So You Think You Can Dance - Season Four

The spring/fall tenants have taken a four month leave and the summer tenants are moving in.

We watched this show tonight, on the advise of posters in the American Idol thread and friends who love it, and put in on Season Pass. Should be fun, if we can manage to tolerate that middle judge, who has the most irritating voice and especially laugh. Surely I'm not the first to complain.

There making a Canadian version, if anyones cares! lol

Had the same impression of Mary last year, and for some strange reason, she can grow on you. Took me a while, but I don't mind her half as bad as last year, and compared to Paula, she at least doesn't hold back and do nothing but praises.

That last guy was just incredible. Truly amazing what he did. Hopefully he does well in Vegas.

Dominic was very goo-goo, ga-ga over the blonde soccer player. She was very cute and could definitely dance.

Sex on the other hand....lol! Funny to see him and Gold Inferno back! Still bad as ever.

Some of the female dancers are stunningly beautiful with insane bodies.

Other then the beauty, for me, no one really stood out this time. I don't care for that popping, to me it isn't dancing. Can't wait to see who the top dancers are this season.

never watched aa minute of the show til I flipped by and caught that freak Phillip! Quite imressive!

First time watcher!!! Might be the last time.

I don't know how the fans of the show do it, but that Marie Osmond bloated looking judge in the middle is the most disrespectful, annoying, cackling hen I have ever seen. The insanely loud and grating laughing at the contestents is majorly obnoxious.

The other female judge was mostly respectful, had very interesting comments. Her emotional response to the seeing impaired girl was very very touching. And the male judge also was very generous in his comments to the girl, especially when acknowledging how he respected her commitment to dance, without being condescending.

The dancers however, might keep me tuning in. I thought the soccer girl was horrible - but I know nothing about dance.

I'll give it a few more shots.

Middle-judge Mary Murphy (former choreographer) is actually very honest and sincere, and eminently qualified to be a judge. She's a bit loud (wait till you hear her scream "hot tamale train!" when she REALLY loves a performance) but it's very very entertaining (at least to me). Unlike Paula, she will actually say something truthful about the dancer, and it can be good or bad. It's really good to have a sophisticated judge for an art form I, as a viewer, know nothing technically about other than my subjective impressions.

Mia Michaels (on the left) is another winner of a judge and a person, and is a wonderful choreographer.

Nigel Lythgoe is a former dancer himself.

They will have several additional (and repeat) guest judges and choreographers once the audition phase ends and the final 20 begin to actually compete. Some of them are also brilliant, as clearly evidenced by the results of getting things out of these kids that you'd never imagine possible based on the specific skills shown in their auditions.

Great show! Very enjoyable opening episode, and it will really grow on you once we get the final 20.

I REALLY REALLY liked the two Russians who did that amazingly hot ballroom(?) number. They were two fantastic dancers, equally strong, equally skilled. Her body moves and slinks were remarkable. Amazingly rhythmic, like she was acting out the music with her body. And he too, perfect partner, no arrogance. Very very nice couple. Clearly final 20.

And the 18-year old soccer player, another final 20 member.

As were the oriental couple. Wow, what dancer's legs on her! The two of them were fabulous together, very polished. And only dancing together for 3 months? Amazing.

It's always interesting (from seasons past) to see what happens when couples go to Vegas (and possibly beyond, to the performance shows) but end up competing individually since that's what the show is... only one winner, as an individual. And they break the couples up, assigning them random partners, to determine their true dancing skills.

THIS SHOW WILL GET YOU HOOKED! Stay tuned. If you watch until Vegas "boot camp" week and final cut down to the final 20, you're in for the rest of the season.

These kids are AMAZING! That last guy was unbelievable. Now let's see if he can actually DANCE (from choreography)! I suspect he can, and he will be a big surprise.

We are big fans of this show. MTV ran all of the previous season last wekend and between watching and the DVR we saw quite a bit of the top 12. The judges (or "jidges" ) are are so far beyond their counterparts on the other shows that it's almost embarrassing. There are exceptions (Debbie Allan and some of the other celebrities) but for the most part their comments and critiques are honest, extremely knowledgable and, except when really deserved, rather sensative to these kid's feelings. Yes, Mary Murphy is bat$%*t crazy but she is a consumate pro and knows her stuff. The same goes for Nigel, Dan Karady and the others (especially Adam Shenkman when he guests). Mia Micheals is a fascinating person. She is clearly a briiliant choreographer and can seem to be a hard case at times until she's not. Her reaction to the visually challenged dancer last night was beyond touching. To be able to completely bare her emotions and soul on camera in the way that she did is a credit to her and to the producers for showing it as purely as they did. The tribute to her father that was performed by Neil and Lacy last season was stunning in its beauty and emotion. All of the show's choreographers are excellent. Wade Robson, Tice DeOrio, Mia, Jean Mark Genneraux, Tony Meredith and the rest are just great. We really like the Hip Hop stuff that Shane Sparks and Dave Scott create, They go so far beyond the norm in this genre that they really bridge into other styles. The other thing that is impressive is that the judges are pleased to welcome back dancers who just missed the cut in previous seasons and, indeed, genuinely encourage them to return. Now if they can just have the guards stop "Sex" from coming into the auditions....

Totally agree with this and DSperber's comments. This show is great, and once it gets rolling, there's nothing that will stop you from watching it.

Just wait until you see a Wade Robson number.

