Her Story: Season 1 Episodes 1-6

There's honestly no way around it: Her Story is brilliant. It's poignant and impactful, honest and romantic, at turns funny and heartbreaking, and unendingly important. The more I think about it, the more I find myself thinking that "important" is one of the better words to describe a show today, so I don't use it flippantly. Orange is the New Black, with its large cast of women of different ethnicities, sexualities, and gender expression falls in this category as well. And that both of these shows are capable of getting their message across while still being wonderfully entertaining is a triumph.

Her Story is a six-episode, new media, show (webseries?) that's up on YouTube as we speak. It's the first show in history that's about Transwomen and features Transwomen (and men) in every phase of its development, behind and in front of the camera. So it's groundbreaking in that way. But more than that, or to be more specific, in conjunction with that, it's a story about the dating and love lives of a section of the world that simply never gets any focus. It's not hard to find shows or movies about gay men meeting and falling in love. It's a little harder, though still not impossible, to find shows or movies about lesbian women meeting and falling in love. But trans people simply are not being given their due in storytelling. And so here we are, and thank God for that finally.

These first six episodes (none of which is longer than 11 minutes and can easily be consumed in one sitting) follow Violet (played with charm and heart by the lovely Jen Richards) and Paige (the beautiful Angelica Ross) as they embark on two very different relationships. Violet doesn't consider herself to be gay, but when she's approached by Allie (Laura Zak) and asked if she'll contribute to a story Allie is hoping to write for the local gay paper, it's impossible to deny an attraction and an interest is sparked between them. Meanwhile, Paige has a meet cute with James (Christian Ochoa), and the two of them are quickly off on magical dates. On the one hand you've got Violet who has to confront certain ideas she holds about her own sexuality, but who is at least already out as trans to the person she's interested in. On the other, Paige has to seriously consider whether or not to tell James, or more specifically when to tell him. The way these two stories play out is a fun and beautiful study in nuanced storytelling. One of the show's greatest triumphs is it's ability to tell its story in quiet and simple terms without needing to baldly state it's position too often.

At least, it does so with the two main romances. In other places, I think it could be argued that a more deft touch could have been longed for. One of Allie's friends is a lesbian named Lisa (Caroline Whitney Smith), and she's pretty horrible. To be fair, she's openly horrible from the start, and the first scene we see her in features Allie telling her in no uncertain terms that she's a bad person. But as the season goes on, we see that there's no real redeeming quality to her, and something about her always felt flat and caricatured to me. Lisa has a position, and indeed it's a position many people in the world have, but what's lacking in her is a reason for that position. In the show's defense, multiple episodes that barely hit the eight minute mark is hardly enough time to flush out each character as completely as I'm sure the writers would like. But in a story where we get to see so many characters brought to life so vividly, Lisa's flatness stands out all the more. No story can be told without a more utilitarian or functional character, but when some of the more important stories or conversations taking place within the show hinge on her position, this character serving as little more than a mouthpiece for the opposition feels lacking.

But here's the thing, at the end of the day, that's pretty much all of the bad you can find in what is otherwise a brilliant story. So in it's first season, Her Story clearly finds itself in the plus column. The story is a winner, the writing is beautiful and moving, and the performances are truly amazing. In content like this, something not being backed by a major network or studio, the acting would easily be where you'd expect to be let down. But that's not the case here. Everyone is great, but I have to say Angelica Ross was a true standout for me. She portrays a power, inner strength, and resilience that you know was born of a difficult struggle to get to where she is, but there's also a vulnerability there that's all the more affecting because of those things. The scene of her and James' second date and the cheeseburger was beautiful and heartbreaking as much for what wasn't said as for what was. And the show's willingness to touch on the importance of her race and her class is really smart and important. She's an African American, transgendered, woman, who has worked to pull herself up into the upper class, but clearly wasn't always there. These are grand and important distinctions, and somehow Ross gets each of those things across effortlessly with just her looks and her bearings. It's brilliant!

In short, go watch Her Story. It's roughly an hour long, and it can be found on YouTube, or on the show's site. Let's be honest, you could easily spend more than an hour on YouTube just watching videos of cute animals. Why not spend that time watching something interesting, intelligent, and important instead? The animals will still be there when you get done.

