crowceilidh

I have to say that I kinda hated Mark and Witney's dance and thought nearly any other set of pros (well, minus Derek who never seems to do romantic that well) could have sold it better.

I was stunned by the heat Randy was projecting at Karina - I'm pretty sure he was mostly just covering nerves, but that's not how my romance-meter registered it. I didn't expect to be so impressed. Witney told us that she was the youngest pro and then she told us that she was half the age of her partner. They are trying for the new Julianne, but Witney is not as good a dancer. She is a good choreographer though. I still can't stand her (so that IS like Julianne.) Did anybody listen to Lacey's livestream? How was it? Is Julianne saying, yeah I agree with Len, all the time so that he can leave the show and everyone will accept her as HIS replacement?

I'm even more confused than you. I wasn't objecting. I was explaining why I don't know them. I follow a lot of British tv too and I don't know any of their C- and D-list stars either. One tends to be more familiar with one's own C-and D-list stars is all. I was just explaining that I don't find you have to know who these people are before season in order to thoroughly enjoy them.

The "stars" are so C- and D-list American and I do not follow sports and I'm old and I didn't own a tv between 1970 and 1988, so it's very rare that I know who more than 2 of them are. Some of the most enjoyable people for me have been people I'd never heard of before - Zendaya, Ty Murray, Gilles Marini, Mario Lopez, Emitt Smith, Apolo Ohno, Mel B, Kyle Massey, JR Martinez. (You see one person's big name is quite often an other person's who?) I'm quite often disappointed by the people I know and have specific guessy expectations of.

I'm pretty sure I may be bowing out of watching - CAI and Bruno have become ridiculous caricatures of themselves and that's AMAZEBALLS because they started that way, too, but 18 seasons later my tolerance is so low that I never ever watch anything they say. Len is also a caricature of himself, but he was always a little more interesting than the other two (although I do agree with the comment that Bruno used to occasionally say cogent things, it's been a LLLLLLOOOOOONNNNNNNGGGG time since then) and yet I barely listen to him. I could never stand JH as a person (she was a great dancer and did fast sparkly choreo in her time) and I thought she was horrible as a judge. They are probably grooming her to replace Len. Shudder. So you watch the whole thing ffing through the commercials and judges and it turns out that it takes as much time to ff (or more) than it does to watch the minute to minute and half long dances??? Why bother?

Thanks again, apicalmeristem. I think I really want to go to a taping sometime, but I really don't want to fly across the continent. I'm always so glad to hear observations from people who are able to do so.

Thanks for the report, apicalmeristem. I'd like to hear any other tidbits you have - I'm always fascinated by what actually happens as opposed to what we're allowed to see.

The difference is that, as a highly professional comedian, JTF intended to make Cat look like the consummate professional she is.

I think that was Dominick beside Emilio. Marcus was there too. I really really liked that dance and watched it back as soon as I'd seen it. Zach was 4th???? Whatever. I ffed through Jessica's montage, that is how totally boring I found her. Loved Mary's dress and Cat's dress. Thought JTF made Shankman seem de trop. Loved JTF's schtick. Paula Abdul bores me and then bores me some more and then bores me some more. How is this woman a talking head? I thought Zack and Valerie's dance was better this time than the first and still I only had eyes on Zack, Valerie disappeared, red shoes or no red shoes. Les Twins were brilliant.

This year is different. Back to one winner. Stupid.

Chelsie and Lacey are my favourite ballroom girls.

OMG - that was fantastic -- I'd love to see it more clearly.

Given the music choice, I thought it was going to be Mandy Moore, but then there were moves that didn't quite fit her style, so I was confused. I think Jessica is one of the most boring, least emotive dancers I have ever seen. She didn't even look sexy in her Broadway (Zack, on the other hand...). The only time I've seen her look sexy was in her audition and even that was momentary. When she emotes it all seems like sophomoric acting.

I feel that the girls' dance was alright, but the judges' reaction to it was all kinds of vaguely sexist/touching-on-racist ridiculosity. And if I hear "animalistic" to refer to African jazz again, I am going to hurt myself. What's wrong with raw or human-istic? I loved that choreo - Valerie telegraphed every partner move in it. i thought the choreo was great.

