LadyMustang65

I still have no freaking idea of how this will work, and it's absolutely frustrating me. Am hoping that if I just stick it out another week or two, we'll get to the actual competition, and it will become enjoyable. This is just a hot mess so far.

I'm with you in that I hate the team idea. But since the teams were assigned to the contestants, as far as I'm concerned, once they move someone from one team to the other, that person is on that team. So, yes, the big guy was switched from EE to TS, but once that happened, he was a member of TS. Period. But I suspect Call Me Ishmael above got it right - they knew they wanted to send Joseph home, and they couldn't do that if they declared TS the winner since the winning team gets immunity. Which is just another reason to hate this whole team concept. You could have 3 great looks from one team and the worst piece of garbage from the 4th person and get all decent but not outstanding looks from the other team, and you could lose someone who produced a decent look rather than the person who produced garbage simply because their team won the challenge. Honestly, if they wanted to do a team challenge, in my humble opinion as a viewer, I would have preferred to see them not eliminate a person each week. That really makes no sense to have teams but pick an individual winner. Just keep the teams intact through the entire competition and award each team points based on what they produced. So it wouldn't have to be a win or lose - each team would earn points based on what they created. Say each creature could earn 1-3 points - 1 point if it was a bottom look, 2 points if it was safe, and 3 points if it was a top look. Go through all 10 weeks or however long it is and then declare a winning team with the prize split between them. Or award a team score for each look plus individual points based on their contributions, and the top individual scorer on the winning team is the winner. I don't know exactly, but what they're doing just makes no frickin' sense.

Finally!!!! After how many weeks, we finally got not one, not two, but three looks that I actually liked! Yay!!! Usually I'm left wondering what the heck the judges are praising because to me everything up to now has pretty much just looked awful! Hope this keeps up! But I call BS on their not awarding the win to Twisted Six. Of the top 3 looks they were seriously considering to win, 2 of them came from TS and 1 from EE. After all these weeks of not winning a challenge, they could have had a frickin' heart and given them this one. Boo.

The Junior category has lost all appeal for me. Don't like either of those girls (even though I recognize they are very flexible and can pose nicely), so don't care who wins. I wanted The Lab in there. Just ugh on those two angsty flaily contemporary snores. < sigh > This is the first time I have liked Swing Latino. In the past I have found them way too frenetic and headache-inducing. Minus the ridiculous sparkles (shut up, Derek, they should NEVER come back) and with not everyone doing something different at the same time, they were so much more enjoyable. It actually looked like people dancing. I also liked SuperCrew's routine. It was not their usual, and I think that's partly why I enjoyed it so much. They weren't afraid to try something different. This is going to be a hard category for me, as I like most of the final groups.

So sad to say I'm really not liking this season. So far there has not been one make-up that I thought was really outstanding, and only a few that I thought were good. Most have just been awful. JMHO, of course. None of these people seem to have any real personalities. I don't know if their luck just ran out with quality contestants or if the team aspect is really making it hard for anyone to stand out. But it's just sad. :(

I was disappointed in some of the final cuts. No-talent Trump guy? Seriously? Ugh. We could have kept the young man singer or the other magician or the good comedian. Instead we get that piece of dreck. Ditto with the escape artist. His wife is *so* annoying. She cried and screamed during his first performance as well. And this was basically the same thing as before. No. Just no. Although I like the Masqueraders, I would have preferred to see the young man singer instead. I liked their first audition better; this one was just meh. I probably would have also cut Hero, even though I like the act and I love the dog. I just think she needs to work on polishing the performance. It was fun, but it wasn't really polished. I also would have preferred to see both of the magicians go through.

