Season 8 Top 10 Thoughts and Discussion
SOOOOOO extremely happy to see Neil Patrick Harris as the guest judge. I adore him and I’m not surprised he’s a fan of the show or of Cat Deely. She cracked me up when she said, “You’re not popular at all,” after all the cheering for Neil and then told Nigel the audience didn’t have any energy left for him. Lol.
My live thoughts follow, so I guess I’ll put in a spoiler space here…
While I really enjoyed Marko & Chelsie dancing that Jason Gilkison samba, I wish it had been danced by a female contestant and male All-Star because it was allll about showing off the girl. Just as a dance, I loved that because Chelsie is amazing to watch, but I don’t really think it was fair to any male contestant. However, Marko did a great job keeping up with Chelsie doing Jason’s choreography. Marko looked so scared with Neil called him the guy to beat and his expression actually reminded me of Kent Boyd at that moment. Nigel had a point when he said that Marko had lost a great partner, but was dancing with the stars now. 🙂 And Cat was hysterical when she said that Chelsie was like a Bond villain. Actually, they should make another Bond movie JUST so they can cast Chelsie as a Bond villain. 🙂
Sasha’s solo was alright. It seemed a little spastic, but was also really athletic. I loved her expression when she hugged Cat. It was like she was saying, “Yup, I’m gonna hug on Cat all I want cause she’s distracted talking to y’all.”
I can’t stop being annoyed by Jordan’s leg. I wish I could get over it. But she danced beautifully with Brandon, I admit. They had perfect unison in the middle section and that wonderful long, transitioning lift at the end.
In between spins and tricks, Jess’s solo was a bit boring occasionally, till he knee-walked across the stage at the end. It was meh for me, but then I’m not a fan of him. I AM a fan of Cat and I think she did a good job of making him more likable by interacting with him. “Who’re all these people in our rom? Help me up cause I’ve got on these silly shoes.” Lol.
I didn’t really like the Chuck Maldonado hip hop routine because it felt really slow (as in labored) at the beginning and then later, in the faster middle section, the choreography didn’t really match the music and they just seemed off. I couldn’t tell if their timing was off, but they didn’t seem well matched in parts. In others, I thought they were actually well-matched, so it was just confusing. I’m ready for the disagreement, though…
Melanie’s solo rocked. It was like a mini routine. She put a lot of intention into her solo, I think and it had depth. It wasn’t the same moves over and over for 30 seconds.
I actually really like Mitchell dancing Broadway, but I did not like that routine at all. I saw a lot of possibility in Mitchell’s performance for a future career, but he had 0 chemistry with Melody and it was really awkward. Without just calling Tyce out, I think most of the judges still blamed the choreography (or at least Neil did). It kinda sucked. I’ve seen Tyce do way better than that, but I suspect Mitchell may suffer (and the Melody curse may continue). Though, I have to say that I looove that Mitchell pulled out the “bougie.” Lol. That would be the ATL way of saying bougeois, don’t you know.
Was not all that impressed with Rickey’s solo, either. It’s probably the least cohesive of his solos since being on the show, but that may be because he’s not dancing for his life for once. Maybe he was saving his energy for his routine later. Once again, Cat was really cute and helped him out. When he left the stage too quickly, she called, “Rickey! Rickey! To me!” and then, “Nobody noticed.” Too funny. This woman better win an Emmy. She’s been charming and smoothing over awkwardness for 7 seasons now and has no match.
I was surprised by Clarice’s solo. It reminded me a bit of a Sonya routine. But, I kinda hated her smiling the whole way through. It made everything feel too one-note.
OH MY GAWD about Caitlynn and Pasha!! “Pasha will do that to a girl,” indeed. He really brought out a different side in Caitlynn, but she’s been becoming more of a favorite of mine since Top 20. I think they achieved their goal of making us feel like we’re spying on an intimate moment.
I really liked Mitchell’s solo, but hated that his shorts looked like a giant diaper.