I am totally disinterested in tap, but I could watch Zack tap for hours with interest (and Valerie for approximately a second and half). I thought the choreo to "Piano Man" was the best tap routine I have ever seen/heard in my life. Cat's dress was all kinds of awesome. Nigel is a prat. I forgive JTF because he really is funny and that is so much preferable to the sugary bullshit Nigel and Mary spout ad nauseam that I want to kiss him all over his face. I thought Jessica sucked the air out of everything she did. If either Jessica or Valerie win, I will be pissed. Zack should win, but I can live with Ricky. Zack pwned Ricky in their number, but both were pretty cool. Unfortunately, there were a couple of weak spots - I spotted one for each guy - but the strong parts made the adrenaline churn in my body.

Anya's on the DWTS mothership, Strictly Come Dancing in the UK. British TV in general has more taste in brunettes than American.

Re: Ray Leeper's "theft" - I don't think that Mark invented the ponytail move; I have a suspicion that it comes from the BSDM world (maybe the Bronies?) and that's one of the things that makes it so racey. I agree that there were some similarities in tone between the dances, but because of their source material NOT because Leeper copied Kanemura. Anyhow, it really wasn't as great as Mark's K-pop take on the scene but Mark "stole" it as much as Leeper did.

That cha-cha was totally believable and Ricky did not look like a young child trying to wrestle with Anya, so I was really impressed. Zack is so mesmerizing in most of his dances (keep him away from JMG - those were both really bad dances). I am deeply disinterested in tap, but I cannot stop watching Zack's musicality - he blows me away. I loved him with Fikshun. He had amazing musicality there. So that's two - Ricky and Zack better-than kept up with dancers they might have easily been shown up by. Will and Jacqui's dance was alright. Will was transcendent; Jacqui looked like a little girl. The dance itself made me verklempt, but Jacqui mitigated against it. I still would prefer her over: Jessica. The only good thing about that dance was the two costumes together. Apart they were ugly. Even wonderful Ade looked soft and off I felt. Jessica just looked awkward. Casey and MacKenzie were alright. She doesn't strike me as a good allstar choice. Casey and Jessica were pretty good in the disco, but it's disco, I don't really care when people too young to dance the style are doing it, it can't even be ironic which would at least be enjoyable. Disco is dead, show. Stop it. Do some House or something. Valerie and Twitch were pretty darn good - that's my favourite thing she's done. I loved the choreo. Valerie did so much less than Ricky in their dance that I could hear Len Goodman tut-tutting about arsing around. Zack has been my horse from the beginning -- I feel good about that whether or not he wins.

I just can't with that girl on Afterbuzz. The one with the curly hair and horrible nasally little girl voice. The only one I've been able to watch to conclusion this season is last week's with Jaime and Nick because she just wasn't there.

Casey and Jessica are the two dancers featured most prominently on the ad that the SYTYCD fb page has put up for the tour. https://www.facebook.com/SoYouThinkYouCanDance/photos/a.125185344303.99264.9748634303/10152621252374304/?type=1&theater

And the strange thing about the judges hating on Jessica King (Will's partner) is that she was stunning in the Adam and Eve dance and AWESOME in the HH. They put Will in a very strange position, especially for someone of his general political stance - all zen and peace and earthchild and love. Re: Allison, as I said, the field of unfairly overlooked people is a very large one - I'm sure we all have our candidates. Then there's the unfairly pumped up field - that's pretty freaking large too. Kherington, this season's Jessica, Melanie, Valerie etc. ad nauseam. Isn't it interesting that both Zack and Tanisha have that ability to transform their looks when dancing. I really hope that Zack makes it through to final four. In fact, I'd like him to take the prize. He's the only dancer left whom I find remotely exciting and he's been my horse since the first show.

Just need to pop in to say that Will has ALWAYS been an absolutely gorgeous dancer. ALWAYS. He is my vote for most unfairly overlooked dancer ever and as we know, that's a massive field of people.

This week's guest judge was so immediately so dire that after her first sentence she was on ff through the whole show for me. Wow, was she bad.

Good point about the Allstars, calipiano81. Can anybody point me to this week's Afterbuzz? I don't seem to be able to find it and I sure enjoyed the show with Jaime and Nick.

That red patch is the distinctive red hourglass of the black widow spider, several pictures down in the wiki aricle helpfully linked above. I thought that this was one of the worst dances I have ever seen Comfort do - didn't like the choreo, the music or her partner's dancing.