So You Think You Can Dance: Crap, Mia’s Here

So, I still like this show. But nothing in the past few weeks has managed to top the excitement generated by that first performance episode.  The judges are bothering me again, and the gendered BS is still in full effect. And for every awesome routine, there’s always another one that I just don’t get. Sorry, SYTYCD, the honeymoon is over. You’re now firmly in the “reality shows I watch because they’re enjoyable more often than not” camp, rather than the “fantastic shows I go out of my way to recommend” slot. Don’t worry, Top Chef is in there too.

This week, Cat is wearing a strapless hot pink prom dress and looks just as fabulous as always. Even though her lipstick kind of clashes with the fabric.

Time for the intro dances. The novelty of these has worn off too. Nevertheless, Janette is amazing. Vitolio still needs to distinguish himself. Evan has some hilarious hair happening. Randi – wow! She borrowed one of Evan’s hats and looks great. Melissa and Caitlin are both in awesome tutu things. Karla looks very different than she ever has before. Jeanine forgets to dance during hers. Kayla is 18 and I won’t say anything mean about her. Evan does his hysterical gangster walk during the “Here are your guys” thing, which I think he did last week too.

Oh, no no no. Mia’s the guest judge tonight. Oh, lord. They make this huge deal about her because they have to fill even more time than they did last week and shut up Mia. She says something about how her opinion has changed for the better about a “small male dancer” “with the initials Brandon” (thanks for that, Nigel). Okay, so does that mean we aren’t going to talk about the Mia/Brandon thing fifty million more times tonight? Please please please? Well, Brandon and Janette are first up, so if not at least we’ll hopefully be done with it soon.

I like how the commercials for the new iPhone act like this “copy and paste” concept was just invented last week. I wonder if Steve Jobs and Nigel Lythgoe have parties where they talk about all the new concepts they’ve brought to the world. I bet they invite Al Gore every time but he has his assistant RSVP that he’s washing his hair that night.

This week the contestants are talking about their highs and lows from the past three weeks. Are these little devices really necessary? Can’t they just interview the contestants about whatever they feel like talking about each week? Oh well, they aren’t saying anything new so at least it saves me some recapping time.

Brandon and Janette are doing a cha-cha choreographed by Jean Marc and France. This is Janette’s specialty, right? So this should be even cooler than these two usually are. There’s no way the outfits could top last week, though.

And man, if I didn’t already love Janette I totally would now. She is – actually, I don’t think there are enough adjectives to describe how Janette comes off during this performance. I think Janette may have just replaced Evan as my favorite contestant on this show. How does any human being do the things she was doing there? Also, she’s really embracing the character – which I suppose is also Janette’s specialty, and she’s better at it than Brandon, although he’s really quite good at it too. But seriously, how does one do all these fancy spins and jumps and all that other stuff while maintaining a constant, totally believable facial expression of vague passion and anger and sexiness? I would totally be grimacing the whole time, a la Phillip. And Brandon and his muscles are an excellent accompaniment to Janette’s awesomeness. I know this isn’t his area but he looks great, almost as good as Max used to look doing ballroom.

And here I haven’t even mentioned the outfits. Which are fabulous. Particularly loving Brandon’s weird sleeveless white 80s shirt. Janette looks gorgeous, of course, because Janette always looks gorgeous.

Okay, rewinding to watch that again.

Nigel says it’s the best cha-cha he’s ever seen on the show and that it was world-championship-level ballroom dancing. Then he talks about the Brandon/Mia thing, so thanks Nigel. He especially compliments the non-ballroom Brandon on his steps and such. Then he says they haven’t hit their style yet. Oh, whoops, so I’m dumb for assuming that spicy salsa and cha-cha are the same. Mary further explains how different the technique is between the two but still goes to great length to talk about how well Janette did it. Sometimes, Mary is indeed helpful. She stands up and yells about her train and screams with way more energy than she has in weeks, so I guess she really did like it. Then Mia acts like Brandon should be scared of her. Um, Mia, I think by now Brandon is officially more important to this show than you are. And then she acts like she was only giving Brandon constructive criticism in Vegas, like she hopes we’ll all forget what she said about his “fake smile” and how she loathed him as a human being. Brandon is either genuinely moved by her praise or knows he’s supposed to act like he is, because he wipes invisible tears from his eyes. Mia compliments Janette too. At this point I’d be thrilled if either of them, but especially Janette (who, let’s remember, has never had any formal dance training), won the whole thing.

All right, so that was 900 words and I’m only 20 minutes into the show. Hopefully not much will happen in the remaining 100 minutes or my RSI will start acting up again. Stupid show, forcing me to form all these opinions.