OH MY GAWD again about Sasha and Twitch. First of all, anybody getting Twitch has an enormous edge. And then Twitch says that if he doesn’t bring it, he’ll get danced off the stage by Sasha. And you know what? They were so well-matched. So much chemistry. It was a sexy piece and I’m glad the judges loved it, too. And that was the best couples routine I’ve seen from Christopher Scott. It was phenomenal. I want more like that from him. Loved that he wore an LXD shirt in the rehearsal. 🙂 Also, that Mary called it a “hot-ass” routine. Do you think they forgot to bleep her because they didn’t expect that from Mary? They showed Christopher Scott’s face right after she said it and I think he was surprised.
Also, I know I’ve been talking about Cat a lot, but she’s in top form tonight. But what is with her picking on Nigel so much? Like when she said to Mary after Tadd & Comfort’s hip hop, “He’s on the edge, just push him off. No one will notice.” Lol. Don’t get me wrong, I love it, but he IS her boss.
I could see Jordan trying REALLY hard not to rely so much on her single leg tricks. I thought it was probably her best routine, reallly smart. Still annoyed by her leg, though.
When I heard that Jess was dancing with Kathryn, I was really worried (and disappointed, to be honest). I actually agree with the judges that this was his best performance and that it was a SMART choreography from Stacey Tookey, who was so funny (and right) when she said that “Kathryn can practically levitate. If he can’t lift her, he’s in trouble.” And he did far better than I thought he would do, but I was mostly watching Kathryn if I’m honest. I can’t help wishing it had been danced with a different contestant. Sorry to the Jess fans.
I can’t NOT mention that Stacey used another piece of Christina Perri music. I love this song and I picture a routine to it in my head every time I hear it. Loooved how Stacey used it.
ADE sighting! My mom and I texted each other at the same time. He’s her all-time favorite and one of the sweetest dancers I’ve been able to meet so far.
Looved Tadd’s solo. He really used the stage, the way dancers used to when we had Our Beloved Old Stage. It was musical and entertaining and just really awesome. He definitely reminds me of Dominic – so cheeky.
I’m not normally the biggest fan of most Viennese waltzes, but I really loved this Jason Gilkison. Part of it was I love both of the dancers and they were so fluid together. Imagine having to “lead” Pasha in a routine! And the judges were right about the lifts. They looked effortless. Loved Neil’s comment that Melanie looks like she’s from the past and dances like she’s from the future. My mom texted and said that she hopes Melanie wins. 🙂 She and I are on the same page.
Caitlynn’s solo was probably her best. It was competent, but didn’t take my breath away. Loved the song choice, though. Except it’s been used so many times that you’d really have to knock it out of the park to make it memorable, I think.
Rickey was adorable in his fandom of Allison. I loooved when he was supposed to whisper “I’m your worst nightmare” into her ear and he whispered, “I love you,” instead. Lol. It was a great routine, but it reminded me so much of Mia’s Kayla/Kupono addition routine, right down to the costumes. That was a bit distracting to me. Also, Nigel totally gave Tyce a backhanded compliment when he said he likes when Tyce isn’t constrained by choreographing within a Broadway style and is “free.” I think that when Tyce has two routines to choreograph in one episode, one routine usually suffers while one is much better. I’m a BIG fan of the variety of choreographers that we saw tonight and I love when we see different choreographers than we usually see. Every episode should have at least this much variety, in my opinion.
Marko’s solo was really good, showed a lot of strength and personality.
I love Bollywood routines and I think Clarice did a great job in the really difficult one that Nakul choreographed for her and Robert (Robert!). I thought that some of her movements were incomplete and lacked strength, especially when she was connecting with Robert. But overall, it was a great routine. Bollywood movies almost never have kissing, though that’s changing more and more. I especially liked Clarice’s expression after Robert kissed her – it was very fitting for a Bollywood star.
Well, those are my thoughts. I’m going to go vote and get my Power Rankings post going. Tell me what you think?
hey what song did Jess and his all-star dance to? thank you so much!
@Bella: All of the music is here: https://puresytycd.com/2011/07/20/season-8-top-10-performance-music/
I forgot to say in my thoughts that I’m intrigued when Nigel says there’ll be a whole new set of All-Stars next week. I’d assumed they would replace a handful every week, but not the entire set. This should be interesting…
I liked everything! I was so happy to see brandon back!!
but these days I really miss Benjie!!!!!! I see that this show is big deal for dancers and it’s so much pressure. but It’s been so long that show is getting too serious and going over similar plot again and again. sometimes a little got bored. I just miss Benjie’s easy going personality and smile!! and definitely his dance full of joy!! Hope he is gonna come back as a choreagrapher!!!! PLEASE!!!
