Summer TV Lovin'

I've kind of been slacking on the content around here lately. Apologies. Let's remedy this with some discussion of summer TV.

I caught the pilot of Rookie Blue last week. It was a little slow to get started but on the whole, the premise is excellent and the cast is very good so it's worth watching. Even more so because the summer months can be slim on decent TV. Missy Peregrym was given most of the meat in the pilot and I suspect her character will continue to be the center of attention but hopefully Gregory Smith gets something to do in the next couple of episodes because if there is one thing I know, he's terrific.

As I relearned again a couple of weeks ago when I watched the third season of Everwood as I promised I would. I think three might be my favorite season of the show. I don't know if I loved the coma affair but Anne Heche was really likable as Amanda. Scott Wolf as Dr. Jake "Dimples" Hartman was such an unbelievably perfect addition to the cast and much as I always wanted Andy and Nina together, I can't help but love Nina and Jake as a couple. Maybe just because I love Jake so much, I'm not sure. Plus, as if the Andy/Harold relationship weren't a small slice of perfection on it's own, adding Jake to the mix is just the tiny shred of brilliance that elevates the entire affair into a place I like to call "too awesome."

The relationship between Ephram and Amy hit the stride we were always promised in the preceding seasons and it all felt worth the journey and the wait. Even after Ephram found out about Madison and the baby, there was this hope left between them. Not so much with Ephram and Andy then which was a shame because I thought their relationship had also become something pleasant to behold finally. And fortunately I know going in that they come to terms in the fourth season and that age begins to mature Ephram in the one way he always lacked which is realistic and wonderful.

Rose's cancer was what tears are made of. But it really helped bring something out in all of the Abbotts in those final episodes that was reminiscent of the very best things about each character. And it took some of the focus off of the contentious, painful relationship between Harold and Bright which was, frankly, a little tough to watch sometimes in the same way that Friday Night Lights' slice-of-life stuff can be.

But my favorite thing about the third season are the separate story lines for Bright and Hannah and the way the converged to become their combined story as they developed a relationship with each other. Bright was a fuckup from the word go and when his attempt to redeem himself didn't yield immediate, miraculous results in season two, he quickly back-slid into behaviors that were markedly worse than we would have even expected. Meanwhile, Hannah came to town as the most socially awkward girl in the history of the world and simply by being a sweet, funny, likable person, she developed great friendships with Ephram, Amy and Bright. As she dealt with the really normal teenage stuff (nursing an enormous crush on Bright, having a first boyfriend that she just didn't like in that way, etc.) she also dealt with the not-so-average realities of her life. Those being that her father was dying of Huntington's disease and that there was a 50/50 chance she would develop the disease as well. Through all of this, the Hannah and Bright became closer as friends and when Bright realized that he loved her, it wasn't because she had some big makeover and her finally saw her. It was because the more he knew her, the more he saw how beautiful she'd always been and without her ever changing who she was, how she acted or what she looked like, she became incredibly hot to him.

In a word: awesome!

Now, hurry up and release season 4, Warner Home Video!

News came this week that ABC Family has increased the episode order for Pretty Little Liars to a full 22 for the first season and I celebrate that decision. I mean, the show is flawed in many ways with the two biggest being that 2 out of the 4 main girls can NOT act (Lucy Hale and Ashley Benson are both pretty great but Troian Avery Bellisario and Shay Mitchell are terrible and Tammin Sursok isn't a whole lot better), and that Bianca Lawson has been playing high school students since I was actually IN high school and I graduated 16 years ago. Still, I am enjoying this fun, summer show and I look forward to a full slate of episodes.

Finally, a bit later than I said I would, I started watching the third season of Dawson's Creek last weekend. I picked the third season because I always remember that one as sucking less than the two before. That's still true of course, the first season was particularly tough to take and the second was barely more tolerable but the third improves substantially on the shoulders of better stories for Jack, the relationship between Pacey and Joey and the slow evolution of Jen as someone who isn't purely annoying. I don't care at all for the Henry hooey and I could stand never to think about that Eve shit ever again, but for the most part, the third season finds it's stride. Unfortunately what I had forgotten about the show was how truly bad the dialogue is. I mean, really, intensely AWFUL. I hadn't forgotten how much I disliked Dawson though, and what an insufferable twat he was, but it turns out that time has only made him MORE unlikable and more insufferably twattastic.

