Thursday, June 12, 2008

So You Think You Can Dance: Season Four - The Top 20

After many long weeks of American Idol crapfest, I have been waiting so very anxiously for this season's So You Think You Can Dance to start in earnest. I'm going to keep my Jidges commentary to a minumum and skip the 15 minutes of flashbacks and hop right into the partnering. Well, first I have to make my obligatory Kat Deely looks yum comment. She's got an evenly tanned look this year!




First up are Rayven and Jaime, the Fake Schwimmer. Coincidentally, or not, they're starting the season with hip-hop, much like the way Benji and Donyelle kicked off season two. Instead of Shane Sparks, Napoleon and Tabitha are choreographing tonight's hip hop. Unfortunately it's to the song "American Boy" which is a fine song but it's just waaaay to breezy to really get the show pumping. The song is so breezy it called me up and left an awkward message on my phone that ended with "I'm Breezy!". The dancing is fine but not much of a crowd-pleaser. Jaime dropped trou for pretty much no reason. The dude should have stuffed a cucumber down there.


Susie , the hot teacher, is paired up with Marquis, who know nothing about. We get their intro Susie is pretty much teacher, Miami, students, Miami, teacher, look at my eye shadow, Miami, teacher. Marquis' story is a bit more compelling since he took dance against his Mother's wishes, but won her support when he made it on the show. He seems nice...so nice they stuck him with the f'n WALTZ! Talk about the kiss of death on a night with 10 routines.
Actually, it's not all too bad. Marquis had good form and Susie is more than a Shakira wannabe apparently, because she looked very elegant. They did botch a lift, but covered it well, still a waltz on the first night? They are in trouble..we may get to see Susie's washing machine this week.

Mandy Moore is in charge of the pairing of Kourtni and Matt. We hear the Uma Thurman comparisons again for Kourtni. Mark talks about his athletic parents....k. Also it turns out that combined, this pairing is twelve feet tall. That's all well and good but they forget to mention that if they combined they would also have four feet, a set of male and female organs, and two buttholes. We get our first real in character dance of the night. Mark pulls out this big ass diamond, which combined with the leather outfits suggests that they are jewel thieves or something. Mark pockets the diamond and I think they have a dance-off for it. It's kinda dull, but apparently Mark has superhuman strength since he turns the diamond into dust with his bare hands and glitters the stage. Cool look to the dancers, but come on y'all this was just silly. Picking them for the bottom three as well.

Next we get Chelsea T and Thayne dance the cha-cha. They are both so energetic and perky! It's sorta fun but I was annoyed by the mix of Oyo Como Va that they used. They were sorta good, but nothing like the really smooth cha cha's they've done in past seasons.
Next up we have a Mia Michaels joint. Since she won an Emmy she can do shit like this routine, which is her fantasy version of "Tim Burton's wedding" The victims are Chelsie H and Mark the Hawaiian contemporary dancer. Mia pretty much slams Mark for not being very good and not getting her piece and she's not all that optimistic that he'll get it at all.

Shut it Mia! I thought this was actually really interesting and since Mia is so hurkey jerky with her moves and angles who besides her would notice if they missed a move? This was bizarre and hot all at the same time and I'm now a Chelsie T fan.

The only problem I had was that at the end of the routine which is supposed to mean the consummation of the marriage, Mark looks like he wants to murder his wife. He had the same look in his eye that Justin Guarini had in "From Justin to Kelly" and the same look I have now that I realize that I've admitted I've seen "From Justin to Kelly"

Oh you bastard show! Why did you have to pair up my favorite dancer Twitch, with Kherrington, the dancer I have pre-judged for no reason as the most annoying, . They are doing a Broadway routine by Tyce D'iorio and behind the scenes Twitch christens this pairing using the collective name of, I-shit-you-not, "Twitchington" . I don't think he is my favorite anymore.
So the Broadway is fun and Kherringon is extra smiley, which sorta helps this piece. I'm just thinking that this pair isn't going to work because they have more of a big brother- little sister vibe and if they have to get steamy in later weeks that might just be really creepy. Even though I have to admit that Kherrington is very hot in a jailbait kinda way. For real though, "Twitchington?"



