"So You Think You Can Dance" Season 9 on FOXHD - Page 2

Kathryn McCormick will ALWAYS be a winner in MY book. It's just a shame our favorite show didn't have the good sense to crown her one... Russell -- GEESH! Again, when they were on tour together (and I have pics to prove it, shot at 7 fps), she and Russell did a pretty hard-hitting hip-hop dance routine together, and she made him look like a RANK amateur!

BTW, I know I never DID get around to posting more than a very few of the pics I shot at last fall's show (which included dancers from both Season seven and Eight -- just Kathryn and Russell from Eight). Mostly, my issue was that my new DSLR shoots pretty big files (plus I shot A LOT of pics -- followed some routines, like Melanie in a "ballerina" outfit -- at 7 fps almost continuously and froze her several times, mid-air -- some others, too). At any rate, if anyone is still interested in some shots, when I can squeeze it in I'll try to go through the folder and reduce a few of the best of the various dancers and post them.
Jeff

The following article was posted online today about Mary Murphy:

http://www.aol.com/video/so-you-thin...6pLid%3D163143

Apparently, her former manager of four years has quite a few gripes with her and has gone VERY public about them. IF even PART of the things mentioned in the video clip from the link above are true, they would go far to explain much of Mary's "wild and crazy" behavior on the show. I certainly hope they aren't, but at any rate I feel it's germaine to this thread, so I decided to post the link.
Jeff

Most rumors or gossip even if unfounded start from some nugget of truth. They have commented about lots of personal problems on the show before. They just never said what they were.

Excited for this show coming back. The changes should be good and make the show interesting! Not to mention the conversations we have here are among the classiest of the AVS programming threads.

That first girl had me worried that she was incapable of doing jumps for most of her routine. She did one little jump about halfway through where she barely left the stage and I was thinking "how is that she's that bad a jumper?" But she finished with a couple of good jumps.

It looks like it could be a good season for lifts if the right males make it to the finals.
A couple of those male ballet dancers and a couple of the b-boys looked like they had tons of upper body strength.

I'm also wondering what happened to all the ballroom dancers. In one of the preseason interviews with Nigel, he said they saw a lot of great ballroom kids, but we sure didn't see any tonight.

It seemed like the show only really spent much time with three dancers tonight -- at least only with three who got tickets to Vegas, the first being, like last year, the very first dancer they auditioned...

Amelia Lowe, 18, Butler, N.J. -- excellent... another Melanie? -- first dancer the winner? Maybe, but I don't think she looked as polished, seemed to almost "fall" out of quite a few of her steps, her routine seemed as much (or more?) about "presentation/unique choreography" than it did about quality of performance. Still, she may be Top 18 material.

I wonder how many of us had at least the passing thought when Melanie did her first audition that she'd be in the Top 20 and maybe even win the competition. I recall briefly thinking that, but then I immediately put the thought out of my head because I (probably like most of us) tend to hold off on rating early auditions too highly because then I have nowhere to go if I see better later on. In hindsight, though, I think the initial impression I (and I recall a few other posters in the thread) had, was correct.


The second dancer they really spent a lot of time with (at least that I noticed) was Hampton Williams, 21, Richardson, Texas -- When he first came out and rattled off what sounded like ridiculous BS about how his "invented Exorcist" style of dance would cleanse peoples' souls of fear and pain, etc., I thought he was as full of it as Nigel and Mary obviously did by their almost sarcastic reactions.


Then he danced.


I agreed with everything all three said afterwards, and maybe more. I have no idea if he can, or ever will be able to do any other styles. But what he did in his own style was in the realm of a Nijinsky or a Barishnykov, I think. You had to watch his feet very closely when he was moving sideways across the floor to determine he wasn't actually HOVERING and FLOATING across the floor. And I'm usually not very big on hand movements as part of dance, but this guy is "the whole package." I certainly agree with Nigel that he very well may be a genius. I hope he can do other styles, because I'd really like to see more of this dude on the show!