"Four to Tango" might be my favorite episode of the entire series and I watched that last night. Too bad it was followed immediately by the introduction of that twerpy AJ and annoying Ethan in "First Encounters of the Close Kind" and then even more Ethan, Nikki (Bianca Lawson - see what I mean?) and Henry in "Barefoot at Capefest" (or as I like to call it, "Barefoot at Crapfest"). Still, there are some other good eps coming up...no matter how hard I try, I can never not tear up at "To Green, With Love" and, obviously, I'm looking forward to when Pacey and Joey start smooching.

Happy 26

His birthday seems like a good time to mention that I think Christopher Egan is really cute. So between his extreme cuteness and Amanda Seyfreid's existence, why didn't I see Letters to Juliet?

Happy Birthday

John Cusack, who has been in three of my all-time favorite movies (Sixteen Candles, Grosse Pointe Blank and Say Anything) and will therefore always be awesome in my book, is 44 today.

Kathy Bates who'll always be awesome by virtue of, well, exhibiting awesomeness, is 62.

Happy Birthday

Busy Phillips is 31.

Ricky Gervais is 49.

Linda Cardellini is 35.

Mr. Crankypants And The Crabettes

I don't know what was going on with Nigel, Mia and Adam last night on So You Think You Can Dance, but whatever it was made the show almost hard to watch despite some very good dancing.


I don't always agree with the judges and that's fine because enjoyment of any art form is certainly subjective, but in this case it seemed like they had a contradictory opinion about nearly every single thing on the show. They were unnecessarily hard on some contestants and cut others way too much slack. They picked at every nit with some people while they fell all over themselves with praise for others with seemingly no correlation to how each person actually danced. Sometimes that's to be expected from Nigel who can definitely tend toward crankiness on occasion, and Lord knows Mia gets up on her bizarro high horse from time to time and starts bitching about how things needed to be more "zsa zsa zsa" and less "bah bah bah" or whatever, but it's not like Adam to follow along on this path of criticism for criticism's sake. He's usually positive and constructive. I feel like perhaps we'd all be better served by the judging order being reversed (as it was in seasons past) and having Nigel Crankypants go last instead of poisoning the well with his negativity right out of the gate.


Aside from the irritating antics of the judgery, there were a couple of other changes that I quite enjoyed last night. One being that the all-stars stayed with the contestant during judging - for moral support and, in a couple of cases, to defend them against the meanness of the judges - rather than running off the stage without fanfare as soon as the routines were finished. They also managed to incorporate a useful edit or two last night as well as mostly eliminating the most problematic of the camera screw-ups.


But all of that is, I think, secondary to what we all watch the show for, which is the dancing (and the dancers) so let's talk about that, shall we?





Contestant: Cristina
All-Star: Pasha
Dance: Paso Doble, Jean-Marc Genereux and France Mousseau
Like Debbie Allen, I am not a fan of the Paso Doble. The entire construct of the dance - the man is the matador, the woman his cape - tends to make the dance feel passion-less because it's like the man is dancing with an inanimate object. Once in a while, the dancers are so good they overcome that but...I didn't get enough performance out of Cristina for that to happen here. She did the steps fine but from Pasha I get fire, from her I got warm water. The judges thought she was great - maybe slightly lacking in "performance" but mostly terrific. She was pretty damn good last week and still ended up in the bottom three so I think there is something about her that isn't connecting with the audience and I suspect that the judges' continued insistence that she's awesome when the routines leave us a bit cold isn't helping.
Grade - Contestant: B
Grade - All-Star: A
Grade - Choreography: A




Contestant: Adechike
All-star: Allison
Dance: Contemporary, Mandy Moore
After some harsh criticism of his (non-existent) performance last week, Mandy Moore is determined to get him in this dance both technically and emotionally. I think she mostly succeeded. It definitely came and went but week over week it was a huge improvement. It was one of those dances that gives me goosebumps and makes me wish I could do what they do - as if joy itself comes out of that movement. I officially hate myself for not loving Allison more all this time because she is unbelievably wonderful.
Grade - Contestant: A-
Grade - All-Star: A+
Grade - Choreography: A



Contestant: Alex
All-Star: Lauren
Dance: Broadway, Tyce DiOrio
Oy! First of all, I blame Katie Holmes for the return of 2-a-week routines by Tyce. Ever since she befriended him, the show has decided he's good when he so rarely is. This is one of those times where the routine just isn't anything. It's supposed to be a tribute to Fosse but it's just steps without much of anything to do or any point. So it ends up being two people in hats picking their knees up a lot. Ok, there was more to it than that, but mostly only because of Lauren who I thought single-handedly elevated that routine to near greatness. Alex was a bit stiff and ballet about it all. He failed to get down into the beatnik-cool vibe of it. As Adam said, he needed to smolder and he just didn't.
Grade - Contestant: B+
Grade - All-Star: A+
Grade - Choreography: B



