Who will win on ‘Dance’ tonight?
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- August
- 7
It was the last “So You Think You Can Dance” performance show last night, and the Final Four showed everyone exactly why they’ve made it to the finale.
Especially Twitch and Joshua, because if you believe the rumor mill, the boys were the two dancers rushed to the hospital over the weekend for dehydration.
The only references the show made to the incident were vague, like Nigel’s comment after the quartet’s last Braveheart-inspired Mia Michaels routine. He told the group that he knows everyone’s exhausted, but tough noogies, no one in an audience cares about that when they’re watching a show.
Whatever. If Twitch and Joshua were indeed the ones who collapsed, I’d say they deserve a little sympathy after watching their insanely taxing Russian typytych, which was without question the best routine of the night.
A dance battle played out to the Nutcracker Suite?!? Total genius. And like guest judge Mandy Moore pointed out, those dudes needed the stamina of stallions to pull that off.
That said, the number also served to highlight every single one of Joshua’s strengths. Those leaps! Those flips! That now brace-free smile!
If this dance battle was supposed to parallel the larger competition, I’d say Josh—not Twitch—will be the winner tonight. The judges seemed to be steering voters that way, too, with Nigel calling Joshua and Katee “two of the most brilliant dancers ever on this show.”
So why don’t I think Katee will win?
Don’t get me wrong, she’s got a shot—and if she’s crowned America’s Favorite Dancer, I wouldn’t be surprised. Her technique is spectacular, and she’s never gotten a bad review from the judges.
But I suspect that Katee may fall prey to the same syndrome that afflicted Chelsie Hightower last week: She’s just too consistently good, so the fact that she’s made it this far hasn’t surprised anyone.
It’ll be a close call, but I’ll wager that the audience, much like Nigel & Co., are loving Joshua’s “untrained” status just a tiny bit more. That gives him a strange but powerful advantage: He can be an underdog at the same time he’s a fan favorite.
Plus, who wouldn’t love that a hip-hopper would take the title for the first time?
Twitch is awesome and everything, but I doubt the “humor” that the judges keep stressing will be enough to see him through.
As for Courtney, she’s been the dark horse of this competition, but I’m pretty sure the race ends here for her. The judges seemed to be giving her the consolation prize of being an “inspiration” to lots of little girls for chugging along and making it to the finale.
I mean, there seemed to be an unspoken rule last night that the judges would pull back any major criticism of the dancers, letting America make up its own mind in the end. They obeyed that with everyone except Courtney.
After her solo—which, granted, wasn’t her best—Mandy encouraged her to “train more.”
Following that train wreck of a Broadway routine with Katee (Tyce Diorio, what were you thinking?!?), Nigel compared the two girls, saying that Katee had “that extra little bit that makes me go, ‘Wow.’”
Jeez, could you give voters any more of a “wink, wink, nudge, nudge,” Nigel?
But we’ll see if America took the hint tonight, when the winner is finally announced.
And don’t just tune in for the last five minutes. The two-hour show is packed with entertaining stuff:
• The rest of the Top 20 will be back performing the best routines of the season (please, sir, can we have some more of Sonya’s French burlesque from Courtney and Mark?)
• The Jonas Brothers will perform! (Insert squeals of glee here from teen-age girls everywhere!)
• The cast of magician Criss Angel’s new Vegas show with Cirque du Soleil—choreographed by “Dance” favorite Wade Robson—will do a number.
So tune in here tomorrow to discuss the show—and whether America chose the right dancer.
(Photos courtesy of FOX)
This entry was posted
on Thursday, August 7th, 2008 at 9:21 am by Heather Salerno.
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