I just watched it again (had to run it back to make sure I had his name and other info), and when it finished this time I got goosebumps... I still have them as Nigel is saying he doesn't give a BLEEP how he's going to get on in the show, that he'll pay for his ticket to Vegas, himself!


Jarelle Rochelle, 22, Huntsville, Texas -- doing it for his mom, going blind -- also pretty good... I suspect all three of them will make it to the final show, assuming they can learn the choreography in other styles.


Those seemed to be the only three who got any decent screen time during the two hours (besides the "Zombie" dancer, who I didn't find nearly as impressive as Hampton Williams)... Holding this post until it's 10 p.m. Pacific Time

Oh yeah, I did forget to mention the couple of male ballet dancers who stood out... the one guy from Switzerland, and the guy from Australia who, like Alex a couple years back, gave up his position with a metropolitan ballet (this time in San Francisco) to audition for SYTYCD. Both of them look likely to make it to the Top 20/18, as well. Oddly, I don't recall them spending any appreciable time with any of the female dancers other than the first one. I wonder why. I saw them put a good many through -- some directly, as shown in brief clips; others after choreography -- but I don't recall any getting a lot of screen time other than Amelia. Maybe I just wasn't paying close enough attention and someone else can remind me, lol.
Jeff

Yeah, it was a fairly b-boy heavy episode. I was impressed by the b-boy in the yellow sweatpants. He did a bunch of bragging in his interview and I was was thinking, "Oy, here comes another mediocre street dancer that talks big". But he actually had some really impressive moves.

But as you already mentioned, you never know if these b-boys guys will be able to learn choreography for other styles or not. Even when they're really good, I'm always a little surprised when they put them straight through to Vegas without making them do the choreography round to be certain that they aren't wasting a slot.

You don't remember the 29 y/o mother of two small kids, the first Texas audition? She was excellent and it was a very heartwarming segment, with her toddler in a tutu (about 2 y/o) showing off her skills .

The show was a lot of fun--I've missed it. I like that there were only a couple of "let's watch this guy humiliate himself" segments (I use my DVR's skip function to get past those).

So it looks as though Cat's going to be working on two shows, or is that dating show on the fall schedule?

I thought the segment was heartwarming, but I didn't think the mom was that great.

They were ridiculously heavy on hip-hop/b-boy this year. As usual, there wasn't enough ballroom or jazz.


Well, they gave a lot of time to gerbil guy who wasn't good, but had a horrible attitude. The guy just wanted to be on TV. Nigel put him on TV. However, the producers knew good and well they aired the segment that no one would ever hire the guy because of his disrespectful attitude.

If he were my child, I'd be so embarrassed before I locked him in a basement. He'd stay in there indefinitely until he learned manners.

Good start to the season!

Curious, did the PQ colors last night seem off to anyone?

I only saw the first half, but on my screen (D* to Epson 6500UB projector) they looked fine.

I'm glad to hear from the comments up above that there are some more good dancers coming. I wasn't too impressed with the first half. Same prodcuction values we have talked about before - too many highlights of bad dancers and to many cuts to the judges instead of showing us the dancing.

Did anyone else feel after the opening 5-minute montage that they could just skip the whole audition part of the show? It felt like they condensed the whole thing down into one segment.

I certainly did, she just had that look in her eye, you could really tell how much she lived and breathed dance.

At times, the camera shots of the judges looked over-saturated to me.

I actually did Jeff. There was just something about this "little" girl with those powerful legs who was very cute and had that short hair style that just intrigued me. No matter where she was onstage, even in brief looks at the gaggles in the Vegas rounds, the camera always seemed to find her.

Didn't they start cutting down the number of good dancers that we saw in the auditions last season? On the one hand, the production packages and the heart warming stories are entertaining. On the other hand, we never really get to see most of the kids who make the Vegas rounds so those become kind of a mish mash that almost comes and goes quickly. From the tiny glimpses that we got of the dancers, it looks like there could be a lot of strong girls this season but it's hard to tell.

Not in the ratings though...