Contestant: Ashley
All-Star: Mark
Dance: Jazz, Travis Wall
Here's where I agreed with Nigel last night - this didn't seem like jazz to me. It seemed like contemporary. Not that it wasn't a good routine, because it was, it just wasn't what he was asked to do. That said, I liked it a lot. I will admit that I had a tough time paying attention to much of anything that wasn't Mark's torso because crap on a cracker is he hot. But when I was able to force myself to pay attention to the entirety of the dance, I thought Ashley was great. Unfortunately the judges continued to insist that she's not good enough, continuing to insist that she doesn't convey enough emotion and I guess they think she lacks this "natural, technical" ability they think most of the other contestants have. I think they've all decided she's the next to go and they're just trying to sway the votes in that direction.
Grade - Contestant: A
Grade - All-Star: A
Grade - Choreography: A



Contestant: Billy Bell
All-Star: Comfort
Dance: Krump, Lil C
Krumping pretty much looks like someone having an angry fit to me so I can't exactly comment on the likability of this routine, but I know what Lil C or Russell look like when they krump and I thought that Billy did a great job with it. To get something that far outside his wheelhouse in the second week is tough and I thought he gave it his best effort and pulled it off admirably. Was it perfect? No. Did he appear to be doing it as well as, say, Russell would have? No. But you know what? Neither did Comfort. The judges flat out told him it was terrible but I think they just decided ahead of time that there was no way they'd buy krumping if Billy was selling it and didn't bother to pay attention.
Grade - Contestant: B+
Grade - All-Star: B+
Grade - Choreography: A-




Contestant: Robert
All-Star: Anya
Dance: Argentine Tango, Jean-Marc Genereux and France Mousseau
It's going to be a tall order for any of this particular crop of men to avoid being out-danced by Anya. The problem they're all going to have is that they're new to partner work and new to ballroom and they're supposed to be leading. Learning the steps and techniques is important for them, but they're going to have to focus just as much of their attention on their confidence because otherwise they just look nervous and stressed out up there next to her. That was Robert's problem. He was stiff and worried-looking the whole time.
Grade - Contestant: B+
Grade - All-Star: A
Grade - Choreography: A



Contestant: Melinda
All-Star: Ade
Dance: Contemporary, Stacey Tookey
It was bound to happen eventually and this was the night - I did not like Stacey's choreography at all. It looked to me like she threw it together 5 minutes before they showed up to learn it. It might have looked better if Melinda had managed to dance it with any grace or skill. I bet if Ashley or Lauren had this routine it wouldn't have looked like quite such a mess. She looked uncertain and wobbly to me and her lines never seemed clean. So naturally the judges all thought she was great and her lines were a thing of beauty. It's like they saw one show and I saw another!
Grade - Contestant: C
Grade - All-Star: A-
Grade - Choreography: B-



Contestant: Jose
All-Star: Kathryn
Dance: Bollywood, Nakul Dev Mahajan
You should know by now that I'm one of the few who doesn't really enjoy these Bollywood numbers when it's just two people dancing them. I think Bollywood calls for a huge production and a whole passel of peeps. And the untrained b-boy did not have one of those Dominic or Gev moments where everyone has to pick their jaw up off the floor at how he took to this completely new dance style like a fish to water. His upper body was too loose and bouncy which made the it look more groovy than is typical for a Bollywood routine. But he danced that piece like he was having the time of his life and he tried and damn it all if it wasn't a ton of fun to watch. I think he and Billy had similar success this week in that they both danced way outside of their wheelhouses, they both gave it their all and they both did a yeoman's job. The judges pretty much told Jose that it was so bad it circled around to being good. The judges are mean.
Grade - Contestant: B+
Grade - All-Star: A
Grade - Choreography: A



Contestant: Lauren
All-Star: Dominic
Dance: Lyrical Hip Hop, Tessandra Chavez
Capital-G Great! There was some cause for concern when the rehearsal package revealed that the routine was about an abusive relationship because we all know that Lauren's weakness is her ability to convey any emotion that isn't a broad smile. But she performed it wonderfully and danced it like hip hop was her specialty. The chemistry between she and Dominic was perfect, her hits were hard, the choreography was awesome. I loved everything about it. The judges immediately started giving her tips on how to dance better and said that she could have given "even more" emotionally. Assholes.
Grade - Contestant: A+
Grade - All-Star: A+
Choreography: A



