So You Think You Can Dance: Awww

We’re down to our top 10. That means the partners are split up, and we’re voting for individuals. Which makes me sad. I liked that the show pinned people to each other and forced them to make it work. By splitting them up, it feels like just any other reality show now. But I’ll give it a shot.

Performance night. Cat’s wearing a very pretty green strapless dress.

Intro dances. Janette is wearing one of my favorite outfits from high school. Jeanine does ballet poses in pajamas. Brandon does his best impression of Evan. Evan isn’t even bothering to distinguish himself anymore. Jason, on the other hand, is giving it all he’s got. Kupono looks better than I remember him looking, or maybe I have just started liking Kupono for some reason. (I mean, I never disliked Kupono. But I think that addiction routine made a subconscious impression on me. Grrr Mia Michaels.)

Tonight’s guest judge is Debbie Allen.  Woo hoo, someone I respect!

Cat explains that the new partnerships will be randomly drawn from hats, and indicates that the first sets of partners were matched by the judges, at least physically (so that explains the Randi/Evan pairing, and probably some of the more obvious pairings of superior dancers, like Brandon and Janette). I’m still waiting for them to say how many times everyone’s dancing tonight. Are they doing two partner dances with different partners? Are they dancing once with a partner and once individually? There are probably still too many contestants for the latter. The former would be more fun anyway. Ah, okay, now Cat is explaining that indeed everyone will be dancing a solo. Are they going to do it 30-seconds-of-shame style? Because that’s one of my least favorite things about this show, and I don’t want it trickling over into performance night, which is mostly fun to watch.

Oh, okay, for some reason the five women are doing a routine together first. It’s Bollywood, choreographed by Nakul Dev Mahajan. Well, it’ll be fun to see them dancing in smaller groups anyway, even if I do resent the show giving us yet more gendered BS. I bet the guys will be doing hip-hop. Kayla, predictably, loves that the dance is “really girly.”

The other thing I still don’t know is whether we’re only eliminating one person tomorrow night or whether it will again be one man and one woman. I can’t tell whether the women are being particularly more competitive with each other than they would if the men were there too or not.

Everyone, of course, looks fantastic in their Bollywood costumes. With five of them it’s hard to really tell who’s better than whom. The dance is fun, but it’s not as cool as Jason and Caitlin’s was. There are, for example, no awesome handstands. But there is a lot of fist-pumping and hip-shimmying.

Man, Cat is a head taller than all five of these women.

Nigel says the women are all very pretty. Thanks for that, Mr. Judge. He can’t pinpoint a particular woman who was superior to the others, which seems like not that much of a compliment to me, because presumably Nigel is better than me at watching individual dancers in these group routines. Then he makes a train joke that he thinks is funny and compares the women to “hot spicy tandoori.” Mary is also excited, and once again compliments the show for introducing the world to Bollywood. She says she can envision any one of the women in the final, which is a stronger compliment than Nigel’s. Debbie calls the dance “an amazing cultural fusion” and says these are the best top 5 women in the show’s history.

Our first new pairing is Evan and Kayla. Kayla is apparently the tallest woman in the competition. Well, okay, but not by much. Still, though, I can understand why they’re concerned. Or why Kayla would be, anyway; Evan is bound to have expected this. But at least Kayla has the benefit of being paired with one of the two men who’ve never been voted into the bottom three, even when he probably deserved to be there.

They’re doing a Viennese waltz choreographed by Tony Meredith and Melanie Lapatin. Ouch. This dance is supposed to automatically lead to elimination, right? The dance is to “Kiss from a Rose” and Evan’s hair is hysterical. Kayla appears to be barefoot or something and looks precisely like you’d expect her to look – like the hot girl at the prom who knows exactly how hot she is. I think this song is doing a lot to make the dance more likeable than Viennese waltz normally would be. They’re both great, of course, although they don’t, obviously, have the chemistry Evan and Randi had after dancing together for five weeks. They do several very cool lifts. Kayla’s smile is so fake it bothers me. Evan is doing a good job of acting like he likes Kayla, and who knows, maybe he does. When they finish, they show us that in fact they did put heels on Evan’s shoes, and that Kayla has some sort of weird contraptions on her feet that involves her wearing shoes with no soles.