From Deadline: "SYTYCD was down 27% from last year's season opener."

That's quite a drop...

I can't BELIEVE I forgot to mention HER, Mike! I must have been distracted from my note-taking at the time. The only way I can make sure I have a decent post later is to open up a blank email form, and then I essentially write my post as I'm watching the show and someone impresses me -- and I think I got so caught up in was her name Melissa, like our last 29-year-old ballerina? -- and her two adorable kids -- that I totally forgot to make any notes about her. However, because the camera spent so much time focused on Nigel and her little girl, we didn't really get to watch her performance as closely as I'd have liked to, so I can't say if I think she'll make it all the way to Hollywood, or not... Possibly.

As for the color and sound, I didn't notice any issues on my TV. Note, however, that I didn't get started watching until about an hour late, and was watching from my DVR, which was doing dual-recording and using it's "SD" tuner to record SYTYCD. Also, I just hooked up this LED-backlit Samsung TV a few months ago and have never gotten around to hooking up my new receiver and surround-sound system, so I'm using the TV's built-in speakers, for now, which oddly are on the back. I say oddly because although the TV is about a foot from the wall, the sound doesn't "sound" like it's coming from behind the TV at all. I have NO IDEA how Samsung achieves this.

Oh, and what about Mr. Bad Attitude in Dallas, who got up on stage primarily to trash them for being encouraging to people who audition who have some sort of disability and will NEVER be able to achieve the quality of dance necessary for the show. What a JERK! That guy with autism spectrum disorder is obviously at the high end of the spectrum... Maybe just has Asperger's Syndrome, or something, but at any rate it has to be difficult for anyone "in his shoes" to do what he did -- just as it must have been in previous years for blind dancers to audition, etc. All Nigel told him was to NEVER quit dancing because it's obvious that it fills him with joy. That guy that got up there and wanted to trash his peformance (which we all know wasn't very good). He's just a bully. I hope he ends up flipping burgers or something for the forseeable future. Bullies don't deserve success.
Jeff

If Fox sees fit to cancel it after this season, perhaps The CW or one of the cable networks will pick it up. This show is just TOO DARNED GOOD not to continue! It's possible there are just so many OTHER talent competition shows out there now (wasn't SYTYCD up against "America's Got Talent" last night?) that there's some "talent show burnout" in America.

But I continue to insist this show is unlike ANY OTHER in the true spirit of joy it inspires!
Jeff

That scene with the little girl was great, I hope the show's still on when she's old enough. Normally little kid stuff doesn't get me, but what a cutie.

Actually, her name was Bree.

Except for an apparent stumble at the beginning, I liked what she did. She definitely has a dancer/gymnast's body, very strong and flexible and I felt she displayed a sense of musicality. She has strong potential and an appealing backstory.

I did some calibrations on my new tv last night and it really worried me. So much that I was checking other tv modes during the show and they all looked strange. I then turned on a hockey game to check the whites and they looked fine, then Tron Legacy and those blacks looked fine also. I'm glad someone else saw it. Ya'll made me feel better.

But dominated the all important 18 - 49 demo by 41%, so they will probably be happy. They already eliminated the extra show per week for the results so that should save them some money.

Last night was about as weak as the competition will ever be. It was reruns on all the other channels except for the premier of Rookie Blue on ABC.

What day did they start last season? Could it be that starting on the Thursday before Memorial Day hurt the ratings this season? Perhaps a lot of people are already on vacation to extend their three day weekend?

He kept saying "hamster" but he looked like pedobear to me.




And just in time for the Olympics again.

SYTYCD was up directly against ABC's new singing show "Duets", which had it's series premiere Thursday night. Always a curiosity factor with a series premiere. That, combined with the upcoming 3-day weekend took its toll.

I didn't see it discussed here. Before one commercial break, they showed part of a scene of an angry lady threatening to call the police if the cameraman didn't turn off his camera. I was expecting a more complete explanation of that scene in the following segment, but NOOO. Anyone got an answer?