So You Think You Can Dance - Season 6 - Page 3

I thought the Nathan and Mollee routine was utter crap--danced poorly, and easily the worst-choreographed routine in the show's history.

Ryan and Ellinore's routine, on the other hand, was quite nice, and the best of the night.  There were some moves in there that were deceptively difficult, although the butterfly kick was a little off near the end.

I agree with Patrick that the hip-hop by Jakob and Ashleigh wasn't as hard-hitting as the judges thought, though it was another great routine by Tabitha and Napoleon.

The foxtrot was a pleasant surprise for me--good music, good choreo, good dancing.

I also enjoyed the blackbird dance, including the Bobby McFerrin music.  Victor seemed a little off in his facial expressions, like he was responding more to Channing (he was smiling in odd places, for example) than to the piece itself.

The pasodoble was danced well (though not amazing), but ultimately wasn't choreographed as well as it could have been, in my opinion.  There wasn't as many chances for Legacy to be strong and dominant as we have seen in past pasodobles.  I also felt it didn't fit the musical phrasing well, which isn't specifically required by the dance, but something I really like personally.  The footwork was quite excellent, however, as Mary pointed out.

Nathan needs to go home--I think he's holding Mollee back.  I wouldn't be sad if Karen went home, as I feel she is highly-overrated by the judges this season (major face time, rivaled only by Mollee and Ryan, I think).

At this point, I think I want Legacy to win.  Not because he is the best dancer, but because I like his personality and character--he seems quite genuine when giving thanks for praise, seems to give an honest effort to improve and take criticism, and has grown immensely as a dancer.  I must admit, when he auditioned, I thought he was a bit cocky, but I quickly saw it was his "street persona," and not how he actually behaves.  Nathan could learn from Legacy.

While I thought Channing and Victor had some nice moments with their Tyce jazz routine, there were two things that distracted me:

1) They were dancing to what was apparently a recording of an asthma attack
2) No one keeps Blackbirds as pets, so that whole thing with the gilded cage made no sense.  Stupid Tyce!

And as revealing as Channing's outfit was and as hot as her body was, she didn't do anything for me.  Her personality is insular and off-putting, and it she still looks like she's not having fun on stage.

That foxtrot was deathly boring, and Noelle is the oldest looking 19 year old I've seen on this show.  If you told me she was in her 30's, I wouldn't bat an eye.

Really liked Travis' routine even though it did seem like a Mia Michaels pastiche.  But I liked Ellenore much more than Ryan, who was just there.  Ellenore was fantastic.  She's my other favorite girl.

For all the hype, that Laurie Gibson routine was completely underwhelming.  I didn't get chills at any point, and frankly, that wasn't a single stand-out moment in the whole routine.  Mollee appeared to be winded near the end of the routine and was very heavy with her movements.

Kathryn is getting yummier by the week.  That crying and high voice thing pegged her as a joke in the beginning, but she's one of my favorites now.  And Legacy may be the most impressive street dancer since Joshua.  He's miles better than the touted Russell, and Legacy didn't even train at the Boston Art Academy for 5 years like Russell did (Russell?  Untrained?  Ha!).  Their Paso was the highlight of the night, but I wonder what that last lift was supposed to look like since it was totally botched.  I was waiting for a spinning donut drop!  That would have been awesome!  BTW, my wife gasped at the sight of Legacy's shirtless torso.  She found it more "aesthetically pleasing"  than Ryan's.

And finally:  It was amusing that Legacy ripped his pants during rehearsal. But what in the name of Carrie Prejean was the camera lingering around his gender confused crotch area? And why did Legacy decide he simply had to insert his finger into the hole? One of the most disturbing moments on SYTYCD history: 


Edited by Hanson - 11/18/09 at 12:20pm

Yeah, I think she stole Karen's smolder mojo.

Orianthi should release an instrumental album. :)

Didn't agree with the Channing cut but I understand it.

Cutting Channing was euthanasia AFAIC.  She was the least enthusiastic dancer I can remember.

