tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-61780332024-03-13T01:16:27.968-07:00Television! You Black EmperorEmperor Television KetchupLeeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12792249859727933595noreply@blogger.comBlogger829125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6178033.post-74732585476979236742014-09-03T09:00:00.000-07:002014-09-03T10:42:54.024-07:00So You Think You Can Dance - 11xwhatever "Wherever I Left Off"Circumstances have, over the last number of weeks, led me to the official Fox Youtube account to watch the routines. If you've never had the pleasure, the official account just shows the routine -- no rehearsals prior, no judges' comments afterwards. The experience of watching the performances in isolation is disorienting, not to mention time-saving -- I can finish an episode's worth of routines Leeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12792249859727933595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6178033.post-28341035853219318172014-08-03T20:45:00.003-07:002014-08-03T20:58:49.965-07:00So You Think You Can Dance - 11x10 "The Top 14 Perform, 4 Eliminated"
Whenever I'm talking with someone new for the first time and the conversation reveals my affinity for reality tv, I'm often asked what I think about American Idol, and my witty rejoinder is always, "I don't watch Idol because I like music." I'm beginning to wonder if SYTYCD is reaching that point for me and dance, since I've been bumping uncomfortably against the show's cramped depiction of Leeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12792249859727933595noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6178033.post-74738797553095732462014-07-27T21:35:00.001-07:002014-07-27T21:35:39.636-07:00 So You Think You Can Dance - 11x09 "The Top 16 Perform, 2 Eliminated"Remember when I was literally sick and tired last week? As it turns out, I've been suffering fro pneumonia, but strangely enough, I have more to say than last week, even based solely on first impressions.
Tanisha & Rudy - Hip Hop
Rudy is this year's Kent, isn't he?
Emilio & Footman - Contemporary
This was diverting, though if I'm in the mood for random cross-season comparisons pulled Leeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12792249859727933595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6178033.post-90940865395609025922014-07-22T21:10:00.000-07:002014-07-22T21:10:30.190-07:00So You Think You Can Dance - 11x08 "The Top 18 Perform, 2 Eliminated"I've literally been sick and tired this past week, so I'll just say that I'm shocked -- shocked -- that the oldest remaining female contestant was eliminated. To paraphrase some movie, I get older, SYTYCD contestants stay the same age.
PS Teddy is our new dance god. Leeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12792249859727933595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6178033.post-19378589192838586172014-07-13T18:49:00.001-07:002014-07-13T18:49:20.266-07:00So You Think You Can Dance - 11x07 "The Top 20 Perform, 2 Eliminated"
When the judges talk to Serge, they usually mention how he's a hard worker, which at the time struck me as oddly conspicuous. Later I remembered that that's the same faint praise that they give to Maks/Max from season 5, who of course lasted all of two weeks. Since he landed in the bottom already, and considering his advanced age, I wouldn't be surprised if Serge doesn't last much longer.
Leeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12792249859727933595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6178033.post-88746136577756844622014-07-08T21:18:00.001-07:002014-07-08T21:18:10.198-07:00So You Think You Can Dance - 11x06 "The Top 20 Perform"With the exception of one routine, the showcase extinguished the hope I'd built up during the auditions. Make room for me, Anthony Morigerato and your polite golf clap.
Ricky and Jessica's routine is by far the only positively noteworthy routine, though what I think of as the elemental division of roles -- Ricky as air, and Jessica as earth -- spotlights Ricky to a large degree. I don't want to Leeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12792249859727933595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6178033.post-59742382221638909682014-07-01T22:31:00.000-07:002014-07-01T22:31:10.187-07:00So You Think You Can Dance - 11x05 "L.A. Callbacks / Top 20 Chosen"Hope springs eternal, even after an initial bout of disillusionment: I'm cautiously optimistic about the coming season (ballet!), even though I'm disappointed, first, that certain dancers didn't make the top 20, and second, that this cast has a few warnings flags.