I do not care for this 'new' version of the show so far. < sigh > Is this the first year for The Academy? I don't remember this at all. Also, I do not like the way the All Stars are picking their teams right now. They did something similar before, but this smacks too much of The Voice, and I don't like it. I also think that first guy who picked Allison will regret that. Cannot believe that none of them chose Robert. What the heck? I am surprised at the inclusion of Cyrus as an All Star because if memory serves, he pretty much sucked at everything that wasn't his style during his season, but he kept getting put through anyway. Don't get me wrong - I loved watching him do his thing, but most of the rest of it was painful to watch. I am also confused as to how this will work. The All Stars pick a 'team' of four. Then what? How do we get to a Top 10? And why just a Top 10? Will the dancers then be partnered with the All Stars instead of each other? I have no idea how this season is supposed to work, and if they've explained it on the show, I completely missed it.

That girl was who Heidi decided to waste her golden buzzer choice on? She was okay, but we didn't think she was anything special. Subway singer had a lovely voice. Like others so sad about Brandon. Lovely voice, and he seemed like a lovely young man. We did like that first comedian. He was funny, although he talked so fast my dh had trouble understanding him. I had to 'translate' most of the jokes, which made them not quite so funny. But he had me laughing. :) So many duds last night. Unlike others I didn't mind Five Alive. I thought they were good enough to go through but unlikely to win. A couple of "wow" moments but mostly a forgettable group. And while they won't do it, for the love of God would they please quit with the sob stories? Heck, just cut out the stories entirely. This isn't Queen for a Day - it's America's Got Talent. I don't care what the backstory is. That doesn't make a mediocre or bad performer suddenly special. A short question-and-answer session with the judges to start off and then just do your thing. Really don't care who you are. On the plus side we'd get to see a lot more acts, which is why I watch the show in the first place. If they really want us to get to know the contestants, post videos and stories online so those who are interested can read/view them, and the rest of us don't have to suffer through them.

Why is TC still on the show? I mean seriously. What does Syria have to do with the whole idea of this show, which is a hospital in Texas? It was one thing when he was there for a short time allegedly getting his head on straight, but now that he's decided to stay there, I was expecting him to be written off the show. What purpose does he serve now? And honestly I was surprised he insisted on getting that kid to the base. Since when has lack of proper facilities and/or equipment ever stopped him before? I was half-expecting him to cut the kid open on the ground with a butter knife and some home-made hooch for anesthetic. I enjoy the rest of the show - I have a great capacity to suspend disbelief when I want to. But I just don't understand why TC is still a character on this show. He seems to have nothing to do with anything else that's going on, and I honestly just don't care about him enough to be interested in his 'adventures' being SuperDoc in Syria. They can spin him off to a new show called "The Desert Shift" and let anyone who finds him interesting watch while the rest of us don't have to have the flow of the show constantly interrupted to bring us his emo angst. And they should feel free to bring Topher back as a ghost to haunt the ER. I loved Topher.

We were not happy with this duel stuff: Nick v. Fik-shun - we really liked both of these dancers. Nick did himself a bit of a disservice by trying to add too much to his routine for the duel, so it came off as a bit frantic, but otherwise, we thought he was a fabulous dancer and hate to lose him. We're not big fans of contemporary to begin with, and we thought he was one of the best ones we saw. So boo. Fik-shun is always wonderful as well. Swing Latino v. Miami All Stars - We hated SL the first time we saw them, and we hated them again here. Costumes are over-the-top gaudy and actually make it hard at times to see the dancers when the lights hit the bazillion rhinestones. Their dancing always seems frenetic and disjointed and the lifts are not always done well. Honestly, watching them gives me a headache. On the other hand, we loved Miami All Stars both times. We agreed with the comment that it seemed like Broadway. They were so much fun to watch. Really really sorry to see them go. Have zero interest in watching Swing Latino ever again. Another boo. Kyntay vs Eva - Like SL, we hated Eva the first time and hated her again here. Loved Kyntay both times and are very sorry we're losing her to yet another generic contemporary dancer. Boo again. Keone & Mari vs QuickStyle - Like Fik-shun v. Nick, we loved both of these groups and hate that we had to lose either of them in this round. And yet another boo. < sigh >

Honestly, my favorite from this group was one of the guys in a truncated/montage segment - the one who combined contemporary with b-boy, I think? What little we got to see of it really intrigued me, and I was annoyed I didn't get to see the entire audition. I also really liked the tapper. (And agree that Aaron was special.) Several of my favorites over the seasons have been tappers. I have to agree on the salsa dancer, although to be honest I am not a fan of that type of salsa anyway. It always strikes me as being way too frenetic, and the lifts often interrupt the flow. I'll be kind of surprised if she makes it past the next round.