Nigel has problems with the choreography but addresses them to Evan and Kayla, who of course had no control over it. But he says they danced it well and that Evan was strong and supportive of Kayla’s beautiful lines. Mary is very into Seal, which does not surprise me at all. She says Evan was lacking power at some points. Mary has clearly been done with Evan for a while. She has more technical critique, but points out that Evan was good at the lifts. All the guys on this show are good at lifts. Well, except Phillip. Which is interesting, because I don’t remember them having to do lifts during the auditions or Vegas rounds, so how did they know that would happen? Maybe there is some behind-the-scenes lifting requirement. Because seriously, I would never have guessed that tiny, pasty little Evan would turn out to be strong enough to haul people around like he does. Anyway, then Mary moves to Kayla and only has praise, and explicitly states that she’s “much better” than Evan. Debbie says to Evan, “Darling, you handled your big woman, baby.” I suspect Kayla is already plotting Debbie’s death for referring to her as a “big woman.” Debbie also compliments the lifts, and notes that she’s loved Kayla since the first auditions but that she saw Evan as a “dark horse.” Hmm.

Next, our first solo: Brandon. I wonder if he’ll wear a Speedo. He does not. He does, however, dance really, really fast to a cover of “In Your Eyes” that I haven’t heard. Why is he going so fast? Does he just always do that? It looks very cool, but I like him better with partners. Okay, now it’s over, and it feels like that was indeed about 30 seconds, which explains the speed. I don’t understand the point of them making them do these little mini-solos. Is it just to mix things up, since we’ve been watching only partner dancing for five weeks? I would’ve been way happier just sticking with that. Wow, Cat is a head taller than Brandon too.

Our next pairing is Janette and Ade. Ooh, this should be good. Once again, Ade is the tallest man and Janette is the shortest woman. This is of course not as big a problem as it is with the genders reversed. Ade actually looks kind of happy to be apart from Melissa. Hmm, again.

They’re doing hip-hop, choreographed by Tabitha and Napoleon. Ade is supposed to be hypnotizing Janette into being funky. Okay. I am not much of a Tabitha/Napoleon fan. Oh, but wait, Ade gets to wear his pick in this! Apparently the whole dance is based around his pick! Oh, this is awesome. Janette is dressed up like a sexy librarian who is transformed into a funky hip-hop dancer via hypnosis by the pick. I am so happy the pick finally made it into a dance. Wow, Ade looks great. Hip-hop looks good on him. Of course, it also looks good on Janette, as does everything. I could do without him ripping off her clothes throughout the dance, but at least there is a little context for that in that they’re dancing to a Justin Timberlake song. Wow, Janette looks amazing. This is a great pairing. I wish they could stick together for the rest of the competition.

Nigel sticks a pencil in his hair to represent the pick and expresses his own desire to hypnotize and undress attractive young women. You know what, I will be really happy when his particular generation, of British men who think it’s okay to skeeve all over everyone because they have a lot of money, dies off. Nigel also liked the routine, which he notes was custom-designed for Ade and Janette, and then pretends to hit on Mary. She pretends to be bothered by this, or maybe she really is, it’s hard to tell with the Botox. Then she squeals that the dance was appropriately funky and entertaining. Debbie loved it and wanted to get up there with them. She tells Ade to stay away from her daughter. Heh. I know nothing about Debbie’s daughter but after that routine I suspect a lot of young ladies wouldn’t need to be hypnotized to want to get funky with Ade.

Our next solo is Randi. This is I believe our first time seeing Randi do a solo ever. She looks… I don’t know, I guess she’s good. People who do contemporary by themselves with no gymnastics always look kind of whatever to me. Randi has a bit of a meltdown when she goes to see Cat, but gets over it fast. Poor Randi. I think she just wants to go home, and not have to go out in front of all these people every week and have the whole country talking about her butt.

Next, Kupono solos. Ooh, this is cool. Love the jerky movements, and the song. When did I join the Kupono fandom? Last week, apparently. I’m not even mad at him for this half-shirt. (More like a 20% shirt actually). And he made the outfit himself, aww.

Cat tells us that indeed one man and one woman will be cut tomorrow. That seems unfair to the women, who even the judges agree all deserve to keep going. Why can’t they do it Idol-style, where they just eliminate whoever has the least votes and leave the gender out of it?

