SYTYCD Season 9: How will voting work?
The major question that has been on everybody’s mind is: how is voting going to work for Season 9?
In the past seven seasons (excluding Season 1 since that was a one-episode per week season and I don’t remember how that season went)
– performances commenced on Wednesday evenings
– the public call in their votes for an hour or two after the end of the episode
– on Thursday evening we find out who are the Bottom Three couples
– the dancers of the Bottom Three couples are asked to “dance for their solo”
– judges choose who to let go
Since Season 9 is only going to have one episode per week as opposed to two, how is that going to affect the flow of the show. In a previous post I mentioned the possibility that So You Think You Can Dance may run in a similar vein as that of America’s Best Dance Crew.
According to the following interview between Nigel Lythgoe and DancePlug :
So what is going to happen is the following:
On Wednesday, July 11th
1: The Top 20 will have their first partnered performances
2: After the show the public will be allowed vote for the dancers that want to keep on the show. All the dancers will be voted individually as opposed as by pairs
Then on Wednesday, July 18th (in order)
1: The judges will announce who are the bottom three guys and bottom three girls at the top of the episodes
2: The dancers (including all the bottom guys and girls) will dance their partnered routines
3: The judges will decide who will leave the show… if the judges are still unsure they would ask the bottom three guys and/or bottom three girls
4: The voting public will be allowed to phone in their votes for the following episode
Rinse and repeat.
Not exactly confusing, but definitely different from what we are used to. What might be noticeably different is that the dancers do not appear to be dancing solos to prove that they should be considered to be kept on the show. I think a major reason that the “dance for your life” solos are eliminated is that because the bottom three guys and bottom three girls are already announced at the top of the episode they have their partnered routines to prove to the judges that they should stay on the show. To me that kind of makes sense as to why having a solo thereafter would almost be overkill. But that’s my opinion.
Thanks for explaining. I was wondering how this would work!!
Hopefully they will still incorporate solos into the program, that is the only time for the contestants to show off their own personality, genre & skills that we may not see in a choreographed partner routine.
Sounds about right but I think season one was a two night thing…but too long shoe to remember. I think solos will come into play when we get to the top ten or fewer…is my guess. I know nigel was asked about all stars on twitter and he said they will be incorporated when we get to the top 10.
There are some more questions that need to be answered.
First, are the eliminations by couples this year (which would answer my other concerns), or can the two eliminations be from different couples?
Second, assuming they can break up couples, how do they handle the couple formed from the two “singles”, seeing as how they didn’t dance together that night? Do you vote for the couple based on how they danced with their now-eliminated partners? Are they automatically put into the bottom three (or four)? Either way, it’s going to make things confusing with the voting phone numbers, because either they’re going to have to announce the new couple’s number at the end of the show, or allow the voters to use either of the two dancers’ numbers.
Also, I thought I heard Nigel say once that they still have the “possibility” of going to solos – and they probably will once they have eliminated a few couples and would then have time to perform them. (Ten couples plus at least two solos is almost impossible to do in two hours. Get it down to six or seven couples, and you have some breathing room.)
@Don – The eliminations are to happen at the end of the episode but the bottom three guys and bottom three girls would be announced at the beginning of the episode. In this way all the bottom guys and girls could still dance with their partners and it is via the coupled routines that the judges would use as a basis as to who gets eliminated at the end of the episode.
However, in regards to the “possibility” of solos, if the judges are still unsure as to whom to eliminate they would then probably ask the bottom guys/girls to dance solos as well. But this is at the judges’ discretion.
Does this help?
@Marianya – My guess is the judges being “unsure” and needing solos will come down to whether they need to fill a few minutes of airtime.
In general, I won’t miss the solos. They are so short and tend to be my least favorite “dancing” part of the show. There have only been a few memorable ones over the years for me (Brandon’s solo comes to mind).
I think this approach is probably more fair to the dancers, particularly as individuals. For many seasons, we’ve seen people who were either dragged down by their partner, or who road their partner’s coat-tails. I think allowing the bottom 3 to dance their rehearsed numbers and judging them on that (as well as all else before) is much more fair than dancing for your life. I don’t know why they haven’t separated the judging for the girls and guys before this season (fom the beginning), and I also like that there will be two winners. If this had been the case in seasons past, we’d have seen Kathryn win, Marko win, Danny win, and many deserving others. So, on the one hand, only one night per week of SYTYCD is hard to wait for, on the other hand, I honestly won’t miss the filler-filled results shows, and I really hope this format change will improve the show and give us at least another season after this one.