Next, Kayla and Kupono, doing a contemporary routine choreographed by Sonya. Lovely. It has a “vampiresque quality,” according to Kupono. Kayla is dying and Kupono is trying to pull her toward death. Did Sonya choreograph one of those zombie group routines too? Is this just Sonya’s thing? Or is Sonya merely a TwiHard?

The dance involves a lot of Kayla flipping her hair around and getting dragged various places by Kupono while wearing a Corpse Bride corset and a LOT of eye makeup. I’m sure she didn’t apply it herself, and therefore I feel comfortable saying it looks ridiculous.

Nigel references Interview with the Vampire because Nigel is totally up on contemporary pop culture. He doesn’t bother talking about Kayla because it’s been long established that Nigel is obsessed with Kayla. So instead he talks about how he’s starting to like Kupono. Kupono also has his share of eye makeup on, I’m noticing, but it’s relatively tasteful next to Kayla. His vest/shirt combo, however, is just silly. Mary compliments Sonya’s choreography and Kayla’s legs. Kayla’s 18; I’m not going to comment on her legs. But I will say that her lipstick also looks awful. Mary talks about Kupono’s “beautiful feet” and puts them on her train but with way less energy than she did Brandon and Janette. Mia thinks Kupono and Kayla are hot and likes the costumes, because Mia also thinks goth is totally cutting edge. It sounds like the judges are really interested in keeping Kupono in the game, which is interesting. I don’t know the show well enough to try to guess why the judges would do that; I’m just getting a sense from these comments that they’re trying to portray him as a major up-and-comer.

Next, Randi and Evan, doing Broadway. Ooh! This should be fun to watch. Not that Evan hasn’t been doing great with the other styles but I can’t really remember what he looks like when he’s doing real Broadway. I know this isn’t Randi’s specialty (come to think of it, what is Randi’s specialty? Does she have one, besides unitards? Or is she one of those many people whose specialty is “contemporary,” which to me as a dance novice seems to mean flopping around semi-gracefully, except for the times when it’s intentionally non-graceful? Whatever.) Their choreographer is Joey Dowling, which is interesting since I thought Tyce was the only Broadway choreographer interested in bothering with this show.

Their dance looks cool, but I’m kind of not feeling it. I don’t get the story they’re trying to tell. They seem to be acting very well, and they look like they’re having a good time. But it doesn’t work for me. If I wasn’t already into Evan and Randi I wouldn’t have really cared about that. Randi is working those feathers on her head, though.

Nigel identifies the routine as an homage to Bob Fosse, which is helpful. He says he thought Randi was great but he was disappointed by Evan. But he says they’re in his top 10 nevertheless. Mary says Evan “did it fairly well” and complimented Evan’s slow-mo cartwheel, which was indeed cool. She says they did the characters well and were entertaining. No scream, no train. Mia hits on Joey and mocks Evan and Randi for being short (this is a recurring theme) and says they didn’t take it to a high enough level. She says she expects more from Evan and calls out Randi’s movement for being too “heavy.” I don’t know what that means but that’s the first time I can remember anyone ever specifically criticizing Randi.

Wow, I forgot all about Knowing. That was a traumatic movie experience at the time, but it was completely gone from my mind in, like, 48 hours.

Next, Jason and Caitlin, doing a jazz routine choreographed by Brian Friedman. Caitlin’s character is an alien who wants to have sex with Jason. Huh. All the women on this show are expected to be very sexual a lot of the time, but is it my imagination or does this happen more often to Caitlin than the others?

Then the dance starts, and – hang on, I have to pause to get a good look at Caitlin’s costume. She has a hood on with Sanjaya-esque spikes coming out of it, and a vinylish catsuity thing with lots of shiny tinfoilish straps on it. I’m not entirely positive she’s intended to be a female alien. I wonder how Nigel will feel about that. And then… uh, okay. This is another time when I can’t judge the dancing at all because the concept is way too distracting. Also not to continually freak out about the gendered stuff but… this story is disturbing and would not have been allowed by the producers were the genders reversed. Because the last-man-on-Earth character played by Jason is, uh, not consenting to the Caitlin character’s overtures. So she hypnotizes him and does some other stuff and then, I guess, impregnates him? I don’t know, that’s what they said but I think that part went over my head.

Anyway, not going to dwell on that. Time for the judges. Nigel snarks politely about the choreography and praises Jason and Caitlin for committing themselves to it. Yes, they certainly did look like they were giving it their all. Although the catsuit did half of Caitlin’s work for her. Nigel thinks Caitlin should’ve been wearing fewer clothes and Cat joins him in making a condom joke. Mary also didn’t like the choreography and says “It just doesn’t sit right with me” and hints that she thinks they’ll be in the bottom three, again. Mia is even meaner than the other two about the choreography. Man, this was bad hat-draw luck for Jason and Caitlin.