Empire: "Fires of Heaven"

I can, and do, put up with a lot from Empire, but one thing I can't really abide is when the show is boring. I complained about the same thing with the last episode, but that one at least posed some interesting questions about the show's position on "family" and what that means to the Lyons' and had a couple killer scenes under its belt. This week's installment can't claim either. Family is still a word thrown around like grenades throughout the hour, but the same questions from last week are still floating around instead of being answered. And nothing of note happens. Which is surprising for Lucious' first episode back from the country club that pretended to be a prison.

So what is there really to talk about after the third hour of this new season of the show? The only thing that's really stuck with me so far are the scenes about Lucious' relationship with his mother. Before I gush about this too strongly, allow me to say that they seem to being pouring it on a bit thick with the characterization of Leah Walker's (being played by Kelly Rowland) illness. In much the same way that I thought they could have been a little more subtle and worked on their pacing a bit more with Andre last year, all we seem to be seeing of Leah are the extremes, and I don't think that that serves to really put a real face on this illness. However, the reason why I think this works a lot more than Andre's devolution is because these scenes take place solely in Lucious' memory and of course he'd be more fixated on the extreme highs and lows of his mother's condition.

So after the deft hand they employed last week, we're treated to a couple flashbacks that make Leah's condition explicit. She buys a bunch of "gifts" for a young Lucious even though it's well past his birthday, and she exuberantly helps him to open them. And then, seemingly in no time at all, she's plunged into a depression so deep she's nearly catatonic. The mention of needing to return the gifts in order to be able to eat suggests that not much time has passed between the two scenes. So either she cycles really quickly, or Lucious simply remembers these things in one go and they all get jumbled up in his mind. The latter explanation works much better than the former, and that's what I'm going to choose to believe in spite of not having enough faith in the writers to really buy that they'd have the kind of foresight to pull that off. But willful ignorance and blindness are still necessary to really get a lot out of this show.

These scenes do more work examining Lucious' motivation than anything we've seen thus far. We've seen glimpses of why he views Andre the way he does, some of his earliest connections to music, and assuming they take this story in the direction I expect they'll take it (which is about as bold of an assumption as I can offer), we'll probably see the basis for his commitment issues. It's hard to miss the fact that Lucious' father isn't in the picture, and I assume living with an unmedicated bipolar mother would have led to a lot of abandonment and trust issues. So what we've been seeing through these short scenes are explanations of who Lucious is.

The smart thing I think the show is doing is that they aren't allowing these explanations to serve as excuses for his horrible actions. Lucious is still a dick, and by no means do I think we're intended to sympathize with him currently, but the ability to know the difference between a reason and an excuse is something more advanced than I ever would have given this show credit for in the past. So the only thing left is to see where this all goes and how it continues to impact his present situation. Obviously he's going to continue to be a dick to Andre, but will this history and his potential guilt over Andre's condition drive him to be colder than expected towards his future grandchild? And I assume with this being introduced this season that there's no real way the truth won't come out by season's end. How, if at all, does that shake things up and change the other character's perception of Lucious?

We'll have to wait and see if we get answers to these questions, but in the mean time these flashbacks continue to present the sole bright point in otherwise dreary and boring episodes. The problem for Empire is that these scenes, compared to everything else, are too few and far between to save the quality of the rest of the show. So the assignment for the writers going forward is to find a way to either tap back into the fun level of crazy from last season, or to find a way to draw the pathos of these flashbacks through the rest of the episode.

Random Thoughts:

--In case anyone wasn't sure about Jamal's story about becoming more and more like Lucious, the two of them have a choreographed simultaneous removal of their sunglasses towards the beginning of the episode. It was pretty pathetic.

--Also pathetic was that Empire! salute from Lucious and the fans at his press conference. Give me a break.

--What the ever-loving fuck was Cookie wearing during Lucious' party?

--Am I the only one who finds it a bit ironic that they've brought Kelly Rowland in to guest star in a season where they seem to be doing a kind of Destiny's Child storyline with Hakeem's girl group?