I watched Orianthi to listen to her touted guitar work only the hear some Miley Cyrus-like drivel with the occasional Van Halen riff.  My wife kept asking me to skip to the results.  Shoulda listened.


Cat's recent attempt at product placement: 


Victor Smalley -- Nerd Dancer:


Nerd glasses take two: 




Quark & Legacy

The strong couples (Kathryn and Legacy; Ellenore and Ryan) continue to be strong while the others remain inconsistent. My bottom couple is again Nathan and Mollee, though Russell and Noelle's too-nice Samba did not impress either (though they redeemed their evening with their contempo number).

The first half of the show, even with the awful samba and mushy hip hop, was the best of the season. The Lindy Hop was fantastic, I liked both Sonya pieces (although I thought Kathryn & Legacy's piece was better -- Ashliegh & Jakob's song sounded like it was sung by Alex Borstein as Miss Swan). And the Tango was one of the best dances of the season.  The choreo for the first hip hop was shit.  Noelle was so goddam terrible in the samba that I can't figure out who was the worst female samba dancer evar -- Noelle or Channing.  At least Channing had a little snap in her hips.  And has Russell done ANYTHING worth praising?  Jesus, he gets tonguebathed over nothing.

The second half started dipping during the waltz, and I was underwhelmed by the Tyce piece and the Cha Cha. I thought the Can Can was at least more interesting that either of those performances. And seriosuly, WTF is with the love for Laurie Gibson? That's the second straight week of totally undewhelming choreography, made worse by bad execution, although I thought Karen was miles better than Victor. Ryan & Ellenore were the only couple to hit both out of the park -- off the top of my head, that's the best "Broadway" piece I've seen on SYTYCD (or at least the best choreographed).

Sonya looked like Evil Pebbles with that hairdo.  And seriously, Tyce is one of the worst choreographers on the show.  The judges really go out of their way to make it seem like his pieces are good, but they are total dogshit. His contemporary was pointlessness in motion -- "you jump around like this over here and you roll around like that over there and then you pick her up".  Just like his broadway routines, it's just a random jumble of movements, little to no synchro moments, and a lot of uninteresting lifts.  At least he didn't call it a "cancer dance" to make Nigel cry.

Cameron totally agree with ya.  I love both Kathryn and Legacy; Ellenore and Ryan.  Best couples of the night/season. 

What I don't understand is the season long pimping of both Nathan & Mollee whom I consider underwealming, inconsistent, hardly ever in sync, etc.  Dream couple my a*s.   At least Nigel finally called them on their immaturaity tonight, but it was to little, to late.   They should never had been partnered together in the first place. 

I want Kathryn to go far also, but am dreading the moment when she either gets cut or wins the prize. You all know why. :)

I almost thought she was gonna go there when Legacy was explaining his tears.

 So then it's agreed -- Kathryn has that certain something that Asian guys find hot (which is not to say that non-Asian guys can't find her attractive either).

BTW, Nigel's not-so-subtle homophobia strikes again.  In reference to Tyce's direction to Russell, "you should paint your face across her chest", Nigel espoused this as a great recruiting tool to get horny males into dance. "I thought, what guy doesn't want to start dancing" after being told to do so?

Uhh... Perhaps Tyce? Adam Shankman? Victor? Jakob? Billy Bell? etc. etc. etc?

I guess this was Nigel's way of saying, "I want more straight male dancers".

In "Top Model" parlance, she would be "commercially hot" but that's definitely not a bad thing. I think anyone can recognize that regardless of their ethnicity. :)

Interesting that the new couple got axed. I would have preferred Nathan leaving. I thought Victor's solo was great. Nathan has this impetuous quality that grates.

Interesting change to the format without the interview package preceding the performances. I always thought they tended to plant seeds of expectation, whether high or low. Without them there's less chance of being influenced by anything except the performance (well, and the solos and individual profiles).

Ryan and Noelle did pretty well with hip hop. The middle section was a little saggy and it took me a second to realize what Ryan was supposed to be doing with Noelle's leg.

I didn't like Legacy and Ashley's first routine, despite it being athletically impressive. Too robotic and dry and, as a result, provided no opportunity for chemistry between the couple.