There seem to be fewer acts this year that are really making us go "wow." But we did like the boy magician who went first. We also thought the cabbie seemed like a nice guy but that song was off. Johnny Manuel was great. We also liked both the male groups - The Marauders and the boy group - and the female hand balancer/contortionist. We enjoyed Hero, and I don't mind that they put her through, but it remains to be seen how much more she has in her repertoire. The act with Heidi in the leotard was creative, but I was trying to imagine watching that for more than a few minutes before it lost its appeal. Not sure where else they can go with that, but I'm okay with giving them a chance to show us what else they've got up their sleeve.

So glad we're not the only ones disappointed in this season so far. Not one single make-up has really grabbed us. There have been parts of make-ups that were good, but overall the quality, in our humble opinions anyway, has been dreadful. And the team concept, as others have pointed out, keeps you from really getting to know these contestants. And I miss the camaraderie of previous seasons. It seems like these guys working together are having less fun and gelling less than the individuals did. Nope nope nope. :(

Glad to see I'm not the only one who is less than impressed with this year's crop so far. I did like Dustin a lot, and Dassy was not what I was expecting. But other than that, I don't remember a lot of the auditions. Agree with those who found Jensen less than impressive. Lindsay is so much better and was so much better when she was on SYTYCD.

Not sure if this is the right place for this question, but are they having a top 20 this year? From what I read about the season, it sounded like the 10 All Stars were each going to pick one dancer to be in the Top 10. And then they were going to eliminate the dancers one by one. Does anyone know if that's correct?

DH and I missed SYTYCD - we passed on the kiddie version. But I have to say that we were almost entirely underwhelmed by the auditions. To be honest, the only two we really really liked were the opening break dancer and the ballroom couple. (Just figured out they were Mark Villaver and Kristina and Vasily.) They were both spectacular for us. After that . . . not so much. The kid with the sob story - like Nigel, we wanted him to be good, but we didn't care for his dance. DH thinks it was bad choreography; the kid did have some good moves. But overall, it wasn't pleasing. Also did not care for the Russian twins. Didn't care much for the style, and yes, they were creepy. Not sure why 'jazz' girl was dancing jazz and not contemporary - looked like contemporary to us. Glad to see Cat back, but so far not impressed with the auditions. We have a feeling that some of the truncated auditions might have been more to our liking.

We liked most of the show. The counting dog was cute, but unless she can do more than that, we've seen all there is to see. Ditto with the skaters. We liked the first boy singer. He wasn't "all that," but we liked his voice, and we liked the song. Hated the 'danger' act as well as the faux hand balancer. Ugh. I liked the dance group with the 'boat,' but the DH wasn't impressed. He thought what they did was very simple. I thought it was deceptive - there was, I thought anyway, a lot more going on with people moving around the boat and in and out of it both top and bottom. I think it's one of those things that actually way harder than they make it look. So I'm looking forward to seeing what else they do and hoping this isn't a one-trick thing. I generally hate mentalists and did not really like the act last year, but I did enjoy Sherlock a lot. Also we loved the science guy. We don't watch a lot of reality tv so we'd never seen him before. The science was cool, and I loved how the judges were enjoying themselves. And quite frankly I'm pretty much automatically for anyone who can make science seem cool and fun and possibly interest the kids who are watching to think about careers in science. We normally hate kid acts, but we did love Angelica. I agree with those who said she seems like a 'normal' child rather than a stage child. I hope she gets to stay that way. The kid dancers were okay, but too 'muggy' for us, and I didn't think their dancing was all that. I think they'll be one of those throwaway acts that get lost early on. Can I just say that I have never been a huge fan of Simon, but I absolutely adored the fact that he wanted to hold the kitten and seemed to really love that little guy. That may have been the best part of the show for me. :) I agree with those who are not that jazzed with Tyra. She did better than I was expecting the first week, but she does not come across as natural to me. Nick is a hard act to follow, and she needs to find her own style. I think she's trying too hard to do what he did.