Our next pair is Jeanine and Jason. That seems like good potential for chemistry. Jeanine points out in her interview that Jason is hot. Methinks Phillip wasn’t really Jeanine’s type. They’re doing a contemporary routine choreographed by Travis Wall, who was on the show himself in season 2 and has never choreographed for it before. Hmm. Their story is that they’re friends who are hooking up for the first time. Man, can you imagine if Randi had been given this assignment?

The dance is… uh, I don’t get it. They, like, pretend to hit each other. And they jump around. And there are a lot of lifts. Lots of throwing each other around. And Jason doing some cool acrobatics. And some disturbingly sexual stuff. And then at the end they pretend to kiss but either they’re acting really well or they’re not pretending.

The judges give them a standing ovation. Okay, so I guess that means those aren’t that uncommon on this show, since it’s happened twice in the past two weeks. Nigel talks about how much he loves the choreography. I’m willing to accept that it looked good to someone who knows what they’re supposed to be looking for, but it didn’t work for me. Nigel says this is the first time Jeanine has had a partner who can keep up with her technically. That must make Jason feel a lot better, seeing as how he just barely made it into the top 10. Mary can’t talk because she’s too overwhelmed (and let’s note that Jason is still standing there with his shirt unbuttoned and his pecs flexing). She yells about how much she likes them and acts like it’s because of their performance that she’s high right now. Then she talks about how she wants to pinch Jason (literally, that’s what she says, this isn’t my usual hyperbole) and says Jeanine is a star. Then she calls even more attention to herself and screams silently. Wow, it must be nice to have a TV show on which it’s your job to act like a lunatic and have people pretend to love you for it. Debbie praises the choreography and says that the show is a conversation that is connecting a community of evangelizing dance, or something, and some other stuff. I’m getting tired. She says Jason/Jeanine is a magical pairing and points out that they managed to rip up Jeanine’s costume at some point. I think that, unlike with the Ade/Janette number, this was unintentional ripping.

Next, Melissa solos. Ooh fun, she’s the only one I always like on her own. She does her usual contemporaryish ballet stuff and looks like she’s having the time of her life. I’d have preferred it if she’d skipped the bike shorts though.

Then Evan solos. Oh lord. He does Broadway by himself wearing a white jacket. He makes faces and is playing a character even though he has no story to act in. Wow, I really really really prefer Evan when he’s dancing with a partner.

And then, Kayla. We’ve seen her do so many solos already that I feel bad for her that she keeps having to choreograph new ones. I’m sure she’s good though. You know, Jaimie was asking me yesterday why I don’t like Kayla, and I realized I really don’t know. She just irritates me on a personal level. I have no opinion either way about her dancing, or about most of the “contemporary” dancers for that matter, except when they’re dancing in other genres that I understand better. I didn’t like that the judges seemed to crown her and Phillip so early on, so that prejudiced me against her. But, all that said, she’s only 18 and I don’t want to be mean. Seriously.

Speaking of which, Fox is apparently letting its summer interns run the cameras on this show tonight. Please, stop with the shaky shots of the ceiling. Thank you.

Next, Randi is partnered with Kupono. They both act excited about this but I don’t see it working out well. They’re very different, and Randi has had the much less threatening Evan to work with for five weeks and has probably been spoiled. But we’ll see.

They’re doing the Paso Doble, choreographed by Tony Meredith and Melanie Lapatin. Randi is the cape and Kupono is the matador. It doesn’t seem to make Randi uncomfortable, which is nice. The dance itself is confusing at first because for a second I thought it wasn’t Randi – her hair just looks dramatically different than usual. Because she’s wearing a wig. Really? There was no way to make Randi’s shoulder-length hair look appropriate for the Paso Doble? Okay. She looks fantastic in her dress, though. Like a different person. Kupono is playing the part beautifully, and – wow, it looks like Kupono is actually, kind of, a better dancer than Randi. Or maybe his part is just more exciting? I’ll wait to see what the judges say. He’s definitely acting better than she is though. Hee, now I’m picturing Evan playing this role. Evan really isn’t very flexible genre-wise, is he? Then at the end I think Kupono drops her.

Nigel compliments the choreography and says the dancing wasn’t as good and is pretty harsh about it. He says Kupono didn’t come off as strong enough. He doesn’t like Randi’s wig, which I doubt was her idea. Mary says they didn’t take it to the next level and also didn’t like the wig. Randi, who has never gotten this kind of negative feedback before, looks about to cry. Kupono is used to it and is better able to deal. Mary does say Randi was better than Kupono. But then she adds, “Mediocre will not cut it,” and says the music was more powerful than the dancing. Wow. Debbie says Kupono and Randi were awkward and didn’t trust each other or work well together enough. I think that’s the harshest judges’ critique we’ve seen since the top 20 began. Poor Randi and Kupono. I like them both and don’t like to see them sad.

