I have been a HUGE fan of So You Think You Can Dance since day 1. Fan might even be too soft of a word. Obsessed would probably be more accurate! Since I have been watching the show since Season 1, I feel my knowledge and terminology for the dance world has increased. I have even become obsessed with certain choreographers and have developed the talent to know who the choreographer is by just watching the dance routine. I watch the contestants beginning at their auditions and follow them through to the performance show at which point, I feel like I know them personally and get emotionally attached to my favorites. I love pointing them out in movies or television shows or even as back-up dancers during performances. (Janet Jackson's tribute to Michael at the VMA's AMAZING and filled with all my favorite choreographers!!) It has been exciting to watch the show get better and better and the talent get stronger and stronger but Season 2 will always be my favorite and Season 6, well, here are my frustrations with Season 6.
The first major change for Season 6 was that it was airing in the Fall instead of the usual Summer broadcast. I'm sure they make more money in the Fall but I think this change caused them to make too many alternatives. One was having three permanent judges. It was bad enough that in Season 3 Mary Murphy was a permanent judge but at least we still had different choreographers come on every week. It was a different perspective and some people I like more than others so it worked out. Now they have Adam Shankman, who I actually used to be a fan of but now it is so lame to watch the same judges every week and give the same comments. I don't like it. (My all time favorite judge to comment...Tyce Diorio)
Another change was how they introduced the Top 20. Before the competition began they had the Top 20 dancers come on and show their talent in their own genre. I actually thought this was an excellent idea because you were able to see the dancers strengths right off the bat. Then, the first two weeks they did the performance show as per usual except because of the MLB Playoffs, the judges had to cut two dancers on the same night as the performance show. This made me mad because it is supposed to be America's Favorite Dancer and the judges just got rid of four people who might not necessarily have been voted out. I guess they did what they could but I didn't like it. Oh and this year they had 3 tap dancers make the Top 20 and no offense to anyone that does tap, but it was kind of annoying to have them on. (Nigel is a tap dancer so he was ecstatic) If they did their solo the music had to change and microphones in the floor were turned on and they weren't very good at anything else. They were gone in the first couple weeks!
The performance studio has definitely been getting nicer as the seasons went on, but this year they added a backdrop screen that can show images or different scenes on it. Originally, I liked it because it looked nice but then I realized it distracted from the dancing way too much! I want to see good dancing and a good performance but it turned too much into...well I actually don't know what it turned into, I just didn't like it.
Mia Michaels, one of the best choreographers on the show (Wade Robson being the other) decided to leave the show at the beginning of Season 6. It is really too bad because her routines were always amazing and I loved when she was a guest judge because she actually knew what she was talking about. It really felt like there was something missing this season, and it was MIA.
Somewhat of a continuation of my previous point, the choreographers didn't seem to be producing that great of routines. Season 2 there were 3 or 4 routines that were nominated for an Emmy and routines that I still search for on YouTube because they were that amazing. (Ramalama-BangBang) This year no routines stuck out to me. My favorite routines have usually been the group routines at the beginning of the results show, and I honestly cannot think of one I remember. Having said that, there has been some really good routines from Travis Wall and Sonya Tayeh the past couple of seasons.
Another change was that this season, they had 6 people in the finale where its usually the Top 4. I really don't know why they had a Top 6, it seems like too many but again I think it is because Christmas is next week so they had to end the show this week. Dumb. Which leads me into my final point...
The last performance show for the finale was WEAK! First off, it was only an hour long and they did have every contestant dance with each other like usual but they did not have an all girls number like usual or an all boys number like usual and they cut out a very important part of the show...the rehearsal footage! This is where you see the choreographer working with the couple and see the falls and actually see the personalities of the contestants! They took this footage out of the Top 10 episode too which I was quite upset about. I was really looking forward to seeing the footage of the cute married couple from Provo during their rehearsals! How adorable is that to be competing on the show with your spouse??? I love it and apparently a little too much. And to make matters worse, the dancers didn't even get a SOLO!!!! Are you kidding me?? How are we supposed to vote (well, I actually can't vote here in Canada but I would if I could) on our favorite dancer if we don't get to see them showcase their individual talent. Oh I was mad! The finale is usually what I live for in the season and I was so disappointed in the performance show and even the results finale was lame too. They tried to fill it with performances of Leona Lewis (who just stood there...hello...its a dance show!) and Mary J Blige. Jennifer Lopez also performed, which I actually really liked BECAUSE, she used previous contestants as her back-up dancers! GREAT idea! Then because there were SIX people in the finale...it took forever to get to the winner, which I was REALLY happy about it! (CONGRATS Russell!) The weird part was though, that Russell injured himself early on in the show and so the remaining dances had to be old footage instead of live performances. The show must go on but kind of weird for a finale???
All things considered, I still love the show and I absolutely LOVE dancing. This just shows how passionate I am about it. Or does it show that I am out of my mind and have too much time on my hands at work?? (I can't believe how long this turned out to be...how embarrassing) Either way, I thoroughly enjoyed getting all of this off my chest as my dear husband is probably grateful that I didn't deliver this rant to him! Thanks for listening!
