Single White Idiot - 
by Amanda
The So You Think You Can Dance results show feels all snuggly and welcoming after my long absence. Just to make me feel even more at home, Cat is back to dressing in Jungle Fug, with a hideous, hideous dress that looks like it has two dead pythons stapled to its front, and a weird tail of hair down over one shoulder. She also has a snake bracelet around her upper arm. It's all very "You Tarzan, Me Jayne." She says that tonight the "jidges" will cut one more girl and one more guy.
Jungle fever, or just brain fever?
Oh, hot DAMN. The opening dance is the best I've seen yet. It's set to "Footloose," and the guys come out first, in jeans and boots and sunglasses, looking very cool, with dramatic lighting. The girls are wearing jeans too, but they all have on different tops. The dance starts out as country line dancing, but later they start doing flips and stuff. They may have done other group performances that have been more technically spectacular, but this one has everything I love most - boys versus girls; matching outfits; dancing in unison; acrobatics; the dancers mugging for the camera; and an '80s theme. It's so cheesy and awesome, and as usual I wish the show did more of these numbers.
Off to a good start.
Cat comes out and tells us that Mary Murphy choreographed that routine, which makes me love Mary Murphy. Then Cat says that last night the viewers voted in the millions. This suggests that more people are voting as time goes on, since Nigel referred at one point to "hundreds of thousands of votes." I hope Cat is not lying about the millions of votes. I have not felt the slightest bit moved to vote myself, but I have been firmly brainwashed into believing that everyone should watch this show.
The judges, back from last night, are Nigel, Mary, and Dan Karaty. Mary is also dressed in Jungle Fug this evening, with an awful leopard-print top of some kind. I have never understood why people want to look as though they've skinned an endangered animal and wrapped themselves snugly in its pelt. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why I am not a famous television star like Cat Deeley or Mary Murphy.
Ah, Hollywood glamor.
Cat asks Nigel for a clarification of the meltdown that he had last week over the laziness of some of the solo dancers. Nigel would like us all to know that he was not knocking the dancers for improvising, per se. I'm glad to have the clarification, because I definitely thought that's what he was doing. He says that if you want to improvise, that's fine, but you have to at least think about it beforehand and have a general idea of what you're going to do. Makes sense.
Nigel does not really address the fact that he came off as a bit of a psycho when he reamed the audience for laughing last week. As I recall, he told us sternly that we should take this more seriously, because the contestants are supposed to be "dancing for their lives." Yes, and when I think about the concept of someone dancing for his or her life, it automatically cracks me up, so somehow I don't think Nigel really made his case. Sure, I was scared when he started stabbing the air with his pen, but I never really felt what he was trying to teach me about the possibility that we might all die if we blow off these solo dances.
It's interesting that whenever Nigel feels that he's been misunderstood on some point, he goes out of his way to clarify it on a subsequent episode of the show. He apologized for calling Aleks the Corpse Bride, and now he's clearing up his position on improvisation. The other judges don't do this. I wonder if they're allowed to. I actually like it - for one thing, it makes it seem like he's paying attention to the show.
Nigel ends his remarks with some rather pointed comments about how the solo dancers can't "just pirouette" (Ben) or fall off the stage (James "Jaymz" Tuaileva). The audience boos. Really now, people. Does James "Jaymz" Tuaileva really have a fan base that is so rabid - er, I mean, so dedicated - that they have a problem with Nigel calling him on FALLING OFF THE STAGE? I bet Celine Dion wouldn't put up with him falling off the stage. If he did that in her show, he'd be fed to Siegfried and Roy's tigers within six minutes of the curtain falling.
Cat interviews Mary about the dancers' schedule being very strenuous. Mary says that the schedule is so insane that a lot of them are injured, and that by watching the "Footloose" dance, you wouldn't be able to tell who has a back injury, and who has an almost-broken toe, and who has "a knee out." Well, we already know that Donyelle has the toe, because Nigel spilled about that last night. (By the way, I don't understand how a toe can be "almost broken." Isn't that like being a little bit pregnant?) Mary says that the schedule wasn't like this last year. Um, if they changed the schedule and made it more packed and it is resulting in injuries, I can't say that I view that as an improvement. How about, let's see, changing it back?
Cat asks which dancers have the aforementioned injuries. This is kind of a cheesy way of bringing out this information - in interview form, with Cat feigning surprise. I'm not sure whether I think there should be an injury report at all. To me, it smacks of trying to curry votes for whomever is injured. But then, weirdly, Mary doesn't answer the question, and we move on.
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