Next, Ade solos really fast and shirtlessly to “Unchained Melody,” which I don’t think was ever intended for super-fast shirtless dancing. Like Melissa, he looks like he’s having the time of his life. Is the shirtlessness at this point a ploy for the voters? Well, work it if you’ve got it I guess.

Jeanine solos next. I don’t know how to describe these solos when they’re just doing the same thing in different order than they’ve done before on multiple results shows. Except to note that I think this particular bikini does not really suit her.

Next, Jason has clearly worked really hard on his solo. I like that Jason is so obviously trying to go for it after having been on the bottom so many times. He’s got a whole character thing going on here. It’s like an actual performance, not like he’s trying to fit as many exciting moves as he possibly can into 30 seconds (see: Ade).

The last couple is Melissa and Brandon. Now, that particular pairing hardly seems fair to everyone else. They are, of course, psyched to be paired with each other, although Melissa is a tiny bit taller than Brandon. Man, Melissa is pretty.

They’re doing Broadway choreographed by Tyce to “Age of Aquarius” from Hair, which is a show that Melissa has never heard of before now. Shame on her. They have to be all over each other during the rehearsal on the very first day of their partnership, which they giggle about.

The dance begins, and they are in Hair-ish costumes and facial expressions. Naturally they are both going for these personae with all they’ve got, just like they always do, although I doubt they would’ve had time to rent the movie. I like the routine but I kind of don’t like that they randomly incorporate lifts and flips. I haven’t seen Hair on stage but lifts and flips don’t really seem to fit the concept. I know on this show it’s important that they allow the dancers to show off their skills but I’d kind of rather see more of them randomly throwing themselves against each other and hopping around in a drugged-out-looking way (which this dance also involves).

They continue to act drugged-out into the judging, which is funny. Nigel himself appears to be having an acid flashback. He does love it when they do those ’60s dances, doesn’t he. Nigel is amazed that Tyce has ever seen Hair. Then he points out that Hair was groundbreaking for having had interracial dancing, which is a better way of working in the fact that SYTYCD also has interracial dancing than when Mia tried to do a couple of weeks ago. Mary says their performance was unbelievable. Then she and Nigel start doing the “Sock it to me” thing which I guess was also from the ’60s but connecting it to Hair seems a bit of a stretch. Debbie says Melissa and Brandon were powerful, technical, and different.

Next, Janette does a solo. Hang on, I can’t take notes and watch this at the same time. Okay, back. Wow, that was awesome. Can Janette do a three-minute solo next week? I’m sure she’s used to partner dancing, but she looks wonderful by herself, and anyway there’s no salsa dancer left on the show for her to dance with. I really wish we’d gotten to see her dance with Max at least once.

And finally, the five men do a group dance. I was wrong, it’s not hip-hop, it’s African dance choreographed by Jeffrey Page. He’s “reaching for a dance that shows off masculinity.” Oh, for God’s sake. All of the guys find this very challenging. Evan says it’s awkward: “You may not have noticed, but I am not African.” Man, every time I want to stop liking Evan he goes and says something like that. The dance is supposed to be about what they do when they see a hot girl, or something. Uh… again, I get that we live in a heteronormative society and all in which these sorts of dances are expected, and I don’t want to make assumptions, but I strongly suspect that this is not an applicable situation to most of these guys, and I wish the show wouldn’t force it on them. But, of course, they give it their all in any case, and since I’ve inadvertently paused the DVR on a shot of Evan’s pit stain I’m going to stop complaining and get on with things.

The dance begins, and I pause the DVR to note that they’re all shirtless and in African-style pant/skirt combos, and that the shirtlessness is a new look only for poor pasty Evan, and when I hit pause it happens to be on a shot of shirtless Evan and shirtless Brandon doing a very severe chest-bump, and oh my lord I don’t know if I can watch much more of this. Anyway, when I start it up again they’re all really good, and it’s easier than it was in the women’s Bollywood dance to pick out the individuals who are especially good. I’m going to go with Ade, followed by a Brandon/Kupono tie. Actually I think Kupono is doing a completely different dance than the rest of them, but I like it better than what the rest of them are doing, for whatever that says about me and my feelings on African dance. Poor Evan just looks very, very out of his element. Jason is in fantastic shape. Man, that looked exhausting.

