#3: Marko – sigh. Love him, love him, love him, but third place was correct.
And the winner is: Melanie, with 47% of the vote. Sasha got 32%. Nigel was right last night – it was all about the women.
We are pleased. It was the right top four, and I agree with the order it went in. That never happens with me and voting type of shows.
After the tour, we should be seeing all 4 of these dancers in many, many things.
I have a feeling that part of the lackluster performances this year was because of the sheer number of injuries last year. The producers sat the choreographers down and said “this isn’t your time to shine. Stop giving these dancers impossible routines. If they tear a tendon, we’re tearing both of yours.”
Or, you know, I’m guessing something like that was said. But this season did go injury free!
Almost. Wilson (I think), one of the black contemporary dancers, was injured the first week.
Katie Holmes…really??
Mitchell. He injured his elbow and was not allowed to perform, so was automatically in the bottom the first night of voting–but that was when they decided no one would go home that week. He survived that night, and then quite a few after before his vote-off.
I agree that this season’s genres were blandly unvaried. When Melanie and Marko did disco, I thought–that’s right! No one has done disco! And then the power couple sucked at it. ugh. Bring back Jeanine and Brandon!
It seemed like years past it was about challenging dancers out of their genre–now it’s more about appealing to the public. But, I do agree that it is likely the injury-prone seasons have made them rethink just how much to challenge them.
Seriously. I’m wondering if she has some incriminating photos of Nigel or something. She was the most vapid guest “judge” they’ve had this season, and last season they had her on to do a pretty mediocre dance number (which seemed all the more mediocre because it was shown in the same hour as some really exciting dancers.)
I, too, think that perhaps they played it safer with the dancers this year — and I was one of the people last year loudly criticizing them for “breaking” the dancers with the crazy moves they were throwing in there. But they were really hurt by a lack of variety this year. While I love Sonja’s quirkiness, it loses some of its charm when she’s doing a couple of dances per show, every week. They need to add to their stable of choreographers.
I was pleasantly surprised by Tyce’s number that he choreographed for Sasha and Kent last week. I’d primarily just seen his Broadway stuff before, and, unfortunately, those numbers were typically a kiss of death for the performers just because they normally didn’t have the “Wow” factor that the dances from some of the other genres have. That was a really nice number. My favorite, though, was the Tadd and Melanie number last week where Tadd was the dance instructor.
My least favorite was the “gum boot” number from the finale. If Marko and Tadd weren’t already the underdogs, that number in the godawful suspenders with duct tape would certainly have been the nail in the coffin. If you’re going to do something that “out there”, it should have been earlier in the season where all 10 of the guys had to do it rather than it being the final taste in peoples’ mouths just before they vote. (And even Nigel said that when he’d seen it done earlier, it was done in a large group where the sound of the boots stamping was more impressive.)
Well, that was a really dull season for me. The routines have been a real snoozefest, and I have a hard time thinking of any that really stood out to me.
I stopped watching towards the end, and I didn’t care who won. At the beginning I saw potential in a few (like one or two), but then it became clear that all the dancers really lacked something for me to get excited over anyone. Everyone was practically orgasming over the eventual winner the whole season, but she lacked presence except for routines that centered around ebullience or something of that nature. Otherwise, her dancing made me feel nothing. Technique is only one part of the package. Her movements are fluid and full for the most part, but they lack tightness. She looked really off in certain routines. Even if we are talking just about sytycd dancers since the inception of the show, she would not even be close to my top favorite dancers.
And Sasha - sometimes you just can’t take your eyes off of her and her movements just seem to draw you in, but she can’t seem to bring that presence when working with certain themes or dance types. Her movements are tight, but not always full.
The rest, I am not going to bother with, although I’ll echo that Marko is overrated. Even those whose sole source of watching dance is limited to reality shows can just see that is not close to the leagues of Danny and the likes.