"So You Think You Can Dance" opened its 2010 season with a bit of lechery from Nigel Lythgoe, some tears from Adam Shankman and Mia Michaels, and not nearly enough leg from Cat Deeley. So except for that last bit, business as usual for season 7? Nope. This year, SYTYCD is switching it up a bit (let's just hope they're not doing it just for the sake of doing it, like "American Idol" with the judge's save ... and Kara DioGuardi ... and Ellen DeGeneres ...). Instead of pairing off the 20 contestants with the same partner for the first half of the season (which often means a less-talented dancer can ride along on his or her more popular partner's coattails), there will be only 10 finalists, and each will be paired with an "all-star" -- a stellar competitor from a previous season, including favorites Stephen “tWitch” Boss, Mark Kanemura, Pasha Kovalev, Kathryn McCormick, and Ade Obayomi.
In another twist, judge and professional eardrum shatterer Mary Murphy will not be sitting at the judges' dais with Nigel and Adam. She's no longer a regular judge, but she will be choreographing some numbers this season, and Mia Michaels, who was MIA for most of last season, will be taking her place.
So let's get to the dancers: The star of the evening had to be Teddy Tedholm, the 18-year-old contemporary dancer from Rockaway who wowed the judges in auditions last season but flamed out in Las Vegas. You might remember his pants. This time out, he sported a more subtle look but the judges went wild again, Adam calling it "out there, naked emotionally" and Mia saying he tapped into genius. (My 8-year-old son said, "That looks like a guy who keeps falling down.") He's on to Vegas, as is Sarah Brinson, 22, of Philadelphia, who is a little larger than your average dancer ... meaning she weighs in the triple, not double, digits. When asked whether her parents were dancers, she said that her parents were pro golfers, prompting Nigel's first dirty remark of the season: "Has your mom played with Tiger Woods?" Ugh.
Other standouts: a Latin ballroom couple who appeared in Broadway's "Burn the Floor," Giselle Peacock, 28, of Menlo Park, Calif., and Henry Byalikov, 24, of Sydney, Australia (Adam: "a huge turn-on,"); Henry Rivera, 19, of Miami, a contemporary dancer who apparently couldn't string together a coherent thought in his interview but absolutely killed onstage; Ami Aguiar-Riley, a 27-year-old from Miami whose aggressive contemporary routine was much admired by Sonya Tayeh; and Tyrell Rolle, a 24-year-old contemporary dancer from Liberty City, Fla., who got the ol' dancing-his-way-out-of-the-ghetto treatment.
And speaking of patronizing, was anybody else a little ticked off at the way the judges salivated all over Megan Carter, 18, of Leesburg, who happens to be a heavy girl with a heck of a lot of flexibility and great moves? Yes, she's carrying some extra weight, but it's not like she has, say, no feet. "You make me so happy to be a woman of size," Mia told her. They liked her enough to move her into the choreography round but wouldn't move her on to Vegas.
The requisite shtick performers weren't even funny enough to merit a mention, except ballroom dancer Daria Kopylova, 19, of Tampa, who actually wasn't funny at all. She chose to dance with her father, which earned uncomfortable shudders and a quick rejection from the judges, even after she reminded them that she and her father were essentially acting. Hey, haven't I heard that argument somewhere else before?
