The lion's cheap tonight.

Cat does the intros, and I am happy to see that Donyelle is up and dancing, despite her famed toe injury. She's in combat boots, though, so nothing too pinchy. Martha looks perkier than she did after her horrendous solo last week. Natalie flips her hair, demonstrating that she's decided to ignore the judges' advice to stop trying to be a sexpot all the time. Dmitry does little other than swivel his hips, demonstrating that he has also decided to ignore the judges' advice to stop trying to coast by on, well, being a sexpot all the time. I miss Ashlee and Musa already, y'all.

Cat boogies on out and explains the format changes. First, the dancers will draw their partners randomly. They will dance with these new partners not once, but twice. Then, every single dancer will perform a solo, "to prove to you that they deserve to stay." Yep, that's what Nigel explained last week, and I didn't think it could possibly be right, since I thought it would result in thirty performances in a two-hour show. Well, my math was wrong - it will only be twenty performances, but that's still a whole lot. They are going to have to hustle to pack all of that in. Could this mean - gasp - no audition footage? Oh, a girl can dream.

Cat goes on to say that from now on, voting will be by dancer, not by couple, and the lowest-polling boy and girl will be eliminated. Thus, the judges' role will become merely advisory, like on American Idol. Cat introduces tonight's "jidges," who are Jean-Marc Genereux; Cicely & Olisa (who are billed as one person, like the Two-Headed Monster on Sesame Street); and Nigel. Aw - I'm always kind of sad when Mary isn't on, and Cicely and Olisa never say anything interesting, although they are charming and cute.

Nigel interviews that expectations are high in this round. He doesn't seem to be feeling much sympathy for the dancers. We jump right in, with Ivan as our first contestant. Cat, in her Slinky dress from last week, makes him pick his partner's name out of a hat, and he draws Martha. She screeches, all happy and excited. Then they draw hip-hop, so this is right in their wheelhouse. If they screw it up, they're really going to hear about it.

Their choreographer is Shane Sparks, and Martha says that she's nervous because she doesn't think Shane likes her. Well, that's interesting. Why does she think that? Ivan interviews that he's pumped about Shane Sparks, but nervous about not dancing with Allison anymore. Then Martha says that she's bitter about not drawing contemporary. Um, I thought Martha billed herself as being expert in both contemporary and hip-hop. And I thought her contemporary solo was horrific, so maybe she should be happy about this.

Shane Sparks yells out that things are tense in the studio, which does, indeed, seem to be the case. Shane interviews that he thinks that the dancers are nervous because of the variety-packed new performance-show format. Ivan confirms this, saying that one routine a week was hard enough; three is ridiculous. I agree, so far. Martha says that this week, we will find out who has been using his/her partner as a crutch and who hasn't. True that.