With 157 dancers to dispense with in a space of 80+ minutes and instructions to build up arcs for specific dancers, a significant Leeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12792249859727933595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6178033.post-5285151279133131402014-06-24T22:16:00.005-07:002014-06-24T22:16:58.609-07:00So You Think You Can Dance - 11x04 "Auditions #4"From the first episode -- where I was readying on obituary for my relationship with this show -- to now, I've changed my opinion on the upcoming season nearly a full 180. The two middle episodes are spectacularly exciting, and while this last audition isn't as rich with beautiful dancing, it's still elevated by the auditioners who go beyond the over-played competition style. For instance, though Leeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12792249859727933595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6178033.post-63422911839759764862014-06-18T09:00:00.000-07:002014-06-18T09:00:06.953-07:00So You Think You Can Dance - 11x03 "Auditions #3"Maybe I should voice my disillusionment more often because for the second week in a row, the show has attracted and/or shown a caliber of dancer that gives me cautious hope for the competition. And as far as my current hobbyhorse goes, the last two auditions seems to have complicated my belief that SYTYCD's focus on the under 20 crowd solely serves Nigel's commercial purposes rather than any Leeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12792249859727933595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6178033.post-22075150811923982862014-06-08T21:09:00.001-07:002014-06-08T21:09:03.079-07:00 So You Think You Can Dance - 11x02 "Auditions #2"Previously: SYTYCD offers me nothing. This week: WOAH. The episode is especially rich with beautiful leg-lines, and as an added bonus, we saw TWO guest judges who know from dance, which, in this era of Wayne Brady and Jesse Tyler Ferguson, has taken on epic importance. (Fabrice Calmels stays well within the confines of SYTYCD judging -- critique in generalities and superlatives, overlook the Leeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12792249859727933595noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6178033.post-61316823039977507792014-06-03T22:28:00.001-07:002014-06-04T12:23:35.867-07:00So You Think You Can Dance - 11x01 "Auditions #1"
I won't beat around the bush: I don't know how motivated I am to continue blogging SYTYCD, mainly because I'm less and less interested in the way it presents Dance (note the capital D), especially if the first audition episode is any indication. I took away two related things from the premiere, neither of which gives me much hope: the show's artistic complacency, and its increasing insularity.
Leeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12792249859727933595noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6178033.post-148789981956262292013-11-12T13:03:00.001-08:002013-11-12T13:03:08.928-08:00America's Next Top Model (Cycle 20) - 20x15 "Finale Part 1: The Finalists Shoot Their Guess Campaign"So what initially appears to be a final-three runway turns out to be another one of Tyra's cruel hoaxes (the biggest one of course being the promise of a lucrative modeling career to the winner), where one more elimination is to take place just before the final runway. And that's where the last episode ends, which is as good a time to address something critical that I've ignored too long in this Leeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12792249859727933595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6178033.post-63224081052038124482013-10-15T22:10:00.001-07:002013-10-15T22:10:13.385-07:00America's Next Top Model (Cycle 20) - 20x12 "The Guy Who Has a Panic Attack"True heart, no hurdle, set out by man or nature, will keep me from seeking out thy lovely smizes or the newfangled "booch," not that I swing like that, but hey, it's a novel thing and I'll try anything you suggest once.
In the early parts of the season, I marveled at how much the new format seemed to revitalize the franchise, and the guys have continued to carry the cycle to the overseas portionLeeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12792249859727933595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6178033.post-28330643400134891172013-09-29T19:47:00.002-07:002013-09-29T19:48:24.544-07:00So You Think You Can Dance - 10x18 "Winner Chosen"First off, congratulations, tiny dancers!
Not that their winning was much of a surprise, given the kid-glove treatment from the judges, which is continuing the show's tradition of blatantly pampering certain dancers during their entire run culminating with an anticlimactic finale.
Of course, that's the retrospective arrangement, because early on I thought that Jenna would have been a more Leeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12792249859727933595noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6178033.post-55231910283095536022013-09-09T23:07:00.002-07:002013-09-09T23:07:56.683-07:00So You Think You Can Dance - 10x17 "Top Four Perform"
My gut reaction for this week was surprise that we'd finally gotten a performance finale that lived up to the idea that these four are the best (favorite, if you prefer) dancers of the season. In most seasons, by this time the remaining dancers have been so overworked and fatigue-bedraggled that the last week of performances rarely yields much worth remembering. (Off the top of my head, I canLeeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12792249859727933595noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6178033.post-34245231849717491272013-09-02T22:43:00.001-07:002013-09-02T22:43:32.266-07:00So You Think You Can Dance - 10x16 "Top 6 Perform"One of the concepts that I've developed and carried with me for a while is that reality programs -- especially but not limited to the competitive types -- are inherently moralistic, and that their morality is built on what viewers believe the people on the shows deserve or don't deserve. Just recently, though, two other shows (Breaking Pointe and RuPaul's Drag Race, if you're keeping track -- andLeeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12792249859727933595noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6178033.post-26981688950804002142013-08-26T09:00:00.000-07:002013-08-25T22:24:37.930-07:00So You Think You Can Dance - 10x15 "Top Eight Perform"Ever since their stint as VEAGS choreographers, I've been yearning for Comfort and/or Twitch to get their chance to put routines together, but not even in my wildest dreams did I expect the benefit of their choreography and seeing dance in their routines as well. This is the best idea that SYTYCD has had since the introduction of the All Stars themselves.