Next, Jeanine and Phillip, doing hip-hop choreographed by Napoleon and Tabitha. The routine is about SYTYCD, and Phillip and Jeanine are chained together the entire time. Okay, that’s impressively meta for a Fox reality show. Nice concept, Napoleon and Tabitha.

Execution-wise, though, I’m not really getting a SYTYCD vibe from this performance so much as a Phillip-and-Jeanine-hate-each-other-and-it’s-really-hard-to-dance-while-chained-to-someone vibe. Also, why is Jeanine half-naked? Is that supposed to be meta too? I wish I could give the show that much credit.

Nigel loved it and makes a ball-and-chain joke. He comments that poor Jeanine the contemporary dancer hasn’t been allowed to dance contemporary yet. Well, yes, and Melissa hasn’t been allowed to dance ballet yet. And likely never will, because they don’t do ballet on this show, right? Maybe eventually they’ll get to do solos and we can see her do some ballet then. I almost want Melissa and Ade to wind up in the bottom three at some point just so I can see her use those pointe shoes. Mary liked Phillip and Jeanine but doesn’t sound all that enthusiastic, as is often the case. I still don’t understand why the judges are all so into Phillip. She again compliments Jeanine for keeping up with Phillip, which sounds more condescending every time someone says it. Mia said she got “caught up in the chainography,” which took away from the performance. How is that helpful criticism? Except for Napoleon and Tabitha?

Next, Melissa and Ade, doing a classical pas de deux, which has never been done before on this show, choreographed by Thordal Christensen. They’re doing a dance from Romeo and Juliet. Finally, a story I’ll be able to follow no matter how random the choreography. Oh, hey, Melissa’s in pointe shoes! I swear I didn’t know this was going to happen when I wrote that stuff one paragraph up. But wait… I thought they all drew their dances out of a hat? Are you seriously telling me that they put this ballet routine in there for the first time ever and it just happened to be drawn by the show’s one true ballerina? There’s something strange going on here. I mean, I love Melissa too, and I know she’s paid her dues by doing all the hip-hop so far and whatnot, but as the judges just pointed out neither Brandon nor Janette has ever gotten to dance in their specialty style. Meanwhile, Phillip just performed his second hip-hop routine in four weeks, and Melissa’s in pointe shoes.

But anyway. I’m sure this performance will be awesome. Also, someone told me last week I should be paying more attention than I have so far to Ade’s butt, so I’m going to try to make up for that now.

But first, wow, Melissa looks gorgeous. She’s in this Juliet-style nightgown thing, with her hair in little-girl braids and ringlets, and she’s playing the part beautifully. They even do the hand-touching thing from the script. (I mean, the one by Shakespeare. Not whatever that Thordal dude came up with for them. Although I’m sure that’s quite good, too.)

Ade’s butt is there. I don’t know, it’s nothing special. Is there something exciting that I’m missing? I’m just glad he doesn’t have his pick in his hair. Although it would’ve been funny if he’d insisted. “Romeo would totally wear a pick in his hair in this scene! Romeo was a forward-thinking dude!”

The dance is as pretty as you would expect of a classical ballet about Romeo and Juliet. Which is to say, wonderful. Wow, look at Melissa twirl. Ade hauls her around and does some jumping stuff of his own, while wearing a semi-normal outfit for once. Mostly, though, he stands back and watches Melissa, and carts her around while she strikes poses. Which seems appropriate.

Okay, that was really pretty. Rewinding.

When they cut to the judges, Mia looks bored to death. But Nigel is thrilled to have ballet on the show and says it was beautifully danced. He says Ade’s feet could be better but otherwise he was good. Then Nigel talks some more about how awesome SYTYCD is. Mary also seems bored but says she loved the routine and that it was wonderful to see Melissa in her style. Then she fantasizes about hooking up with Ade. Mia also self-congratulates the show for having ballet on it, and says Melissa and Ade were good. Then Cat does a dance of her own, which is hilarious. Then Mia brings us back to the self-congratulation by pointing out that Melissa is white and Ade is black and isn’t that groundbreaking. Then she says Melissa is brilliant. Wow, I am clearly qualified to be a guest judge on this show too if that’s all it takes.

Next we stop the show for a package about the Dizzy Feet Foundation featuring the show’s various choreographers and their “good friend” Katie Holmes.  This is a new foundation to give scholarships to underprivileged young dancers. Then they announce that Katie Holmes will be performing on the show in a couple of weeks. Katie Holmes… dances? Is this a new thing?