Contestant: Kent
All-Star: Courtney
Dance: Jazz, Tyce DiOrio

There was this whole thing with a table and a love-hate, sexually tense relationship. For some reason Kent was in earth-tone bondage wear and Courtney was in some kind of froofy sex-kitten attire. Despite all of that, I liked it quite a bit. I think Kent could have been a tiny bit more believable with the sexy man shtick but considering the journey from his actual personality to the "sexy man" place, I think he came a remarkably long way. The judges had such helpful things to say as "your Kentness is so Kenty." Three chimps would be more helpful.
Grade - Contestant: A

Grade - All-Star: A

Grade - Dance: A-


Predictions:
Bottom Three: Cristina, Robert, Melinda
Should Go Home: Melinda
Will Go Home: Melinda

The King Would Approve

I'm not sure why I was expecting TNT's new series Memphis Beat to be a dramedy. I guess I got that impression from all of the ads that showed DJ Qualls spilling a blue slushy while Jason Lee slid across the hood of a squad car? I mean, that kind of says "we're gonna be funny," right? Well whatever the reason, I expected this to be a little closer in tone to Psych and it really wasn't. Much heavier on the drama. I'm not complaining, I actually ended up liking it a lot.

It started very slow and for the first 15-20 minutes I wasn't sure I was going to be able to connect with the show. All po boys, new bosses, boob lamps and Elvis sight gags and not enough to grab a hold of and give a shit about. But just when I was sure that the show would not be getting a season pass at my house, something clicked. Dwight (Jason Lee) was put on the case of an old woman found wandering the streets with no identification who does not speak. Shortly after finding out that she's been abused, he deduces her identity as a legendary Memphis radio host and becomes mildly obsessed with finding out who has mistreated her and making that person pay.

The show very nearly falls into the trap of being boring. It's the millionth police procedural that we've seen so it has to bring something special to the table in order to seem fresh. What it brings is Jason Lee and a writing style that's a little sentimental about Memphis in a way that makes me understand why Dwight loves the city so much. When Dwight talks about the first time he heard an Elvis song he says that it was the sound of Elvis's voice, not his words, that he felt expressed all of Dwight's emotions better than he could himself. It's that sort of soulful appreciation for what's really important that puts me in mind of my favorite bit of Memphis affection, the song "Memphis" by Janis Ian and Willie Nelson, "if you could see Memphis, the way that I do, she would look different to you - Queen of the Delta, tip your tiara. Memphis, the belle of the blues."

I wasn't much of a fan of My Name Is Earl though I've seen an episode or two, and I've seen a few of Lee's movies, but until last night, I had never been particularly taken with his acting chops. He was fine, don't get me wrong, but it was never something I took notice of as being really impressive. In Memphis Beat, he is note perfect and it's hard to see him as Jason Lee when he's embodying Dwight Hendricks in every way. Except that I don't actually believe that's him singing.

Season pass it is!

Happy Birthday

Frances McDormand - 53

Joss Whedon - 46

Bryan Brown - 63

Emmanuelle Vaugier - 34

Selma Blair - 38

Louis van Amestel - 38

Help Wanted

I think if I had some help with my "chores" I'd be a more productive person. I'd get more books read and catch up on my TiVo backlog faster. I'd have time to volunteer or spend with loved ones.

So what I'm thinking, is that I need a person to do my laundry...

...and my ironing.

Someone to tend to the garden I keep meaning to grow...

...and to cook tasty meals for me.

A person to take care of the yard work would be nice.

And someone to come to my office and take care of my filing because I really hate to file.

Happy Birthday

Meryl Streep is 61.

Donald Faison turns 36.

Amy Brennaman is 46 today.

And Bruce Campbell turns 52.

I'd Rather Be...

Contemplating a dip with Taylor Kitsch.

Actually, I'd rather be doing anything at all with Taylor Kitsch.

As long as we're on the subject of my erstwhile Tim Riggins, I'll mention that last week I read report that he's signed on to co-star in a movie with Alexander Skarsgard where the two will play a pair of naval officer brothers both assigned to the same battleship. The bad news is that the movie in question is Battleship which is being adapted from the board game of the same name. The good news is that Peter Berg is directing. The better news is that if Taylor is playing a naval officer, he's probably going to have to cut his hair and I've been dying to see how hot he'd be with short locks!

