. After all that I really thought Gabi was going through. Caitlin is sad for Megan, but claims Megan is still supportive of her.

The remaining 16 women are told to prepare a solo. But first they go to the pool, where they chicken fight and lounge around in bikinis and pose for pinup-style shots.

The guys are dancing to that Be Cool, Boy song, and it’s hilarious. All these dance boys pretending to be all tough. It’s not nearly as fun to watch as “America,” and the guys don’t have the additional challenge of having to wear heels, but I suppose it’s not this show’s fault that women are expected to wear high heels to look pretty. After the performances, they cut six guys we don’t know, bringing us to 16 male contestants. So I guess there were way more women than men.

Now we’re down to 32, and everyone has to do a solo. We only see brief clips of these. Yay! And that’s it for tonight.

Thursday night, we’ve reached “the climax of Vegas week,” which means we find out who made the top 20 out of the top 32. Really? This episode is an hour long and that’s all that’s happening? I mean, I know eventually we’ll have to watch entire results shows that will end in only one person getting cut, but I didn’t realize we’d be stuck with that this early on. And pretty much everyone I liked has already been cut, so whatever.

They call the contestants in one by one to find out their results. Hilariously, they have to walk down a hallway showing enormous photos of them and video screens showing their past performances. I guess this is yet another tradition of which I was not aware. I would totally want to stop and look at all the photos and videos but these kids are all way cooler than I am.

Do they show this many Glee promos during other Fox shows? Or are they just figuring on a decent crossover audience here?

Other than the top 20 being announced, not much happens during this episode, which probably explains why we get all those long shots of the hallway.

So let’s just get to the point. Our top 20 are:

• Asuka, one-half of the uncommon Asian ballroom dancing duo (sadly, her partner, Ricky, got cut)
• Brandon (whom, it was made clear, Mia absolutely loathes. She even accused him of fake smiling. Brandon really seems like a sweet guy, so methinks Mia just wants to get herself a hook for this season, so she decided to hate Brandon. I, in return, hate Mia. Meanwhile, Debbie talked a lot about how much she likes Brandon’s manliness. I think that’s because he did his final solo wearing only a Speedo.)
• Caitlin
• Evan (but not Ryan. This is handled very dramatically, with Evan and Ryan being called out as the final two guys, knowing that only one of them would make it, and the judges trying to get Ryan to feel more confident in his baldness)
• Janette the spicy salsa dancer
• Kayla, with the cute grandparents (Mia announces that she doesn’t like female dancers, but she likes Kayla. Uh… okay. She knows that half the people on this show are women, right? Oh well, I’d already started hating Mia so it’s not like I have to change my plans here)
• Kuponohi’ipoi, who is now apparently just going as Kupono. (I kind of like him now. He buzz-cut his hair and had this bit where he showed his to-do list, which included “breathe” and “shave” and “iPod” and “make top 20.”)
• Paris, still wearing her tutu (which I think may make her my current remaining favorite for that fact alone)
• Philip
• Tony

And the following people we haven’t seen much of before, which means either they’re cannon fodder or future Kris Allens:

• Ade
• Ashley
• Jason
• Jeanine
• Jonathan
• Karla
• Max
• Melissa
• Randi
• Vitolio

Sadly, Alex, of the shirtless jumping-around dance that started off the Vegas round, is ineligible for the show since he’s under contract to the Miami Ballet Company and they won’t let him out of his contract. So no top 20 for Alex. Which… he must have expected, right? He’s the one who signed the contract. Alex cries, but Nigel points out that, you know, being a professional ballet dancer isn’t that bad. But I guess this is like an Adam Lambert situation, right, where you could be the understudy for Fiyero, or you could be an international superstar, and all it takes to get you there is auditioning for one dumb reality show.

(Sorry I keep talking about stuff like Glee and House and Adam Lambert, but they are simply three of the many things I currently find more interesting than SYTYCD.)

Next up, the voting starts. Just watch, Paris and Kupono will be eliminated in the first week.

Season 5, Episodes 4&5: Vegas Callbacks (originally aired June 3&4, 2009)

For another take on this episode, check out Inisia Lewis’ review here.

For more on So You Think You Can Dance, click here.

Wednesdays and Thursdays at 8/7c on Fox

Photographs courtesy of Fox and IMDbPro