--Speaking of Kelly Rowland, while I think it's probably easier to convey the extreme highs and lows of someone with this illness, I still think it's worth noting that she's been strong in her appearances.

--And speaking of guest appearances, can we not find a better rapper than Pitbull to guest on the show? And after a full season of being the musical producer for the show, Timbaland makes what I think is his first appearance in front of the camera this week.

--What a blessing to not have to deal with Jamal's annoying boyfriend this episode.

Empire: "Without a Country"

What does the word "family" mean to you? I'm an old school lover of language, so the idea that words with such a clear and obvious denotation can have such varied connotation is something that will always amaze me. To some people, family is a source of strength, support, and unwavering, unconditional love. To other people it's a curse; a source of unending horror and a repository of painful memories. To the Lyons, family is a weapon, or at times maybe a shield, but seemingly never anything stronger or more transcendent than that. Over the course of a season and two episodes, we've seen the characters on this show cry, spit, and throw claims of family at one another to justify some of the most vile and horrible actions. But have we ever seen the other side of that coin? Do the writers behind this show have any positive notions about familial relations? And if they don't, is that a problem?

Empire's second episode of its sophomore season is nowhere near as engaging as its first. This is always a problem with Empire since the cracks in this show are always more visible and less defendable when the episode in question isn't as good. If there aren't as many laugh out loud Cookie lines, or soapy drama so juicy you can't help but to leave your jaw on the ground for the entire commercial break, then you're left seeing nothing but the man behind the curtain. But what continues to amaze me about this show is the presence of small moments that are nothing short of astounding.

Towards the end of this episode, Andre goes to visit Lucious in jail and beg his forgiveness and to be let back into Empire. As anyone could have predicted, Lucious says no, but then Andre pleads his case with a kind of quite furry that's more compelling than if he'd just stood up and yelled his indignation to the rafters. Lucious has shunned Jamal his whole life for being gay, but now he gives Jamal Empire. Hakeem sleeps with Lucious' fiancé and helps in the hostile takeover, but still Lucious wants him back at the company. Andre makes one mistake, and then apologizes for it in a manner that no one else is interested in, and yet Lucious says no. When Andre asks why it is that his father hates him so much, we're treated to a flashback of a young Lucious in his mother's arms as she sings him a lullaby. In the midst of it, she seems to zone out a bit and the assumption we're left to make here is that she suffered from a mental illness same as Andre does; Lucious doesn't hate Andre, he hates the way he reminds him of his own mother who probably hurt him due to her own struggles.

As an explanation for his actions, this ranks right up there with the hint from last season that he was simply jealous of Jamal's talent instead of hating him because he's gay. Granted, the show hinted at that and never took it any deeper than that surface level last year, so there's no reason to expect a deeper treatment of this subject matter either. However, the scene plays brilliantly, and the flashback of Lucious and his mother is just subtle enough that it's open to interpretation. It's all done with such a deft hand that you're left wondering how could this be the same show that had Cookie dressed as a gorilla in a cage to beat home a message last week? If each Empire episode was full of nothing but those kinds of moments, can you even begin to imagine how much better of a show it would be?

But if it was full of those moments, those moments wouldn't be as special as they are here. The scene between Lucious and Andre is a diamond in the rough that is the rest of the episode. An episode that features Hakeem being an idiot and trying to force their new label to fly before it can even crawl, Lucious making a radio ready track from a prison supply cabinet, and a horribly uninspired performance from guest star Ludacris.

That's not to say that "Without a Country" is a total waste of an episode. There's some important place-setting in this hour, and if the first episode served to wrap up storylines left over from last season, this hour has a lot more to do with setting up some of the stories we'll be dealing with over the course of this season. Place-setting will always be a thankless job in TV, and with the full season order having been bumped up from 12 to 18 episodes, a few slow filler episodes are unavoidable, but there had to be a better more interesting way to handle this.

