So You Think You Can Dance - The Top 20

Okay, we have two full hours of show to go over...sheesh. 20 dancers to be introduced, ten performances. Let's rock.

We start out with the individual dance introductions which morphs into a boys versus girls "Let's rumble...hey you're kinda cute" group mingling complete with pointy pose ending. The host is Cat Deely and we'll mention her as little as possible. Tonight's Judges are Producer Nigel, "I can only start with a whooo and a catchphrase" Ballroom Mary, and "Shane Sparks owns me" hip hop coreographer Dan Karatay.

Unlike last year we'll be voting all night. The dancers will be split up into teams prearranged by the judges and will stay together as long as their partner is in the competition. The bottom three teams will be revealed tomorrow night and each member of the bottom three teams will perform a solo, where the JUDGES decide who stays and who goes. It was the other way around last year but that wasn't contrived enough. Got it?

Anyway, I like the idea of having consistent teams, since this opens up the possibility for so many things...partners getting along, not getting along, excelling together, sucking together, romantic possibilities and the chance that we'll see a bitch fight...now that's good reality TV.

With all this shit going on we start with recaps of the auditions...SNORE!!! Seriously ten performances people let's move it!

We finally get to meet team #1 Which teams up West Coast Swing Champion and crying like a girl champion Benji and hardworking big-boned jazz-hip hop dancer Donyelle. These two probably got more screen time than any of the other teams during the auditions. They are both likeable but they both had to overcome not being versatile enough for the competition. They are very happy to be teamed with one another which is cool. They will be performing a hip-hop routine coreographed by Shane "By the way I did You Got Served suckas" Sparks. Sweet! I loved every performance he worked on last year. I'm actually excited to how this turns out.

They perform to "Too Much Booty." And it does not disappoint...Lots a booty shakin,
some krumpin, some "hey, my partner is on a string" moves. It's all over the place and it wrecks shit up. The routine lets Donyelle do her thing and plays to Benji's strenghts which are footwork and partner work. The judges love them. I did too, actually. They'll be fun to watch as the show goes on.

Next, we have a hip-hop dancer named Ivan and he's paired with Allison, whose specialty is lyrical. On the partner reveal she leaps up into his arms and they are happy about it. They are both very young...they are going to do a salsa routine with Alex. I liked his routines last year as well. He made breakdancer Ryan look like a champ early on. They have the usual problems with the hip-hopper not being used to partner work.

All I can really say is that Allison looks great, dances great and even does a "this is where babies come out of" move. Ivan...is wearing a pink hat.

The judges pretty much loved her, didn't really like his effort, and even stated that Allison would have been better off partnered with a pole...heh...pole. Looks like an early candidate for the bottom 3. Too bad, they have a pretty fun chemistry about them.

Next we have Jason who is a contemporary, hip-hop, jazz-funk dancer from L.A. Cat starts pulling the bitch move and asks Jason who he would like to be partnered with. He says "Erin, Heidi, or Jessica" Of course it isn't any of them. Bitch! Instead he gets Aleksandra who was the last girl in. She is psyched, he's like "Um...yay?"
They are doing a contemporary routine with coreographer Tyce something(?)...who is new this year.
He treats dance like a therapy session and how dance comes from identity and line and blah blah blah. The rehearsal clip shows Aleksandra a step behind Jason and how she's gonna need to step it up or suck all over the stage.

They dance to "Unwritten" by Natasha Bedingfield. Jason has a blousy shirt on so I'm just waiting for it to end. Aleksandra doesn't move quite as fluidly as Jason, who actually does a good job, pirate shirt and all. The judges rave about Jason who gets the "hey you do other styles great for a black guy" comments. They got good marks, but the performance wasn't all that fun for me to watch.

Next, we have contemporary dancer Jaymz...who probably writes his name out with stars and hearts shooting from the letters. Come on now! Why even bother with the one vowell? Dude, seriously! "Jaymz???" Anyway, he gets paired with Jessica who is a ballet dancer...so naturally they are going to do DISCO mutherfuckers! Coreographer Doriana had some fun routines last year so this should be interesting. She loses me though when she tells them she wants the routine to telll a story...she wants them to pretend they are in a nightclub. Really? Ya think so?Dico in a nightclub??? That's CRAZY talk!!! I mean by definition can't disco ONLY take place in a nightclub? How many "H's" do you want in your DUH?

They get have to get their booty shakin' and that's a problem with the Ballet dancer, plus apparently she has a small ass. She does ask the question, "What's booty work?" which is kinda cute.

They disco dance to "Disco Inferno" which I don't think has ever been done before anywhere ever. They are introduced as Jessica and Jaymz...so if they catch on they will no doubtedly be called "Jeyszy Jaymz" or something just as retarded. Compared to other disco perfomances on this show, this was kinda blah. There just wasn't anything there for me. Nigel loved it, Mary loves the team, Dan thought it was fun. They are probably safe.