Anyway, back to the show. Ooh, it looks like Cat’s prom dress has pockets! Awesome!

Next, Vitolio and Karla. Oh, right, I forgot Karla was still here. And Asuka is not. Hmph. They’re doing the quick step choreographed by Jean Marc and France. Vitolio is a museum statue complete with props and Karla is I guess a regular person. Cat says it’s traditionally the toughest dance.

I love Karla’s dress. They’re dancing to “Putting on the Ritz” as covered by Rufus Wainwright. Cool. Vitolio jumps down from the museum stand really fast. Then he pulls down Karla’s dress, and underneath she has on something even prettier, and long and sparkly. Neat! The quick step seems to involve running around the stage doing lots of stuff with your feet really fast. There is also hopping. And high kicking. It certainly does look hard. I can’t tell if they did it well, but I enjoyed watching it. At the end, Vitolio sets Karla up on the statue pedestal and snaps his fingers and she turns into a statue. (I mean, she pretends to. We aren’t in Narnia.)

Nigel liked the routine and apparently has lost whatever sense that GLAAD letter put in his head because he says, “I love the fact that you can keep a woman quiet just by going like that!” and snaps his fingers. Wow, that was pretty egregious, even by Fox reality show standards. Then he snaps his fingers at Mia when she tries to say something. Wow. No one on the show really calls him on this, because he outranks all of them. But I certainly hope that gets remarked upon in the chatty rooms tomorrow. Then he talks about how the dancers’ footwork was good but has some technical critique. Mary talks as though Nigel didn’t just insult her entire gender and says she loved the dance, but she also has some minor technical criticisms for Vitolio. Mia, as usual, mostly talks about the choreography and again likes the clothes. She says Vitolio looks like a wild horse and Karla is gorgeous. And she liked the performance.

So, my predicted bottom three: Jason and Caitlin, and… maybe Randi and Evan and Kayla and Kupono? I really have no idea. Randi and Evan have never been in the bottom three and I’m not sure why. I mean, I like them, but why do other people? Is it really because Evan got all that attention during the audition sequences? Because if so, that sucks.

Results night. Cat has taken a cue from Caitlin and dressed in her shiniest spacesuit. Unlike Caitlin did last night, though, Cat still manages to look every inch the supermodel.

The group dance is to a song from The Wiz, which I guess makes it Broadway. Ooh, the guys are wearing fewer clothes than the women. Uh… with some exceptions. One of the women, and I can’t tell who, is wearing a costume designed to make her appear naked. Okay then. I think the guy in the loincloth is Brandon but I’m not positive. I happen to pause the screen on a shot of Evan, who’s wearing an awesome shirt with cutoffs and fur on one shoulder, with half his face painted white and an expression that would seem to indicate he is not enjoying this as much as his Broadway roots would suggest. Melissa is in pointe shoes again, even though it doesn’t go with this performance at all. Not that I’m complaining. Wait, I think the not-naked woman is Kayla. Come on, you guys, she is 18. I realize that makes her legal but please, think of the grandparents. (And that’s not even touching on the larger issue of why they felt the need to make one of the women appear naked at all. But then I see Brandon in that loincloth again and I wonder if I complaineth too much.) Cat shows up and lets us know that Tyce choreographed the group performance. Okay, but how come they never identify the costume designers? Those are the ones who really have the power on this show, clearly.

You know, we’ve established how I feel about Nigel, but I do like how he always seems genuinely happy to be there when Cat introduces him at the start of every episode.

Outfits! Evan is in all-black with a white bow tie. Amazing how he’s able to come up with so many variations on that basic formula. Randi is in an unfortunate white ruffled maternity tunic of some sort. Karla looks gorgeous. Janette is in a sexy bathrobe. It’s Melissa’s turn this week to dress up as a dominatrix, but she’s done it somewhat classily, except for the bike shorts. Ade is ready to party like it’s 1989. Kayla, as always, is dressed like she just stepped off the cover of Teen Vogue. Jeanine and Caitlin are both in relatively modest bikinis and wearing them quite well.

The bottom three are Karla and Vitolio, Kayla and Kupono, and Phillip and Jeanine. Wow, that was a shocker. Perhaps the supposed cult of Phillip has been overblown?

You know, I think I am kind of getting over my pseudo-crush on Evan. If he and Randi been in the bottom three at least once by now, I would feel better about liking him, but as it is, not so much. This probably indicates something very bad about my character, and I hate to think how Elizabeth Bennet would judge me for it, but hey, if I can’t tell the truth on Poptimal.com, where can I tell the truth? Because now it’s all about Janette and Melissa with an occasional sprinkling of Jeanine and Brandon in Robinland.