I enjoyed Kathryn and Nathan together doing broadway, with Kathryn outdoing Nathan just a bit (but I could be biased). I tended to agree with Nigel about the chemistry between the two, though that may be because of the perceived (or actual) age difference between them.

The story behind Ellenore and Jacob's quickstep routine could have been a problem if they hadn't done as well as they did. Some impressive footwork by them both.

I wasn't as thrilled with the Mollee and Russell contemporary piece as the judges. I thought they did fine, but weren't phenomenal. I think there was a certain fluidity lacking in the transitions that bothered me.

Ryan and Noelle's smooth waltz was a nicely done.

Legacy's cape was a distraction and hid a lot of his moves. The choreography wasn't so hot either. I wasn't sure what Ashleigh's character was supposed to be either (and I wasn't quite in the mood for it since Halloween seems like ages ago).

Nathan was even more upstaged in the rumba by his all-black wardrobe. Kathryn was again lovely and dynamic. Still bothered by Nathan's broodiness during the dressing down, but I liked him shushing the booing.

Finally deserving "dream team" accolades with Ellenore and Jacob with their interesting but still accessible jazz number.

Mollee and Russell's jive was probably not technically perfect, but the performance had good energy and enthusiasm.

Generally I think the Mollee-Nathan split up was better for Mollee than for Nathan and I expect she'll stick around.

Legacy got stuck with some crappy numbers, but recognition of that and his overall popularity will probably keep him in the competition.

I suspect the one to go will be Noelle just from the dominance of the other women.

With the guys, my vote would be for Nathan to go, but I think he'll probably still skate by, which may ultimately put Jacob in danger because he's simply not as popular as the other four.  

Edited by Hanson - 12/2/09 at 9:09am

Did it not run in a two-hour block on the East Coast? Or were there somehow more commercials than usual that I didn't notice? From all appearances on the West Coast the Obama address did not change anything.

 The Obama address didn't end in EST until 8:45 or so.  I set my DVR to start at 8:30 for 2 hours.  So had it actually ran for 2 hours, it would have cut off.  But it didn't.

I guess they padded the West code feed with 20 minutes of commercials.

ETA: Nope, it was 2 hours on the East coast.  TitanTV confused me.

Hm. And I was actually remarking to myself that the show felt longer than usual...

The show was the usual two hours. The video packages were still there, but instead of choreography they were replaced by the video intros of indiviual dancers before they did their solos. That's the only difference. This was done to remind audiences that they were voting for individual dancers now and not pairs, as well as bring the new audience just joining the show (that only watches the top ten) up to speed.   

Yup.  Isn't this how it's always done, too?  One the show shifts into top 10 mode, we get short packages of clips for the dancers, before returning to the clips of the rehearsals in the later episodes.

Soooo bummed about Kathryn in bottom two. The one upside is that she got paired with the least popular partner and made it through. Hopefully, she won't get Ryan next week. My fear is she will get Ryan next week and be Allisoned (ie, should be top four, but can't bust through in the popularity contest). I seem to develop a crush on one of the dancers every even season -- Allison, Chelsie, and now Kathryn. None of them made it to the finals.

The polished choreography and musicality of The League of Extraordinary Dancers (a moniker they somehow lived up to) was in stark contrast to the improvised B-Boying by Quest. I enjoyed both, but I enjoyed LoED much, much more. Also, orchestral Coldplay >>>>>>>>>>>> Snoop Dogg. LoED is like a new dance form. It was indeed extraordinary. 

So... was Todd working as a choreographer before or after Suvivor China?




I guess "Spencer" is his dance alias.

I was bracing myself but I was glad she didn't quite get to where we've seen and heard her go.

"Lost it" like crying or "lost it" like convulsing from laughter?

I remember laughing throughout her first interview package, but this time, I felt a little, "awwww" welling inside of me.

BTW, is everyone aware that it's a top 6 and the finale is in two weeks?

For those of you wondering who this "Noelle" was that got voted off, here's a picture to jog your memory:



Don't know why everyone says she's so forgettable.