Happy Birthday

Chris Pratt, most beloved (by me at least) for playing Bright Abbott on Everwood, is 31 today. My third season viewing has brought me nearly to the part where Bright realizes that he loves Hannah and these are episodes where Pratt really shines.

Good Morning

Jon Hamm

Heaven Eleven

Nigel added another new wrinkle to So You Think You Can Dance this season - the performance show was live last night. I'm not completely sold on doing it live - we don't get any of the edits that show us the parts of the dance to which a judge refers and the camera cuts were worse than they've ever been (on a show with notoriously bad camera cuts).

But even a bad night of So You Think You Can Dance is awesome so let's talk about the dancing. Oh, first a quick housekeeping note - since we've got contestants and all-stars and choreographers and all kinds of things happening this season, I'm going to grade it all a bit different. I'll give separate grades for each dancer and for the choreography.

Contestant: Billy Bell

All-Star: Lauren

Dance: Broadway, Tyce DiOrio

I am predisposed not to like Tyce's Broadway routines because I think they've all pretty much sucked and I'm sick of how often they let him do it considering the extremely underwhelming quality he brings to the job. But this one was actually pretty great. A Footloose routine that was energetic, fun, in keeping with the source material and perfectly suited to show off a side of Billy that we hadn't yet seen. Not only was the pace and style a far cry from Billy's wheelhouse, he also managed to look a million and a half times more masculine than he ever has before. I thought he and Lauren had terrific chemistry with one another and that they both danced the shit out of it.

Grade - Contestant: A

Grade - All-Star: A

Grade - Choreography: A

Contestant: Cristina

All-Star: Mark

Dance: Jazz, Sonya Tayeh

Remember last week when I said I either love Sonya's stuff or I don't get it at all? I didn't get this AT ALL! It was supposed to be a snake and her prey or whatever, but mostly it was boring which I would have never expected because if ever there was a person who was BORN to breathe life into a Sonya routine, it's Mark. It's saying a lot about Cristina that she held her own admirably next to Mark in this one. Her movement and technique seemed very good. Of course, she didn't come close to equalling Mark's performance but he's kind of a genius there so that's to be expected.

Grade - Contestant: B+

Grade - All-Star: A

Grade - Choreography: C

Contestant: Jose

All-Star: Comfort

Dance: Hip Hop, Tabitha and Napoleon

Nigel went pretty far out of his way to make sure we all remember that Jose is a breaker, NOT a hip hop dancer. And that he's never done choreography before getting on the show. He wanted us all to know that this wasn't Jose getting the soft-ball routine in his own style right out of the gate. All that may be true but Tabby Cat and Boneyparts (TM Jay) sure as hell worked a fair amount of breaker-moves into this routine which says "soft-ball" to me. I'm not saying that Jose didn't do well. He did. I'm not saying I don't like him, I do. I'm just saying that despite Nigel's assurances that we should be really impressed by how good Jose is out of his element, I don't think we've actually seen him out of his element yet so I'm going to wait until next week to be impressed.

Grade - Contestant: B+

Grade - All-Star: A

Grade - Choreography: B-

Contestant: Adechike

All-Star: Kathryn

Dance: Contemporary, Travis Wall

A very unwelcome case of déjà vu for me as I KNOW we saw a very similar "man working late at the office, tempted by a sexy woman" routine either last season or the season before. I didn't enjoy the routine the first time, and I didn't really like it much better the second time. It was a rare misstep for Travis, whose choreography is usually really good. I was also disappointed that he chose to utilize this routine when his contestant was one of the guys. The routine gave Kathryn a LOT to do and she did all of it wonderfully (because she's awesome) but there was hardly anything for Adechike do - he sat in a chair while Kathryn pushed him around. He caught her. He fell on top of her on the floor. Aren't we supposed to be showcasing the contestants here? All that said, Adechike did less than nothing with what he was given. He executed the steps fine but there was no performance, no connection and because the steps were nearly non-existent, I can't be too impressed with that.

Grade - Contestant: C

Grade - All-Star: A

Grade - Choreographer: D

Contestant: Melinda

All-Star: Pasha

Dance: Jive, Tony Meredith and Melanie LaPatin

Poor, grating Melinda. It was her extreme bad luck to get a ballroom routine the first week. Her feet and legs were a hot mess and while the judges thought she gave a good effort on the performance, I disagreed. I thought she looked ill-at-ease the entire way through. Dancing with the all-stars can be a mixed bag because on the one hand, they're strength can help elevate the contestant but on the other hand, if you're dancing next to Pasha and you don't have the dance down at all you will look a million times worse than if you danced exactly the same way next to someone else who was out of their element.