Mia basically gives Kayla and Kupono a free pass before they’ve even done their solos. I wonder what the judges do when their favorites land in the bottom three over and over again? Do they just keep saving them forever? I guess that’s the flaw in this elimination system. Anyway, with Phillip already obviously safe and Kupono safe at least in Mia’s book, I guess that’s it for Vitolio, which makes me sad. And that’s probably it for Karla too, but, as Jane Lynch would say, I don’t care so much about that.

Next, we watch some professional ballet dancers. Wow, these people are flexible. And here I get tired just from triangle pose.  There’s nothing particularly enjoyable about the performance, though, especially since the music consists of a single very active violin and is kind of disturbing. Bring Melissa back out, she’s not doing anything.

30 seconds of shame time. Karla jerks around on the stage like she has some sort of problem. I think we are witnessing Karla giving up, here. Still love the dress though. Vitolio has perhaps not thrown in the towel yet, and does his standard open-shirt spinning and jumping, plus some neat strutting and arm movements. Kayla, probably struggling not to look like she’s trying too hard like last time, doesn’t seem to try hard enough, and just sticks her legs out a lot. There is no way her hair is naturally that color, right? Kupono dances to that version of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” that was popularized by Jason Castro and as far as I can tell he mostly just sticks his limbs out too. Am I just missing something with the solos tonight, or are they all genuinely sucking? Jeanine doing contemporary is, as it turns out, very ballet-looking, like when Caitlin does it. She looks great, although her bathing-suit-cover-up skirt thing doesn’t really work. I wonder if we will learn tonight how the judges really feel about Jeanine outside the context of the divine Phillip. Phillip himself … wow, okay, I think now I see why people are so into him. This is cool. He should just be allowed to do this every week. If he and Jeanine were both dancing solo every time I would like them both a lot better.

Dude, ABC Family is doing a sitcom version of 10 Things I Hate About You. I know we’re all still sad about Heath Ledger, but is this really necessary? I have so few pristine cinematic memories from my college years, would it please be possible not to mess this one up?

While the judges deliberate we watch Kelly Clarkson sing “I Do Not Hook Up.” You know, I’m the only person I know who watched season 1 of American Idol, and I liked it so much that I actually tried to see From Justin to Kelly when it was in theaters. But I couldn’t convince anyone to see it with me, and although I usually have no problem seeing movies by myself I simply was not willing to go there for From Justin to Kelly. So I forgot about it, and then I kind of forgot about Kelly Clarkson too, and then a couple of years went by and suddenly Kelly Clarkson was everywhere and had become a metaphor for all that was mainstream and cute and clean. And meanwhile I couldn’t figure out why I’d never heard “Miss Independent” on the radio. And then I started associating her with that one scene in The 40-Year-Old Virgin and forgot that she sang at all. And now here she is, and her singing is fine, I guess, and she has like 20 backup singers, and I hope she’s happy with where her life has taken her because she looks very unhappy right now singing on SYTYCD.

Back to the real show. The judges are unanimous in their decision on which of the women to eliminate. Nigel says Jeanine gave the strongest solo of the night, and sends her to sit down right away. He says Kayla is one of their favorites, and she smiles, because pleasing adults has always been what she’s good at. Then he criticizes her solo, and she stops smiling, and I feel bad for typing what I just did, because Kayla’s only 18, but you know what, I’m not deleting it either. Then Nigel sends Karla home. Well, yes. No one appears at all surprised by this, least of all Karla.

The judges are unanimous on the men too. They thought Phillip’s solo was desperate but that he’s still phenomenal, and needs to work hard, and they’re keeping him. Kupono and Vitolio both look like they’re currently experiencing the worst moment of their respective lives. Nigel says mean things about Vitolio and says Kupono’s solo choreography was awful, which makes me feel better about my own assessment of it. Then he sends Vitolio home, and Kupono is again very rude in demonstrating his happiness about this. Vitolio gives Cat a huge hug, and Cat points to a very sad-looking Asuka in the audience.

This is interesting, how the original pairs are falling near to each other in the process – Vitolio and Asuka were in the bottom, Jonathan and Karla were in the bottom, and they can’t even survive once they’re separated. Do the producers perhaps intentionally pair the weaker dancers together? Hmm.

Next week, join me back here for more outfit observations and conspiracy theories. I promise not to talk about From Justin to Kelly again.

Season 5, Episodes 12&13: Top 14 (originally aired July 1&2, 2009)

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