Next we have Stanislav who we met as one half of a dorky guy hot babe ballroom partnership. Well he made it she didn;t. He's paired with Jazz dance Erin. They are doing the Paso Doble, the bullfighter and cape dance. She's not the best partner, but since he leads they probably aren't that bad off.

Meh. I know nothing about this stuff. I just look for spots to be a smartass. This was an instance of one of the partners strengths carrying the team. Possible bottom three here. They thought Stanslaf was in his element and looked majestic. They thought Erin was slipping on stage and was carried and was a little "Jazzy" Meh.

Next, we have Dimitri who is a classical and ballroom dancer from Russia and he gets paired up with Joy, Erin's who we've seen as Erin's best friend. She knew they'd be matched up with each other because she was tall. They get Shane Spark's second routine of the evening. One small problem, Dimitri has no idea how to dance "eep op". Shane comes out and says that Dimitry is holding Joy back and he doesn't like their chances.

They hit the stage and Joy takes to the hip hop routine like a southern cheerleader, meaning she can dance but there's something just off about it. Dimitri wins the award for whitest dancer ever! He gets the coreography down but the cultural gap owns him. She does use him at one point as a platform to get on all fours and shake her booty, so that's cool. Judges really call them out on not capturing the whole hip-hop vide. Except for Mary Abdul who "whoos" a whole bunch.

Next we have Ryan. Cat pulls out the bitch move again by asking him who he wants to partnered with and he replies "Natalie, Natalie, Natalie" like he's got a fucking crush. Dude, it's "So you think you can dance?" not "So you think you can tap a white chick?" Of course it's not Natalie, but Heidi, Benji's cousin and six time U.S. swing champion. She comes out and he's less than thrilled and it shows. Dude, if I sucked at partnerwork and I got paired with a friggin champion and I was serious about winning the competition I would be ecstatic. They are set to do a Viennese Waltz. Predictibly he sucks at it and she ends up coaching him alot.

The waltz is pretty good and I can't really say what made it good, but I know suck when I see it and that wasn't it. Judges say stuff about lines and Euro vs. American Waltz blah blah blah. I think they are gonna be safe. I also think there's gonna be an explosion as they progress in the competiton.

Next, we have Ben who looks like an emo kid who just rolled out of bed after a krank bender. He gets partnered with popper Ashely. Their pairing fits for some reason . I like this team. They get assigned to Disco Dorianna who is going to set up an 80's Disco routine. I need to digress here. I had a roomate in High School from L.A. and he was a disco DJ. So I for a full nine months I heard a ton of 80's dance music like Expose, Stevie B., Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam, Surface, Treniere all of which would be called "Freestyle" today, but then it was still called disco . He loved that form of music so much he had a ruler whose flat side had the word "Disco" painted in liquid paper. So, yes, living with someone who had a disco ruler makes me an authority here.

Their routine is set to Flashdance. FUCKING FLASHDANCE!!! This is so not DISCO!!! Falshdance does not make up even one centimeter of the disco ruler!!! They are so screwed. I suddenly have flashbacks to every bad parody of that movie that I have ever seen, combined with years of sitting through my sisters' dance recitals. Mix it all together and spray it with Aqua Net and you get this shitty shitty routine. Other than Melody and Alan's soldier boy routine last year this is the worst thing I have ever seen on this show. Poor kids. I liked them too.

This years cocky dancer is Travis, the guy who dances in camos and had a Cooch from Vision Quest haircut. His partner is Martha. They are uber confident. Tyce gives them a broadway routine. Travis was actually on Broadway for two years. Okay then...get used to this team. Tyce actually has to tell them not to rock the shit too hard in the beginning.

They are wearing bowlers on their head and suspenders. Only one word comes to mind...FOSSE!!!! Well Fosse and AWESOME! They knock it out of the park and was my favorite thing to watch tonight. The judges declare them the team to beat. I agree.

Finally, we have breakdancer Musa who is paired with stalking victim Natalie. Hmmm. something seems kind of fishy here...oh yeah, they also happen to be the two hottest people on the show...they are partners...in a popularity contest...meaning you will be seeing alot of them. They are also going to do a mambo just in case we missed the fact that these two are hot. They have the usual breakdance pair dancing problems, but Natalie wins me over by declaring "We got this" Word.

Okay its a mambo with two hot people. Tito Puente is playing in the background but it might as well be BOM CHICKA WOW WOW music. He has an up close look at her va jay jay, she gets to rub herself all over his leg. There's a whole lotta hip shaking...by the way in case you didn't notice these two are hot. That really all the Judges can really say. While being complimented Musa and Natale each give each other "You're the hot one, no really, not me, YOU" looks while being complimented. They really do have chemistry and they are the odds on favorite for the couple most likely to be doing it. Maybe it is "So You Think You Can Tap a White Chick?" after all.

Tags: So You Think You Can Dance, TV, Reality TV