I actually really liked Robert and Clarice’s routine, I think it’s one of the better ones since Katee and Joshua’s (I’d put Billy and Robert’s from last season ahead of this one specifically because of what you mentioned about Clarice’s movements). I thought Clarice looked beautiful, but I have to admit I couldn’t stop watching Robert, he was amazing (but what else is new?!)
Sasha and Twitch’s was my favorite routine of the night, hands down, everything worked, and I haven’t been her biggest fan so I was thrilled to see her have everything come together. Some people on other sites were questioning the music choice, but I actually really liked it, it was different and original.
I agree with you about Marko’s routine, I LOVED it and I thought he really kept up with Chelsie, but it would have been much better suited to show off one of the female contestants bc of the choreography.
Random question, anyone know why we haven’t seen Tessandra Chavez since week 2 of last season? I thought the routine she did for Dom and Lauren was really wonderful (and now Dom and Lauren are dating!). And I would love to get to see one of her routines again.
Melanie and Pasha’s viennese waltz reminded me of Kherington and Twitch’s from season 4, the lighting, the gentleness of the movements, and the ease, it was just beautiful.
I too am wondering what Nigel meant by “a whole new crop of All-Stars”, hopefully we don’t have a repeat of last season when they lost so many girls in a row then we weren’t able to enjoy All-Stars like Ade, Neil and Pasha for weeks at a time. Fingers crossed!!
I’m also putting in a vote for them to “reintroduce” us to the All-Stars via their best routines, like they did last season. Bring Nick Lazzarini in to do his broadway with Melody, Kherington back to dance with Twitch, Mark and Chelsie, Robert and Kathryn (their Stacey Tookey piece w/ Kathryn going to war please!)
@ Emilie
It was interesting to hear Nigel’s comment on a “second set” of All-Stars. Tonight Billy and Ade were in the audience; Ryan and Ashleigh were spotted helping out J. Gilkinson; and Kayla, Kent and Channing have been observed in the background on various occasions earlier. Is this a clue as to whom we might see? Any ideas if we’ll find out before next week’s show?
@So: I think it would be great to see Benji back. I love former contestants as choreographers (Travis, Dmitry, Benji) and I would LOVE to see more. I was specifically thinking of Benji when I said that I’d love to see a Season 8 contestant/All-Star choreographed by a alum of the show.
@Margaret: I agree that the C/R Bollywood was one of Nakul’s strongest yet. I love Nakul, don’t get me wrong, but I think you have a bit of stagnation when you only have one choreographer in a genre (Doreanna/disco anybody?) I tend to like Canadian disco better because they use other choreographers and have created “new disco.” Sasha and Twitch had CRAZY chemistry, hands down the best chemistry of the night. I had forgotten about the re-dancing of the best of the All-Stars’ routines! I think we should see some tomorrow, right? Didn’t they do them on results nights before? I CAN’T WAIT! They better do those again.
@Lee: We should get the run down of next week’s All-Stars tomorrow night, I imagine. They announced this week’s last results show and it’s a nice little plug to keep people’s attention over the weekend.
@Emilie, I agree with you about Nakul, and I think having Robert really helped, bc if that dance had been Clarice with any of the other guys (except for maybe Marko) I don’t think it would have been nearly as good).
In terms of Mitchell being paired with Melody and her not being that well known, I agree that may hurt him. I almost wish that she had been introduced as an All-Star NEXT week, so that they could have mentioned her tomorrow night and given people a chance to watch some videos of her and get familiar, because she really is fantastic. It’s a bummer that they were saddled with such a disjointed routine, because the last time Melody did a Tyce broadway number, it was “All That Jazz” and it was fabulous.
Just watched Comfort and Tadd, I actually agreed with Nigel, I think Tadd outdanced Comfort, he had major personality, and used the song in ways that the choreography didn’t. really tough song because the beats worked with their movements but the words were so fast that they almost got in the way of the beats.
also, memo to Tyce, THIS is how to use a classic song in a broadway piece!!!