I thought Simon had asked her if she had a second song prepared, and she said she did. So I assumed that probably mot of the singers bring at least two options, since this isn't the first time we have seen Simon ask a singer to try something else. Which was the "stupid guy act?"

Loved the magician. Loved the young dancer. He was probably my favorite. Loved the ventriloquist. Puddles had a decent enough voice but hate the clown shtick. Salsa brother/sister were too repetitive for me. Too much spinning and kicking - they did that move way too many times. Would have liked to see more actual dancing from them. Trump anything needs to get off my screen immediately. Was he actually singing or just lip syncing? I honestly couldn't tell, but I don't want to see him again. Chicken playing the piano totally surprised me - I thought it was going to be a bust at first. Definitely want to see the drummer next time. Escape artist was what I expected, although I did not expect him to be the guy with the hammer. But that was all that surprised me there. Tyra Banks was not as bad as I expected, but neither did she wow.

So I have to admit Tyra was better than I expected, but she's definitely not Nick. Too early to tell yet how she'll do.

I don't know much about Tyra Banks really, but I did love Nick Cannon as the host, and I'm sorry to see him go. He'll be a hard act to follow and what little I've seen of Tyra, I don't see her being able to fill those (oftentimes really weird and fugly) shoes.

I absolutely loved this episode. It started off slow, as David's waltz just wasn't good. I honestly don't know what it is, but he just mostly looks awkward. Seriously nice guy, though. But his freestyle - wow! I know in terms of difficulty, it wasn't there, but boy did he perform the heck out of it. It was just plain fun. I smiled through the whole thing. And a few of the moves he did were actually quite good, I thought. Like the backwards cross steps. Not particularly hard, but he did it smoothly and was in sync with the rest of the group. I have to give mad props to Lindsey for her choreography. She made him look really good. She did the same thing with Alex a few seasons back. His freestyle was way more enjoyable than I expected given his level of dance ability, but she came up with choreography that suited him and made him look good, as she did here with David. Man, would I love to see her get a real contender and be able to see what she could do with them in a freestyle. She's rapidly becoming one of my favorite pros. I loved both of Normani's dances. The 'catsuit' did seem an odd choice for the Quickstep, but it was a great dance. But it felt like the judges were being too nitpicky. Rashad and David get waltzes to re-do, but she gets a Quickstep? That's one of the hardest to do well. Anyway, I would have given it a 10. And I loved her freestyle. At first I thought they were going to do a contemporary, and I was like, "Ugh." But then they didn't. It was a mix of dance styles, and I thought it was just breaktakingly beautiful. Adding the little kids worked well, I thought. Just beautiful. My only worry is that the high energy dances will get the votes. If Rashad wins, I will have no issues whatsoever. His first waltz was really nice. I wouldn't have given him a 10 for it, but it definitely seemed that he was getting it all together, and you could see the improvement. His freestyle was just fantastic. I loved that he danced so much of it by himself. That was a gutsy move on Emma's part, and it worked. He really held his own. I loved that he 'choreographed' (I'm sure Emma cleaned it up) part of the dance, and he was working it. He looked really good, the dance was fun, and I loved it. It's a toss-up whether Rashad or Normani had the better freestyle - I can go either way depending on what I'm judging on. It's been a while since I thought there were 3 really good freestyles in the same finale. While I kinda missed some of the awesome lifts we've seen done in other freestyles, it wasn't really a big deal because what was given to us was so good. I have reached the point where, if David wins, I'll be mildly disappointed because he's not close to being the best dancer, but he's been trying so hard and is such a good sport, that I won't feel like the result was a 'travesty.' If Normani wins, she'll be such a deserving winner. And a win by Rashad would make me smile because he was such a find. And with no dance or performance background, he most holds up what many of us thought the show would be about - finding a true beginner and making them into a dancer. So right now I'm thinking I'll be good however it goes. But I still would have loved to see Nancy and Simone in the finals as well.