Next we have Comfort and Chris. Comfort, hip hopper, is paired with Chris who was told he had the personality of a tree. She is kinda surpirsed at all the touchin' involved with partner dancing. They're doing the Jive tonight. They start off dancing in individual spotlights which is pretty cool. Comfort who has been covered up in her short camera time this far is in a skimpy beaded number and she's probably rockin' the best body of the competition.

It's all good for me until Chris plays Comfort's leg like a guitar, which I cannot condone under any circumstances. The Jidges think Comfort's a star. I can't disagree.


They paired up hip-hopper Joshua (with secret dance training included) with Katee the girl they tried to paint as a a quitter. They're doing the hip-hop stylings of Napoleon and Tab. It's the story of a soldier who recieves the news that he's gotta go to war as soon as he and his woman's dance routine is over.
Now this isn't the first going off to war dance we've had on the show. Melody and Fat Alan covered this topic in Season One. It is however, the first going off to war routine that was any good. They danced to "No Air" which is about as hip-hop as well... something that is not hip-hop. Joshua is restrained enough not to bury Katee's limitations and it comes off well. Believe it or not Katee might be sticking around for a bit.

Will and Jessica are paired and they are doing tha Tango for us tonight. Not much to say really. They were good and probably safe. Yes, I am doing the rush through the last routines, like I have for the last two seasons. It's still how I roll.
Next we have Knicks dancer Courtney G and Gev who is actually from Khazakhstan and they will be having sexy time with a Dorianna, Disco routine. They seem to be the early candidate for cutest couple, but not quite in the running for couple most fun to imagine doing it. I don't think that any contenders have sprung up for that category so far.


So yes, since it's a disco routine I had to get a picture of the two of them in practice, because if you know SYTYCD disco like I do...here it comes...flying vagina spin!

Yes, I am 12 years old.

The disco was to "Boogie Wonderland" and as Nigel put it there wasn't enough "Boooo-gie" in it. I agreed, but seriously at this point, you've had 3 full seasons of routines, is anyone dancing Disco to "Boogie Wonderland" gonna blow anyone away? I didn't even feel the need to pull out a "Disco Ruler" reference. They round out the bottom three for me.

My favorites were Mark and Chelsie H., Joshua and Katee, and (ugh) "Twitchington"

See y'all in a few hours, suckas!

3 comments:

Sarah said...

I'm already getting addicted. The dancers are all pretty good this time-- there were no train wrecks during this episode. The hip hop dancers they've selected are all great dancers in general, and have all obviously had some sort of training. I think that it will make the playing field more even-- last season most of the breakers could just not hack the choreography in some of the couples dancing, even if they were great solo dancers and I felt that it was unfair to them. Oh my God, am I actually THINKING about this show and anayzing what is going on!?!?!? Make me stop!
hope to see you soon,
Paul's wife

Anonymous said...

Ok, SYTYCD is back on, which means the J-Man is back into the comment on Paj's blogspot routine.

Sadly I haven't seen an episode of He-Man in about two years so I don't have any recaps for you.

That being said I really liked the first routine, but it was to a bad song and was not hip hop, it was broadway, or if you squinted, Jazz.

Second was blah, the third was not Jazz, it was more hip hop then anything, not bad, but wasn't really popping.

I didn't care about much until Twitington. It was good, I enjoyed it, but it still didn't feel like it had too much heart.

I really wasn't feeling it until Joshua and asian. Oh Em Ge, that routine was so good if the competition was only that show Joshua would have won.

The only other thing I could say was why IN PIE did they tear up the disco routine? It was heads and tails better then the diamond heist or the cha-cha (though the male guy in the cha-cha, way too late for me to research this,) was pretty good.

Sometimes I think your dance conspirecy theories are real, we'll have to see what happens.

I'd put all the slow dances in the bottom three personally.

PS In a bra, panties and beats, SNAP!

Paj said...

I'm going to be checking out MTV's Dance Crew show next week.