"So You Think You Can Dance" Season 9 on FOXHD - Page 16

And Cyrus again survives at the expense of another good and very engaging dancer, Will. Does anyone still think that Anya is out of shape? She was stunning in the Tango routine.

I couldn't even tell you if Cyrus danced this week. Putting someone like him (a guy who cant dance) next to Melanie ensures no one with eyes will even notice him. Couldn't stop looking at her. She's amazing. He's not. Was a solid night overall, but I agree that Lindsey and Alex had no chemistry, and the dance was kinda ehhhh. My favorite of the night was Whitney's hip-hop routine. Never found myself looking at Twitch unless the camera was only on him. She owned that dance. As for who went home, I'd say they made the choices I would have made given the bottom two, but as always someone good is going home while someone bad remains. It's hilarious that Nigel has to defend his show's idiotic decision to pimp Cyrus. Obviously he's hearing the criticism about a guy being on the show who can't dance. And then saying Cyrus is going to be the next Twitch was hilarious. Good one, Nigel.

This was Lindsay's 3rd time in the bottom; only she, Witney and George have been in the bottom 3 times and only Witney has survived the 3rd time. Although she danced well this week I think that she'll get eliminated next week. She's such a bubbly, sexy little cutey, with a sultry face that reminds me of Marilyn Monroe. I hate to see her go, but she doesn't have the technical chops of either Eliana or Tiffany.

It's interesting to note that neither Cole or Will had been in the bottom prior to this week.

I have to say that Cyrus has surprised me in these past two pair dances, Contemporary and Jazz pieces respectively, neither horribly dumbed down. He didn't do them as well as some of the other men in the competition might have but he didn't fall on his face either. He was really quite decent in this week's routine. Given that, I hope that "America" has the sense to eliminate him next week. The best of the remaining dancers should get to the finale and he's not one of them. (Personally I try to focus on the contestant in these dances with "All Stars"; it's easier to do with some contestants than others ).

The judges say that it's out of their hands at this point, so the bottom girl and bottom boy will get cut next week without them choosing. Cool . If there are three shows left I can't see where there'll be any voting after next week's show, unless they plan to add the votes after next week's show to the votes after a top 4 performance show on the 11th.

While I think that Whitney may have had a better routine this week than Lindsay, but I think Lindsay was better last week, which is supposed to be what we're judging. I thought she had more memorable routines over the course of the season as well. But it's splitting hairs as I agree that Eliana and Tiffany are the top two girls.

Yes.

She was much better tonight, but yes. When she is at the top of her game she flies around the stage.

This is the kind of hip-hop the show needs, not this watered down light-hearted stuff. How many hip hop routines are more memorable, ones that hit hard like this or the sissy ones. Nice that we had to get someone from Canada to show how its done. Napoleon and Tabitha have gone soft.

Nothign against Anya, but since Ryan DiLello was onstage as our male balroom dancer, I was hoping we would see Ashleigh as the female ballroom specialist.

Speaking of Ryan, what was up with the judges completely ignoring him on his first time back on the show? They always than the All Stars.

Intriguingly, I thought Lindsay tended to get better over the last couple of weeks while Whitney got progressively worse.

I LOVED the choreography of the Whitney/Twitch dance. Whitney looked decent, but she wasn't twitch. Moreover, her hair got in the way. She should have worn a cap or some kind of hat.

There were a couple of "Wow!" moments finally this season. Allison! Cole did a decent job keeping up. My eyes stayed glued to Allison. Cheon and Anya looked great with the Paso Doble/Tango. Tiffany and Ade were great, too. Cyrus and Melanie's dance? Sigh...What a waste of Melanie's talent. Lindsay's jazz dancing (2nd week in a row!) was decent. The choreography didn't take full advantage of Alex Wong's talent. But it was still a good number. I did not like Will's hip-hop number. I had more of an issue with the choreography and his wardrobe than his dancing. What was this cheerful, hipster hip-hop? Ick! I do love Eliana. However, I did not love her quickstep. She was off a LOT. She did well for a non-ballroom dancer, but she wasn't tamale worthy.

Solos...Cyrus finally looked good. He did something different. Cheon and Eliana brought it. They wanted to stay. I enjoyed Lindsay's dance more so than Whitney's dialing it in solo. Will also appeared to dial it in. Tiffany and Cole were decent.

I enjoyed the episode until the eliminations. I was shocked to see tweener favorite Will in the bottom two. My money had him winning it all.

I look forward to next week.

Chehon and Anya's tango lit my fire. How could she look so frumpy one week and perfect the next? I can't enjoy the dance unless I enjoy the music, and the tango was done to one of my favorites - Jesse Cook. Delicious! Chehon remains my favorite male, and his solo was absolutely stunning.

The Quick Step is another favorite of mine when done precisely. To my inexperienced eye, Eliana & Ryan's was done expertly for a one-off. Eliana had my many votes. I hope Chehon got mine too, although I typed in "Cheon" numerous times. Incidentally, my iPad SYTYCD app does not work and I can't vote through it. Anyone else have a similar problem?

The opening dance number struck me as special. The choreographer was new to me. Peter something. Hope to see his work again.

Who doesn't "like" Cyrus, but his shelf-life as a dancer on a diverse dance show should be expired. Cole is terrific when the dance calls for a bit of menace, but that schtick is not enough for the big prize.


I still love this show even though the truncated version this year makes the voting/cutting cumbersome and disjointed. Besides Nigel and Mary sitting there "judging" someone they already know they will be sending home in a few minutes, the cutting of the second day of the week also quashes our chance to see outside talent showcased each week. Admittedly some of that singing talent especially was flotsam, but some of the outside dancing talent was incredibly memorable. I miss that.