Not that every routine is a success; theLeeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12792249859727933595noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6178033.post-28800354552509832752013-08-19T09:00:00.000-07:002013-08-19T09:00:07.614-07:00So You Think You Can Dance - 10x14 "Top 10 Perform"I missed a bit of SYTYCD, didn't I?
Routines of note have been fairly sparse, too, with this week only offering two performances: Comfort's virtual solo, and Travis's routine for Tucker and Robert Roldan.
First, Comfort is a starving lion eating up that routine -- her hair even looks like a mane -- and NappyTabs serve up something that well avoids their twee-romantic impulses (although they Leeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12792249859727933595noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6178033.post-83694835167609180932013-08-11T12:00:00.000-07:002013-08-11T12:00:04.493-07:00America's Next Top Model (Cycle 20) - 20x03 "The Girl Who Gets Married Again"The last several seasons of ANTM have seen my favorite show of all time staggering with age and insularity, and when I'd heard that Tyra was letting boys on her show, I feared that ANTM was ready to stumble directly into the shark's mouth on account of being on its last legs -- 20 cycles and 10 years, after all -- which explains why I took almost a full week to watch the first episode(s).
And ofLeeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12792249859727933595noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6178033.post-71486888781899942422013-07-07T22:30:00.002-07:002013-07-07T22:30:29.664-07:00So You Think You Can Dance - 10x09 "Top 18 Perform"Well, yes, the top 20 in fact perform, but only 18 of them count, which is in my eyes an outrageous arrangement. I've seen a few arguable justifications for eliminating dancers at the top of the program: by limiting the number of routines that the judges base the elimination on, the audience will be less confused when Janaya or Amber are cut despite having the strongest performances of the night Leeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12792249859727933595noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6178033.post-13266406080709973682013-07-01T22:52:00.001-07:002013-07-01T22:52:07.244-07:00So You Think You Can Dance - 10x08 "Top 20 Perform"First, the intro group number? Wow! Certainly the most ambitious staging they've ever done (at least on the US stage -- the Australian show did stuff like this a lot, I think, but involving something like a hundred dancers, too). Cameos from choreographers and judges (Old Man Nigel doing respectable popping! Who'd'a thunk?) where, once you register their presences, they slide offscreen to give Leeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12792249859727933595noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6178033.post-87443792880110717102013-06-24T22:42:00.000-07:002013-06-24T22:42:02.798-07:00So You Think You Can Dance - 10x07 "Meet the Top 20"I have a feeling that this unveiling of the top 20 may have been the least surprising in 10 seasons. By my count, almost anyone whose auditions are shown and who are still in the running at at the Green Mile ends up making the top 20. (Although we lost quite a few auditioners, any who remained seemed to have had their spot secured.) To put the matter in other words, nearly all of the Green Mile Leeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12792249859727933595noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6178033.post-21435774518042717742013-06-17T21:36:00.004-07:002013-06-17T21:37:14.349-07:00From the Vault: SYTYCD Season 8 Post-MortemEd. note: Way, way back in the day -- 2011! -- I crunched some numbers for contestant ages after season 8. I thought I posted it, but I guess not! I have no idea if I had anything more to say and thus didn't post it, or if I posted it and accidentally reverted it to a draft, or what. So consider this a blast from the past.
As promised, if belated. (Ed.: lol. That's from the original post.)
Leeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12792249859727933595noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6178033.post-86012733297167973662013-06-17T09:00:00.000-07:002013-06-17T09:00:06.681-07:00So You Think You Can Dance - 10x06 "Vegas Callbacks"First, a cheap lol.
Coed bathrooms? I thought the callbacks are held in VEAGS, not a Berkeley dormitory.
Moving on!
Lest anyone forget, SYTYCD is a reality tv program.
A time-honored strategy for shows that sequester their contestants is to limit the amount of food they have access to while maximizing their alcohol consumption in the name of drama. Of course, SYTYCD is only Leeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12792249859727933595noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6178033.post-30895627078411696642013-06-11T09:00:00.000-07:002013-06-11T23:08:28.577-07:00So You Think You Can dance - 10x05 "Auditions #5"Note: Yes, I know the VEAGS episode already aired, but I got far enough with this post that I don't want to consign it to the cobwebs, so on the policy of better-late-than-never:
Strange thing that's happened: over the course of this audition tour, I've begun to develop an appreciation for the contemporary dancers, both male and female. I'm personally rather astonished, as I've been vocalLeeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12792249859727933595noreply@blogger.com2