Is That A Chainsaw In Your Pocket, Or Are You Just Happy To See Me? - 
by Amanda
This week, America is reeling from the Tour de France dopiong scandal, the war in Lebanon, and - perhaps most jarring of all - Dmitry's shocking dismissal from So You Think You Can Dance. Can the new performance episode restore some tiny shred of order and stability to our troubled lives? Let's all look to Cat and Nigel to show us the way.
I know this recap isn't up quite as speedily as usual. I'm going to blame this one on my little sister for getting married today (congrats, Becca and Gary). I have given her a stern talking-to and she has promised never to do it again. Meanwhile, Cat is paying tribute to 1979 with her look tonight, which is an ugly shiny shirred teal polyester long-sleeved dress and big hair. She looks kind of like Charo. See? Already, she's evoking memories of a simpler time, when jazzercise was racy and cutting-edge, and even though you had to wait in line to put gas in your car, it still cost less than a college education. Mere seconds into the show, and already I am soothed.
Coochie-coochie-coo!
Actually, my feeling of peace started to materialize even before Cat emerged. One hour before, to be precise, when I realized that the first hour of this two-hour behemoth was a rerun, and so I've only got one hour of intensive performance-show recapping ahead of me. I am always so grateful to this show whenever it unexpectedly ransoms an hour of my life. Ah, the Fox network - giver of unexpected gifts.
The dance-in is shockingly short: We're down to eight dancers, y'all! How did this happen? Allison (in ugly black ankle boots); Benji (in a hideous yellow-and-black tank top); Natalie (hoochie as always); Ivan; Donyelle (in a dress that unnecessarily makes her look gigantic); Travis; Heidi; and Ryan. Yay! I forgot about Ryan, and how happy I was when he didn't go home last week. Let's see if my rooting power works for him again. Meanwhile, I have to agree with the commenter who posted that Ivan seems totally out of his league in this crowd. He's cute and everything, but I think it's time.
Benji tests my love for him. My love survives.
Cat intros the judges: Nigel, Mary, and Dan Karaty. Pretty good panel, I'd say. They don't talk at all, which is odd. Cat says we have to get right to it, and with only one hour I suppose she's right. Donyelle is first to draw her partner, and she gets Travis. They then draw hip-hop and the quickstep - ooh, nice combination. I notice that the show has switched things up a little, so that now they draw both dance styles on the same piece of paper. I guess this ensures that every pair will have to do two dramatically different styles, rather than having to do, say, the Spanish waltz and then the Italian waltz, or West Coast hip-hop and then East Coast hip-hop, or whatever other overly specific and overly similar styles might be on offer at the moment.
Their first choreographer is Shane Sparks. He interviews that he's going to do something different and "animalistic." Then he tells Travis, "You have to become a monkey." And, okay. I guess I have to officially abandon my earlier position that Travis was being culturally insensitive when he said that a previous hip-hop (or crunk?) routine made him feel like King Kong. I think Shane has just brought this whole genre of comparison to a never-before-approached level; apparently, it's fine to compare dancing hip-hop to acting like a monkey. Teaches me a lesson. Also, Donyelle does not have to be a monkey. She has to be a kangaroo. This is all we learn about their routine during rehearsal.
Like the bunny hop, only more spaztastic.
Then they dance. They are wearing jeans, baggy sweatshirts, and bizarro white masks that completely cover their faces so that if you didn't know it was Donyelle and Travis, you wouldn't be able to tell. I can't stop thinking about how hot and sweaty they must be jumping around under those stage lights in all those clothes. Partway through the routine, they turn their backs to us and lower their hoods, and they have additional freaky white mask faces on the backs of their heads - or rather, on the backs of the ski masks they're wearing, which must make them even hotter. It's all a little Friday the 13th. The dance itself is pretty nondescript. I don't notice anyone acting like either a monkey or a kangaroo. Am I the only one who's noticed that there rarely seems to be any connection between what we see in rehearsal and what we see onstage?
Nigel says that the masks detracted from the dancers' performances, by hiding their eyes. He also acknowledges that that's not their fault. Mary says she loved the concept. Mary is wearing some sort of lingerie gone wrong - black satin, with lace trim, and it's too tight in the bust and shoulders. She points out that the masks upped the difficulty level for the dancers. Yes, but the fact that it's hard to perform doesn't mean it's necessarily fun to watch. Dan Karaty says that the dance had tons of potential, but they didn't pull their dancing up to the level they needed to. He calls it "pretty hot," which sounds like about a B-minus, from the way he says it.
This is what happens when you dress yourself from the clearance rack at Victoria's Secret.
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