I was completely laughing last night when all the judges wound up dancing with Gold Inferno. I mean could you ever see Paula, Simon and Randy in unison like that? NO!

Love the show... loathe Mia. At least in this part of the show she's mostly coherent. In later rounds, when they are juding the finalists, she swings from loving all the guys to hating all the girls at the drop of a hat. And I can't stand most of her routines I'm sure people do love them, I just don't get a lot of the crazy interpretive stuff. Oh well. I thought it was a nice premiere, and I had to laugh at the 3 guys from last year just hanging out in the balcony. I guess that whole career thing hasn't worked so well....

I'll take your word for it that a person can get used to that middle judge. But it may be that different people have different tolerance levels to that kind of shrieking loudness. Mine is pretty low.

What exactly is this show presented in?

SD widescreen?

The PQ doesn't look quite polished enough to be HD, but still looks a lot better than just a normal SD broadcast.

The auditions are sometimes interesting, but the show doesn't hit its stride until the final twenty are in place and the choreographers add their art to the mix. For those joining the festivities now and remaining unimpressed, you may want to check out one of those shows before tuning out completely.

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Does anyone know why Sabra never seemed to be in the group that made appearances on AI? Is she injured or otherwise committed somewhere else?

It was in past years SD widescreen I believe. Not sure now.

I have watched the previous three seasons and the only way to get used to to Mary is to use the mute button liberally. Last night showed why this show can be very compelling at times. Taking dancers who are very at their own niche forcing them to try different styles.

Wife and I were 1st time watchers last night. Wife commented that Mary "reminds her of Rosie O'Donnell...without the charm" Myself, I was just intimidated by those enormous teeth...

Funny thing is I'm a big ballroom fan and I like this show better than DWTS which, IMO, has become somewhat of a joke.

The blonde soccer player was stunning: I really don't care how she dances.

And SEX: my wife was dying to see him and his mother again. I don't know if there are NY auditions but they hinted that he might be back.

Sex and his mother appear to be what psychiatrists call a folie a deux or "a madness shared by two". Either they are both psychotics and each one's psychosis feeds the other's or they are one of the best deliberate running jokes on TV. Maybe Nigel had him pegged when he said that he just likes to see himself on TV. My money is on choice 1! I would have liked to hear the list of the great choreographers that he claimed to have worked with. I'm sure that Jerome Robbins, Jerry Mitchell, Michael Kidd, Michael Bennet and Agnes DeMille were among them, some even after they passed away.

You are correct.

For future reference in this thread, their performance shows up at 4:37-7:36 of this clip on youTube.

Just before them in this same clip, at 0:52-4:35, is blond 22-year old Brenda Vaccaro sound-alike Erika Gee, back for her 3rd-time-is-a-charm attempt. Very nice audition and "the jidges" were wonderful to her.



And his historical reference is this dedicated youTube clip. Probably the best "popper" ever.


And then there's 18-year old soccer player Kherington Payne's clip, which is at 2:38-6:35 of this clip. I'm sure she will not make it to the end (skill level not quite there yet), but she's young and sweet and endearing... and nice on the eyes. At least we get to see her in Vegas.

Incidentally, the young oriental couple's performance is right at the start (0:00-2:38) of the same clip. I'm glad to see they both made it, despite her real bad cold.


Ok, now we've got the outstanding performances documented. Interestingly, we really didn't get to see very much of the "dance-off" from either day... only the results, of those we'd been primed to be interested in by the editing.

Is that the clip that you intended? That link goes to the performance from last night's show, so it isn't really a "historical reference." I wish I could recall the guy's name, but I remember seeing a clip from several years ago (not from SYTYCD) that I thought you were linking to. Whoever that was, truly blew me away. Robert Muraine is probably just as good.

Yes, it's amazing how good they can make SD look. It's not all that much worse than a lot of the stuff they pass off to us as HD.

I saw SYTYCD for the first time last night. I managed to catch most of the dance routines when I wasn't working the AI fan forums. I thought Kherington looked so good and danced so well!

All in all, this season opener looked very interesting. I look forward to seeing how the season unfolds.

If I remember correctly they are feeding it with component, not composite, which makes it look so good.

Sex = joke.

Maybe Golden Inferno will be rebranded Brown Explosion next year.

Yes, that was my intent.

By "historical reference" I was describing history, for within THIS thread of Season 4, so that if newcomers to the show (who might have missed the early episodes) begin reading this thread and start from the front, at least we'll have links to footage that shows the best/most-enjoyable performances from these early shows. I wasn't connecting "history" to past seasons.

I still think the Russian pair took the prize for true dancing last night. While "popping" might be interesting and very entertaining (as lots of creative street performers are) and require much practice and coordination and imagination to truly be as spectacular as that guy was last night, to me it's about as "dance-like" as "jump style", and has zero potential to be partnered/trouped or even choreographed, which is how I like to think of dancing.

Dominic and Hawk last season were both breakers and made it far. The judges were even shocked on how well they did outside their comfort zone. There's no playing it safe like in Idol. Either you have it or you don't. Robert might shock us this season. I think Twitch has a shot too as I liked him and Hawk. It came down to them and Hawk went, but Twitch was just as good. Should be fun to watch! I can't wait for Shane Sparks or Wade Robson to get a hold of them both and do something right up their ally. Wade would make it so incredible.

That show was clearly standard definition. The edges were blurry. There were no pores on anyone's faces. The colors were washed out (NTSC).

It ain't HD!