Grade - Contestant: C-

Grade - All-Star: A

Grade - Choreography: A-

Contestant: Alex

All-Star: Allison

Dance: Contemporary, Sonya Tayeh

Now this is more like it! With dancers this technically strong, Sonya was able to throw a lot of tough movements at them that were even more impressive because of how well they hold their lines. The movement in this piece was all very slow and I always expect slowness to show more effort because of the lack of momentum carrying them into everything, but Alex simply could not be smoother no matter how slow it moves. In pure dancing, I thought Alex out-shone his All=-. And while I haven't been wowed by Alex's performance level before, I thought he nailed it this time. Both dancers conveyed a lot of very powerful emotion and with their performances and with their dancing (though still, a little more from Allison than Alex for me) making the entire endeavor really beautiful to watch.

Grade - Contestant: A

Grade - All-Star: A

Grade - Choreography: A

Contestant: Alexie

All-Star: Twitch

Dance: Hip Hop, Tabitha and Napoleon

Apparently we can just call anything hip hop now. This routine was weak sauce for me in every way. The crawling through the window shtick was stupid and laboured. There were about three moments of any sort of pop-y or sticking moves like you'd expect in hip hop and there wasn't a whole lot else to the dance either. It was nothing a 3rd year dance class couldn't have pulled off. Unfortunately, Alexie failed to hit even one of the three measly hip hop-esque moves.

Grade - Contestant: C-

Grade - All-Star: B

Grade - Choreography: D

Contestant: Lauren

All-Star: Ade

Dance: Pop-Jazz, Mandy Moore

Not the strongest Mandy Moore routine I've ever seen. It was a little light on dancing, heavy on acrobatics for me. And while I thought both Ade and Lauren were terrific technically, there was very little chemistry between them and Lauren seemed much more focused on projecting her smile out to the audience than performing any sort of story or emotion with her partner. It left me a little cold which was disappointing because I really like Lauren.

Grade - Constant: B-

Grade - All-Star: A-

Grade - Choreography: B-

Contestant: Kent

All-Star: Anya

Dance: Cha-Cha, Tony Meredith and Melanie LaPatin

I was really nervous that pairing tiny, adorable Kent with spicy, sexy Anya for a Latin ballroom routine right out of the gate was going to result in something spectacularly bad. I was wrong. Kent held his own in both technique and performance next to Anya. He transformed himself into sexy and fiery for the number and while he could have been a smidge looser (his upper body was particularly stiff) and more "into the floor," as Mary might say, I thought he did a damn fine job for his first foray into Latin ballroom. Plus he looked like he was enjoying the fuck out of it and that was beyond infectious. If they can show me that they love doing something on that stage, then I almost always love watching it. I loved watching that!

Grade - Contestant: A

Grade - All-Star: A

Grade - Choreography: A

Contestant: Ashley

All-Star: Neil

Dance: Contemporary, Tyce DiOrio

The dance was ok. It was Tyce so there wasn't much substance there to latch onto and remember. There seemed to be some chemistry here but Ashley did not measure up to Neil. I admit that Neil is one of my favorite all-stars and that I'm predisposed to be paying attention to him and ignoring whoever happens to be dancing with him, but this choreography actually made it pretty easy to watch them both and she just wasn't coming up to his level.

Grade - Contestant: B

Grade - All-Star: A

Grade - Choreography: B



Contestant: Robert

All-Star: Courtney

Dance: African Jazz, Sean Cheesman

I didn't love this dance as much as the judges did. It was good but it didn't wow me. And I didn't love Robert in it as much as they did either. He was good but there was this thing he kept doing with his hands, arms and chest that was a touch effeminate to me in the exact same way one move from Kent was in his routine that the judges would not shut up about. There was also a tendency on his part to smile a touch too broadly which didn't seem to fit with the dance. I still like Robert a lot though and I think his dancing is mostly really great.

Grade - Contestant: A-

Grade - All-Star: A

Grade - Choreography: A-

Predictions:

Bottom Three: Adechike, Melinda, Alexie

Should Go Home: Melinda

Will Go Home: Melinda

One last note about the all-stars - I'm a little glad that they're focusing attention onto the contestants after the dances is over, but the swift exits of the all-stars is kind of odd. Seems like the least we could do is give them a proper send-off before they leave the stage. Maybe even ask them what THEY think of the contestants? I don't know, this all takes some getting used to.