I dream that Desmond Richardson and his partner will choreograph a dance for Eliana and Chehon the equal or better of the one they did for the earlier Will & Katie before the year ends. Those two cry out for something appropriate in their wheelhouse - together.
Edited by Distorted - 8/30/12 at 8:52am

I didn't realize that the girl everyone was calling fat last week was the one that danced with Cheon this week. She looked different in her face and body.

Hey you Cyrus bashers out there in AVS Forum land. It's clear you don't like him, but it's also clear you're in the minority.

America seems to love him as he's never even been close to elimination (never in bottom three).

He's popular. Deal with it.

Agreed. It would have nice to see Ashleigh back as well. Ryan partnered Eliana brilliantly and Jonathan's choreography was outstanding. He turned the Quick Step into a highly entertaining routine which both dancers executed beautifully. My choices as of now are Cole and Eliana for the wins when all is said and done. Cole was excellent but the still incredibly gorgeous Allison was in another galaxy last night. She was so into the routine that it took her awhile to break character when was over. Ade and Tiffany were not exactly slouches either last night. His strength matched with her petite form was a great pairing. As always Mealnie was a joy to watch but I got the impression that the dance did not call for her to really push herself. She seemed to be doing fairly basic stuff well below her oft demonstrated talents. Looked like another concession to Cyrus' limited abilities. All in all, it was very good show,

Scotty McCreery won American Idol. Must be the best singer ever, right? But you and Nigel are right, So You Think You Can DANCE isn't about finding good dancers. It's about finding popular people.

I suspect that her costume two weeks was partly to blame for how she looked. No such problems last night. She was silky smooth during the Tango.

It was what "America" voted on and Witney (no "h") may well have garnered fewer votes. One would hope that the judges, choosing which of two to eliminate, would take the dance they just saw into account. That's something that I like about this year's format; the judges get to see them dance two professionally choreographed and produced paired routines, two group numbers and possibly a solo between decisions each week. Before it was just the one routine and decide the next day after a solo. The contestants get more "bites at the apple" this way.

Personally I think that it was entirely the costume--her dancing last week was fine. She's too thick to be stuffed into a skimpy, see-through piece of lingerie; I doubt that she would have chosen it .

That's all it can be. "America", the voting audience, isn't even vaguely qualified to select the best dancer, they can only choose the contestant whom they enjoyed the most.

The same is true of Idol. I've never been a steady viewer and haven't watched any of it in recent seasons (I have a much higher tolerance of bad dancing than of bad singing ), but I recall watching a show in one of the early seasons during which one of the judges exclaimed in frustration after a contestant who arguably should have been long gone survived yet another vote, "People, this is a talent competition, not a personality contest!"

Was it Sanjay? Or William Huang?

There's a website - Vote For The Worst (something of that sort) - that encourages people to vote for the most terrible contestant to keep them around, just to annoy the public and the judges.

Sanjay is the one that kept surviving thanks to Vote for the Worst. William Hung became a star based solely off his awful audition. The problem with Nigel's comment that it's just a popularity contest and he has nothing to do with how America votes is that it's BULLSH**. He's the producer. It was his call to dedicate about 95 percent of Vegas week to one person and one person only. Outside of Eliana, this has been a pretty crappy season.

He's also one of the judges which is where I think he exerts the most influence. He almost literally tells people who they should vote for and who they shouldn't, moreso, I think, than any of the other judges. I think that a significant portion of the audience takes his dictates to heart ("I don't know much about dance but if Nigel said that was the best...").

 

My guess is the judges have very little influence. When the same gal ends up at the bottom three times in a row (after being saved by such judges twice) it's pretty obvious the audience doesn't give a hoot as to what they think. Throw in the backlash effect of wanting to save someone who got bad grades and the judges are virtually irrelevant to my thinking.

We'll have to agree to disagree. This week they had no choice to keep a girl who'd been in the bottom 3 times, since both ballroom girls had. Personally I think that their coddling kept Cyrus alive for the first couple of weeks. Had they ripped him new as his early "dancing" deserved I think that they could have influenced the audience to dump him, despite his disarming personality.

 

My take on him is he was destined to last towards the end. On most of these reality shows the duck out of water swims past the early rounds as they are too bad to be judged against the others. Finally, once it gets serious and there are only a few left those who prefer a true winner are forced to come together and vote as a group. Typically, that's when they go home. Of course there are plenty of exceptions however I think that's the rule. :)

Yeah, I think that they were pretty determined to take Cyrus on tour as their obligatory "untrained street-style specialist" (quite obviously really untrained this time) so they'd have rescued him at the expense of far better dancer had he ever fallen into the bottom before then.

I think they desperately want another Twitch. They didn't get it.

Interesting. Mary Murphy does a blog for Entertainment Weekly Pop and her recap of last night's show did not mention Cyrus at all, not even a shout out to Melanie.

I'm sorry you are not enjoying it. Outside of the weird schedule, I've quite enjoyed this season. I like the dancing/dancers far better than last season.

For Melanie and Sasha alone last year was miles ahead of this season. Add in Marko and Tad and it just further illustrates how much more memorable last season was. For me anyway. This season has had some quality dances, but other than the guy Nigel plastered all over the screen as much as possible, it's hard to find any real personalities this year. And the one we do have is a guy that has proven time and time again that he shouldnt be on the show. Obviously opinions will differ based on how much you enjoy each individual dancer.

 

So true. I have never really enjoyed watching Melanie dance. It always appears she is trying to dance... rather than simply dancing... I never lose her in the dance.

I was never a fan of Melanie's either, though I admit that she was the technically greatest dancer of that season. She doesn't hold even a tiny bit of physical attraction for me (her Gerber-baby perfectly square face is just odd) and her treacly sweet bubbly personality always grated on me. She did do some superb work though.