Cat stands in the middle of the guys and says, “We look like we could be in some fabulous band or something,” which is funny and true. Nigel says everyone knows he loves African dance. Is that why we’ve had three Bollywood performances this season and only one African dance? He says it was a very challenging routine. Then he says Evan looked like a dancing milkshake. Ouch. But he says they were all good, and that no one stood out as bad (which is very different from what he told the women, which was that he couldn’t decide which he liked best). Mary loves the costumes, predictably. She would probably have shortened the pant/skirt things by a few feet though. She also points out that this is not Evan’s genre and forces us to see a close-up of Evan sticking out his stomach. Ew. Debbie plugs the show’s awesomeness for showing African dance and praises the choreography and compliments the guys for passing her test. Whatever, I’m kind of not into Debbie after all. Bring back Adam Shankman.

Results night. Cat is wearing another spacesuit, and I don’t like it as much as her last one.

Group dance. Very dramatically staged. The costumes are Asian but the style is clearly hip-hop. Melissa has a starring role, which I approve of. Kayla and Jeanine have Princess Leia hair. Janette and … uh… Randi, I guess, in another wig, are backup. The guys are indistinguishable from each other in their hats (well, except for pasty Evan, who always stands out.) I like it better than I’ve liked the other group dances, but it still doesn’t do much for me. Turns out it was choreographed by Wade and Amanda Robson. Huh. So, out of the three Wade routines we’ve seen, I’ve loved one, hated one, and felt mediocre about the third.

Cat announces that they just got some Emmy noms for choreography last season: one for Mia, one for Tabitha and Napoleon, one for Tyce, and one for Dmitry Chaplin, who was once a contestant on this show. Wow, so this show apparently dominates that category. Because Dancing with the Stars sucks, I guess.

Nigel isn’t there tonight because he’s over in the UK picking up an honorary degree from some university. With Nigel gone, we get an extra-long clips package from last night to fill the time he normally would’ve rambled through, which is fun because it saves me having to recap it.

Since the show’s format has changed, we’re in American Idol zone with the extra-drawn-out results reveals. Then we see that the contestants are wearing the same outfits they wore for their solos last night. Oh, man, there is nothing fun left for me in results shows anymore.

The bottom two women are Randi and Melissa. Wow, really? I’m not surprised at all about poor Randi but I would’ve expected Kayla or even Janette over Melissa.

Cat shows us more season 6 auditions promo. Ew ew ew auditions are gross.

The bottom two men are Kupono, who I’m pleased to see is actually wearing a different outfit tonight, and Ade. Wow, really? After that awesome hip-hop dance? But Evan and Jason are both safe? I think these voters are very different people than me. And, although I like Randi I would also like to point out here that the judges have been acting for a few weeks now like Randi was carrying Evan, whereas these results would seem to indicate that it was in fact Evan who was carrying Randi.

For some reason the bottom four are all doing solos, even though the voting is already over. This just seems mean. Randi does pretty twirling and generally makes it clear that she knows she’s done. Kupono looks fabulous and does some jerky stuff and seems very into it. I’m irritated that I just now started liking Kupono and now he’s leaving. Melissa’s solo looks more to me like traditional ballet than last night’s did, but sadly she’s in the bike shorts again. Ade wears a shirt this time, which is a relief, but he dances to “Unchained Melody” again, although not quite as absurdly fast as last night.

Then the Black Eyed Peas perform “I Gotta Feelin’.” I have never been able to bring myself to care about the Black Eyed Peas. Nor am I planning to start tonight. I do notice though that Fergie appears to be singing backup. Did Fergie stop being the most famous person in the Black Eyed Peas? I don’t even know any of the others’ names. Oh, but wait, is one of them the guy who did the Obama “Yes We Can” video? Then they talk about Michael Jackson. Whatever.

Time for the real results. Randi’s going home. She holds it together pretty well. And Kupono. He has clearly rehearsed for this moment, and keeps smiling even though he’s obviously devastated. Aww, I like both of them. This is hard. Awwwww.

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

Season 5, Episodes 16&17: Top 10 (originally aired July 15&16, 2009)

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

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