Spencer Liff’s “Choreography” (Nathan & Kathryn, season 6)
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUsrP9HcxUw&w=560&h=349%5D
OCTOBER 19!!!! 😀
http://dance.blogs.fox.com/2011/07/20/so-you-think-you-can-dance-2011-tour/
NOW THE COMPETITION STARTED!!! From the Top 20, the only great pairing I could think of was Marco & Melanie. It was very ho-hum across the board and they looked like they were floundering… or the choreographer Any now with the All-Stars I think they are mostly a PERFECT MATCH with each other.
Sasha & Twitch – Buckwild
Caitlynn & Pasha – Picante
Jordan & Brandon – Flawless
Marko & Chelsie – Sambastic!
But the coupling that totally surprised me was CLARICE & ROBERT. Neil hit it in the head. I really liked her but never could connect and now I am in love with her. Their sync w/ each other and the music was incredible. She performed with so much conviction that I forgot she was a contestant. LOVE LOVE LOVE!!!
p.s. Did everyone see the performance quotient get a notch higher with Kathryn. I was totally eating everything she was doing. Her lines but especially her facial expressions were on point. The last move when she looked at Jess for the first time, you could see she finally saw him and she her face change and focus on him as he began to materialize to her. Ughh, can’t wait for Step Up 4 if this is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Kathryn. GORGEOUS!!!
Most of what happened this episode was sort of expected. Sasha and Melanie showed they’re amazing, Mitchell and Ricky showed they’re the weakest links. Ho hum.
But then Caitlynn totally surprised me by doing that spot-on Argentine Tango! It seems she’s another one that was being held back by a weak partner – join the club with Sasha…
OH and BTW, the moment Neil called out Tyce’s crappy choreography, he instantly catapulted to the position of Best. Guest Judge. Ever.
Of course, he cemented it by being able to articulate how he felt about the dances in words that made sense, even though he lacks the technical terminology.
I love Tyce and I love Neil Patrick Harris. I’m not sure if Neil criticising the routine in front of everybody is appropriate even though I thought the routine was kind of a miss as well but yeah. My jaw dropped to the ground when he did that. Man, but I feel bad for Tyce.. 😮
@buggy: Choreographers are artists and just like any other artist, they need to be criticized when their work is not meeting the standards of their colleagues and public. Yeah, an artist can go ahead and do his own thing regardless of his critics, but it’s important that artists are at least told honestly what the reaction to their work is. While I love SYTYCD Canada’s practice of having the choreographer in a bullpen off to the side and getting recognized by at least one of the judges, sometimes it does feel artificial. If NO ONE had said anything about that lackluster choreography, I would’ve lost a lot of respect for the show. Tyce is amazing when he’s on, but his choreo is getting to be uninteresting. He is the worst of the choreographers for having 1 okay or strong routine and 1 crappy routine if he does more than one in a night. I think they need to sit him out for a few episodes and bring in Spencer Liff and Jason Gilkison more. OR somebody new with new things to show us.
@everybody: There’s too much to say! I’m loving this discussion!
I think the choreography should certainly be judged and it would be silly to think that every piece every choreographer does is always going to be great. I’ve seen plenty of routines over the seasons I’ve been watching where I felt the choreographer let the dancers down with what they gave them. It happens. Same as I don’t like every song by a particular artist, or every movie of a particular actor, etc. Tyce should be able to take it.
@Emilie, I completely agree with your comments about the choreographers. Just like the dancers, they come into the shows knowing that there is a chance that their work is going to be criticized, that’s just the nature of the beast, so to speak. Definitely interesting that they never cut to Tyce while the judges were speaking last night…with this one, cool concept (I just saw the broadway musical Catch Me if You Can so I’m in that time period mode, haha) but the music didn’t match the movements. Melody and Mitchell looked like they could never really get on beat with the music. As people said last night, it felt kind of disjointed.
True, true. Actually Mary could be obviously seen trying to salvage the situation when she said that the routine was cute right after NPH judged. Oh well.
Clarice’s solo reminded u of a Sonya routine cause Sonya used the same song to choreograph a routine a few seasons back. I hate when they reuse memorable songs!
@Char: I know what you mean. Sometimes that bugs me too.