‘So You Think You Can Dance’: The Best And Worst Dances From The Top 11

Erika Brooks Adickman | June 17, 2010 7:34 am

What’s that? You say you love So You Think You Can Dance, but didn’t have the two hours to devote to last night’s show. We understand your predicament. So we’re bringing you just the biggest moments of SYTYCD—all the dance with none of the filler. Here are our picks for best and worst dance of the evening. And while the judges may have spent over 45 minutes (okay so we’re exaggerating) praising Alex Wong and choreographer Sonya Tayeh for their “Hallelujah” contemporary routine, we have to disagree. See what made our cut and why below.

Before we dive in with the highlights of last night’s show, we think it’s important to point out a major frustration we’re having this season with SYTYCD (and this time it’s not about bringing back the All-Stars). Our biggest problem: the show’s new director. We disagreed with the choice to change the stage last season. Seasons 1-5 had more of a “theater-in-the-round” feel and lent itself to make for a dance show that translated well to audiences at home. The cameras were able to maneuver around the audience, there were no distractions taking away from the dancers, it was a very intimate way to watch the show. Last night’s camera direction made it completely impossible to follow many of the routines. Just as we were following a dancer’s leap, suddenly the show cut to an angle way in the back of the studio. And for the top of the show’s dancer introductions we couldn’t even see half of the performers, and if we did the camera was so close the contestant was cut off at the waist.

We feel that if we had been in the live audience last night, it’s possible that we would have agreed with the judges’ opinions on Alex and Allison’s “Hallelujah” number. Watching at home made it just too hard to follow and a lot of the emotion the judges probably felt sitting near the stage, was completely lost on us (That and the fact that Idol‘s over use of this song has probably ruined it for us).

That said here are our picks:

Best Dance: Robert and Courtney’s African Jazz routine choreographed by Sean Cheesman. We think that Robert could be the “Mark” of Season 7. Everything about this number worked for us.

Runner Up: Kent and Anya’s salsa number Is there anyone out there who doesn’t adore Kent Boyd?

Worst Dance: Melinda and Pasha’s jive routine to VV Brown’s “L.O.V.E” The judges told Melinda that she used her facial expressions to try and draw attention away from the mistakes her legs were making. Nigel said she was most likely “unsafe” this week. We agree. This number should have popped, but instead it fizzled. We’d feel worse if Melinda didn’t already have a career as a soap opera actress to return to if she’s voted off tonight.

A Close Second: Jose and Comfort’s hip hop number choreographed by Tabitha and Napoleon It’s rare that Tabitha and Napoleon create anything as unmemorable as last night’s performance. The real blame for this lies in Jose. We want to root for this underdog, but he’s just not ready. He doesn’t have the performance in his face to pull of a number like NappyTabs’ “Little Monster”, and his movements are always a half step behind his partners.

Funniest quote of the night: Nigel told Billy Bell “You’ve got a bigger kick than Jaden Smith in The Karate Kid.” Even Cat’s face went “Huh?!” to that remark.

All-around best moment: Seeing Adam Shankman’s goateed “Blue Steel” face as a judge on Star Search.

All-around worst moment: No Mary Murphy—again!

Who do you think will be the first voted off tonight? Leave us your comments below.

(photo via FOX)