Contrition, Forgiveness and Redemption: SYTYCD No Matter How Nice, You’re Still not Sugar, Spice!

Top 14, Wed. July 1, 2009
Carmina Burana’s dramatic notes mark the start of the show, and after the top 14 do their thang, Cat Deeley, fresh from the prom in a beautiful fuchsia dress, quizzes guest judge Mia Michaels about her feelings. Mia, with a coy Attitude—or perhaps recognizing her past sins—suggests that she has changed her opinion regarding some unnamed dancer… but Nigel, pulling some teeth, gets her to admit that it is a short, male dancer. No matter how much contrition, Mia, I still believe that your true colors will show again, just as your tattoo peeks out of the sleeve of your dress!
And talking about Brandon: Up come Janette and Brandon in the first slot, challenged by a Jean Marc & France Generaux Cha Cha. Danc/gerous it is, as J falls and B is kicked near the b’s in rehearsal. Though at first it seems tentative it gets better after the first minute or so, going on really dangerously. It lacks however a je-ne-se-quois overall, but in the last two thirds they really get into it: bump and all. Cat wants to get into the moves, so (after kneeling a bit to overcome height differences) she bumps Brandon (she IS a host with the most!). This dance was hot but perhaps not steamy (I guess that was the je-ne-se-quois). After the dance, Nigel and Mary really overflow in praise, perhaps to needle Mia into saying what she said to Brandon: “you’re amazing—but you will love me and hate me in this journey.” Ok, so she publicly repented of her past sins, but let’s see if she internally makes amends.
Kupono and Kayla do contemporary by Sonya (my favorite) – a very suggestive dark pas that, I believe, will put them in the danger zone tomorrow. It was complicated, and full of tricks, so much so that emotion gets thrown out the window. Despite Mary’s comments, I do not believe that the technique was flawless, with arms flailing, and shaky legs. Mia plays nice, but she probably knows that it is bottom three again for these two.
Next, Evan and Randi do a Joey Dowling’s Broadway. Tall and spiked heel, Joey tries to whip them into shape and Mia compliments her for it. Randi does not seem to be used to dancing in shoes so she seems off balance all the time. Evan is better, but she was so bad, it was hard to watch. I did not like this number, despite Nigel’s excuses about the underlying homage to Fosse and Liza. Mia actually was the only sincere one this time, sugar coating her criticisms, but at least not saying “it was the best I’ve seen of…” that M 'n N have kept on doing all night.
Jason and Caitlin – let’s see if Brian Freedman can do something that is not in the bottom three this week. Dangerous Aliens! However BF’s idea of how an alien woman should seduce the last man on earth is STRANGGGGE! What does that say or mean about him, I do not know or want to go there. (However, not original either, since there are sooo many cult movies about this topic – Amazon Women of Outer Space and so on and so on…) The dancing, however, was overcome by the costuming, the idea and the music. It was hard to tell if they danced well or not, but Mia says she has been on that ride (abduction?). Perhaps live at the studio it looked better, but if this dance gets many votes it probably will be from the populous extraterrestrial crowd.

Phillip and Jeanine do NappiTabs! Chained together they dance to one of my favorite songs: Locked Down by Kanye W! The chain restricts but lets them do moves! Phillip pops, and Jeanine jumps. Why should Phillip have given J the key at the end makes no sense to me: They are bound together to make it very far in season five, despite Mia’s jealous stabs to NappiTabs chainography. A shout out to Lisa and Sarah Ponczek with that great sign rooting for Jeanine!

Melissa and Ade’ do a classical ballet with a Prokofiev’s R&J pas, a first in many ways. Even though Jessica Fernandez in season two did her last solo in Pointe shoes before getting kicked off, at this time I am elated that this style is shown shamelessly in this show. I have not lost total hope in the dancing public, so I’m sure that this number is not going to be bottom threed. One question though: could any other dancer besides Melissa have done this choreography as dreamily? Perhaps that tells us something about the “versatility” of other dance styles… after all Melissa has kicked some doing hip hop/jazz, contemporary and rumba. One of our twitter (Prosemonkey) followers does pose an interesting question: how come the only ballerina in the bunch pulled the ballet pas de deux out of the hat? Is that not a happy coincidence?
Katie Holmes, DizzyFeet, blah, blah, blah… this type of “special announcements” make my eyes glaze over.
Karla and Vitolio do Quick Step, a difficult and toughly dangerous move with a hat on, clicking heels at the Ritz. Statuesquely starting from a podium Vitiolio does good, ending with Karla at the same starting point. It was well executed, but not tour material (except perhaps for that eye popping costume change).

Okay: My predictions for bottom three are Evan and Randi, Jason and Caitlin, and Kupono and Kayla. Who do I think will be out? Caitlin, although I do not think she’s the worst of the three. But I think that’s where the show is going. About the guys, I’m not sure but I would like to see Kupono leave.