One beef I have with the Quest performance is the same beef I have with the opening group routine and that is that the camera work was extremely distracting from the actual dancing. I'd like to see what everyone is doing in a group routine. I'd like to see it as though I were watching it from the audience so that I can get the whole picture because I suspect that's the way the choreographers intended the dance to be seen. Instead I get overly dynamic camera work that zooms and spins and moves and pulls in tight to one dancers face when 15 other dancers are all doing something great but I have no idea what. Let's stop with the fancy "directing" and just show us the routine from a single freaking angle already!
Going into the results show, I had expected Comfort and Chris, Chelsea and Thayne, and Jessica and Will to be in the bottom three but I was worried for Kourtney and Matt because while I think they're good dancers, I think they've suffered from a few weird routines and the fact that they're personalities just aren't as captivating as others on the show. Sure enough Comfort and Chris and Chelsea and Thayne were all predictably in the bottom along with Kourtney and Matt. Since I had been saying since last week that this week was time for Jessica and Chris to go home, I could only be half right. After watching the solos, I thought it should have been Comfort but feared it might have been Kourtney because there was a touch of desperation that seemed to be showing in her dance. I think sometimes that can be ok but often it reads poorly to the judges. Obviously that wasn't the case last night as they shocked me by abruptly dismissing Chelsea without any fanfare or explanation what-so-ever.
Not that I disagreed with the decision, she certainly had been less than stellar for two straight weeks and while I put some of the blame for that on sub-par choreography, she could have danced it better. I don't disagree with sending Chris home either - I thought he was adorable and sweet and I liked him quite a bit but he was a week link on the show and it was time for him to go but it is also past time for Jessica to go and she hangs on by virtue of being partnered with Will whom I also think is much less impressive than the judges keep insisting he is.
I can't put all of the blame for the extreme boringness of their disco routine on them because the choreography was hollow as well but can you really tell me that the totally biffed death drop was all Jessica's fault? Certainly she can't get all the blame for him losing his balance at the end right? Honestly, I think she's much less capable than any other remaining woman on the show (though not but too wide a margin, Comfort) but Will hasn't exactly impressed me with anything other than his solo last wee either.
The judges are definitely playing favorites and not just with Will. Each week they've insisted that Chris was a blight on Comfort's awesomeness and they said it again last night - that she did well but Chris was terrible - but I watched that routine a second and a third time and I paid particular attention to Comfort and she did nothing any better than Chris did. The judges love her and they love Will and I feel sure they were sorry that they weren't able to send Jessica home last night so that they could pair these two. They probably think putting Comfort and Thayne together next week will give Comfort a chance to shine that she just wasn't getting with Chris but I have a strong feeling they're wrong. She is just as weak a link as Jessica in this competition.
As long as we're on the subject of weakness I think I'll express my frustration and concern with the choreography this year. I have not loved every routine every season. There have been several that I didn't get, didn't like and didn't think were worth paying a choreographer to come up with. Unfortunately, this is the first season that I've thought all three of those things about multiple routines every week. Lil C really didn't bring it with his krump last week, Tyce totally blew it with that African jazz routine last night, whoever it was who choreographed the quickstep might have done it in her sleep because it was that boring, both disco numbers have been tragic, even Mandy Moore, who has choreographed some of my favorite routines ever on the show, totally blew it with that Tudors atrocity last week. Seems like the judges think Tabitha and Napoleon are the second effing coming but to-date, they've done at least 5 and possibly 6 routines for the show and I've liked exactly one of them. Their brand of hip-hop is much more contemporary and soft - I believe Adam Shankman called it "lyrical hip-hop" - and that's fine but two of these hip-hop-lite routines per week is overkill and I'd like to see something with a harder edge now and again.
Of course, all that bitching about Tab and Napoleon aside, they did choreograph my favorite routine of the season thus far with the Workaholic routine they gave Chelsie and Mark this week. I've watched at least a dozen times and love it a little more ever time. Both Mark and Chelsie are absolutely brilliant, the story they're telling is engrossing and emotionally wrenching, the entire piece was a performance from top to bottom in the best way possible and it was fantastic.
The second best dance this week was Courtney and Gev and they also get my vote as the hottest couple with the most chemistry. The judges had been un-necessarily rough on them the first two weeks, completely eviscerating their disco in week one and then pissing all over their contemporary routine in week two. I thought that they did really well both weeks and was especially taken with their contemporary piece which I thought was beautiful and emotional and danced wonderfully by both. This week they hit it out of the park with a Tony Meredith rumba that was so hot I almost had to light up a cigarette when it was over. They were sexy and believable and their movements were outstanding and it was all the more awesome to behold when I remembered that Gev is a break dancer.
As the season started out Twitch and Kherington were my favorites because I think she's a doll and I love Twitch beyond all reason, my second favorite couple was Gev and Courtney and then Mark and Chelsie. This week Twitch and Kherinton ("Twitchington" as Kherington coined them) danced a typically lack-lustre number by Tab and Napoleon while my other two favorite couples danced their asses off to the two best routines so far this season and now I'm not so sure about the ranking order of my top three couples. They're all still in it, I just don't think Twitchington is at the top. The whole rest of the world seems smitten with Joshua and Katee and while I put them firmly in my #4 spot, I'm not nearly as taken with them as most folks seem to be.
Holy crap, I already wish it was next Wednesday so I could get more of this show!
No comments:
Post a Comment