Dancing! And also Sell Out Bastardry.
June 15th, 2006Y’all? I had the So You Think You Can Dance premiere on my calendar for like a month and a half before it came on. Because last summer I loved it SO MUCH. It was a good show. With a solid competition that worked both in a get the audience involved, gimmicky, Simon Fuller is taking over the world way as well as presenting actual good material. This season? Not so much. I balked but rolled my eyes when they did away with the week of intensive dance classes from the choreographer judges in favor of the assembly line choreography at the Aladdin. I approached the new and scarily way more like American Idol voting construct warily, but with a mostly open mind. I accepted the (again, like the hated Idol) repetition elimination episode with a groan, but armed with my trusty TiVo remote, I was ready to face it head on.
I got into a 20 minute debate about the eminent lapse in the integrity of the competiton with Ryan when only one of the bottom three teams deserved to be there. And how America cannot be trusted to vote for good dancing instead of, say, Ben and Ashlee, who could not disco their way out of bad “Flashdance” karoake in a hotel lounge. In Destin. Off season. And who were NOT in the bottom three. But I checked my outrage, because its early in the competition, and because the actual elimination would be left up to the judges who would most certainly not eliminate someone who didn’t deserve to be eliminated.
And then the judges made the decision to send home a good dancer who never should have been up for elimination in favor of the Doofy-Cute All American Hip Hop White Boy That People Will Love! who practically stood still during his salsa. And that, my friends, is when I realized that I wasn’t even surprised.
Oh show. I love you so much. But if you try to take advantage of my goodwill and treat me like I’m stupid, I will kick your ass straight to the curb. So you better shape up, and in a hurry.
June 16th, 2006 at 7:49 am
How is the voting more like Idol? I thought the changes made it _less_ like Idol. Unless I am confused, cause you know I don’t watch that show.
June 16th, 2006 at 10:09 am
On Idol, America votes for who they like out of everyone. And the least amount of votes gets eliminated. Period.
Before on SYTYCD, the judges picked the bottom 2 or 3 couples performances, and we voted for who we wanted to keep out of the selection made by the judges. So mostly, the people who went home were the weaker, if not always the weakest, dancers.
By flipping this around, and having America select the bottom three, its much closer to Idol since who goes home is relative to the initial voting. And you open up the option to have what is inarguably the WORST performance (like last night), not even have the opportunity to get kicked off. The only difference is that judges do get the final say out of the bottom pool. Which, apparently, they are basing their decisions now on … something other than the actual dancing.