The only name I recognized from that first list is Grace Vanderwall, and I hated her on AGT. <lol> I have no interest in a DWTS Junior version. Just like I had no interest in SYTYCD kid version. Maybe I'm wrong, but since they've had contestants in the 14-18 year old age range on DWTS, I'm assuming the Junior version would be tweens and younger. And I just don't enjoy watching them that young. My hangup. In particular, I get very uncomfortable watching little girls in fairly skimpy costumes with heavy makeup performing some fairly overtly sexual moves. I know they have to start young in order to be really good when they're older, but it just creeps me out to watch them.

I.can't.even. < sigh > How did we lose Nancy Kerrigan and keep Bonner and David? I can at least understand David somewhat - he seems like a real nice guy, and he's fun. But Bonner? He's as bad a dancer as David and completely lacks his charisma and charm. Grrrrrr!! Aside from the results, I quite enjoyed last night's show. I thought the opening number was well done, and I thought everyone did a great job of interpreting the theme of the movies. And I really liked how they handled the opening packages for the most part. They were clearly having a lot of fun with the night. :) The dancing itself was not quite as successful. Bonner and Sharna - this was a fun idea but Bonner did not dance it well. I thought Bonner got lost in the choreography, and he didn't seem to do a lot of dancing - mostly a lot of walking around. Nancy and Artem - this was gorgeous. I wasn't crazy about that song as a tango, but the dance was terrific. I liked the choreography, I thought Artem gave her a lot of content, and I thought she danced it very well. I was kind of annoyed she didn't get at least one 10. That was just lovely, and I am just so irritated that she's gone while Bonner is still around. We had really been hoping for an all-girl finale with Nancy, Normani and Simone. Simone and Sasha - her Charleston was *way* better than Bonner's. Way better. I think this dance really suited her. It was fun and quirky and entertaining. Really enjoyed it. I was glad to hear Mandy mention to her about connecting with Sasha. She needed to be told that. Nick and Peta - this wasn't the greatest dance he's ever done, but I thought he did a nice job with it. He's definitely a better dancer than either Bonner or David, and he seems like a nice guy. I may benefit from never having watched The Bachelor, so I don't really know anything about him and can just go by what I see on this show. I would have liked to see him have another week. Rashad and Emma - this was really terrific. I loved the story, and Rashad really sold the part. Those eyes were crazy!! < lol > Again, he's not the best dancer, and I honestly think he's kind of plateaued, but I still enjoy watching him, and he's definitely the best male dancer left. Great job! David and Lindsey - This was the least successful interpretation of the genre for me. But it worked. David gave it his all, but it wasn't very good. But I still do like him, and he and Lindsey seem to have a great partnership. Normani and Val - I thought this dance was breathtaking. I loved the choreography, and I loved the dancing. This was the dance of the night for me. I'm glad she got the immunity and so got a little bit of a rest anyway. Dance-offs: Nancy and Simone - I thought Nancy did a much better job than Simone. Maybe because I thought hers was more classically a cha cha. For a lot of the time I didn't know what Simone and Sasha were doing - didn't feel at all cha-cha-y to me. I couldn't believe all the judges picked Simone. I guess I should have realized then that Nancy was leaving, and they didn't want to "waste" the points. Rashad and David - this wasn't even a contest. Rashad all the way. Bonner and Nick - I could not believe that most of the judges picked Bonner over Nick. Ugh. But again, they clearly didn't want to waste the points on a guy going home. But at least Bruno was nice enough to give him the nod with one vote for him. Too bad they couldn't have given Nancy the same courtesy. Oh well. For the second week in a row, the results have just been whacked. If Bonner and David don't go home as the next two . . . .

Or in my case completely forgotten character. Who is Lindsey?