One thing that seems interesting about this season is the juxtaposition of Cookie and Lucious. Cookie was the far more sympathetic party last season. It was hard not to be when the show started with her strutting out of prison in that fur coat and immediately making her way to see her kids. While Lucious started the season out pitting his sons against one another, Cookie started out trying to just bring them together and start recapturing all that she missed out on. Now Cookie's the one setting them against each other in service of getting what she wants and while Lucious hasn't become the good guy by any means, he still feels like the wronged party.

This episode sees her make the plan to start her own label, struggle to keep Hakeem in line enough to do the work that needs to be done so he can actually put an album out, continue to fight with Anika, tell Jamal they're starting their own company with as much of a threatening glower as she can, and then lose Andre as an ally in spite of her attempts to hold on to him. It's another remarkable scene as she follows him down the hallway repeating his name only to have him beg her to let him go, but it's also a scene that sets Cookie up as just as big a failure on the family front as Lucious ever was. I've questioned the purity of her motivations in the past, and this episode made me question them more. Clearly she's owed something for taking the fall for Lucious all those years ago, but does her recompense have to come at the expense of her kids? And if she doesn't care whether it does or doesn't, can she ever claim the moral high ground over Lucious again?

I ask that because the heart of the show clearly always has been and maybe always will be the battle between Cookie and Lucious with their kids as both collateral and collateral damage. It's family as a war zone. And if that's what the show wants to be, then that's fine. If the writers have nothing positive to say about the family dynamic, then they're more than entitled to their opinion. But I said last season that my preferred outcome for the show is one where the brothers band together to run Empire as a unit. I've noted multiple times how my favorite parts of the show continue to be these little moments where there's some kind of love and devotion shining through, or at least the deeper bonds and scars (which can be simultaneously painful and beautiful) that family creates. So while I have to acknowledge that my preferred version of the show isn't the only possibility, and might not even be the "best" possibility, I can't help but to wonder whether or not a show that was about the strengths of family and about the Lyons banding together to take on the world wouldn't be a show that resonated more deeply with a wider audience? Then again, if the ratings are any indication, Empire is reaching a wide enough audience doing what it's been doing this whole time. Maybe it's not broken, and if that's the case, then it can't be fixed.

Random thoughts:

--I've mentioned him before, but Hakeem's gender fluid bestie is one of my favorite side characters on this show. I want to know more about them. How do they identify, how do they know Hakeem, and what's the overall plan for them on the show?

--I'm ready for Cookie and Anika to stop the overt fighting. I think if the show took them in more of a frenemies direction with constant backhanded compliments and little barbs being flung but no more overt hostility, that'd be for the better. They don't have to like each other, but maybe just work together for the greater good.

--Still trying to figure out what the point of Michael is. I was very happy when he wasn't on the show anymore. No matter how adorable Rafael de la Fuente is.

--Tiana is back in this episode but no reference to her sexuality or her previous relationship to Hakeem. Which isn't a problem, per se, just a disappointment.

--Andre's never been my favorite character, but he certainly owned it this week. I understand the drama capable of being created from his more manic moments, but these moments of just quiet despair always resonate so much deeper for me. I don't think Trai Byers is a bad actor, but I do think he's maybe a bit better at this things than he is the louder, crazier moments.

--Who should we be rooting for at this point? Who are you rooting for? Is the point to just make all of these characters equally hatable? I still love Jamal, but the more he devolves into Lucious, and the more scenes of him yelling and looking around with that stank face, the more I jump off that bandwagon.

--Part of the reason I wanted to write reviews for Empire is because I tended to disagree with the reviews posted on my number one TV review site, AV Club. Joshua Alston, whom I generally love in his other coverage, and I simply have different takes on the show. However, his review on this episode is really good and one I agree with fully in spite of us having different opinions on what stands to make this show "good." Either way, you can check out his review here if you're interested to see where our opinions differ and where they converge.

Empire: "The Devils are Here"

And so starts the 2015 Fall TV schedule. Empire starts not with a bang so much as a gorilla suited Cookie roaring and thumping around in a cage, and anyone thinking the show might tamper some of it's campier moments down in its sophomore year were shown just how mistaken they were. This first episode alone features the caged gorilla, a large lesbian themed party, a severed head in a box, and guest stars such as Marisa Tomei, Chris Rock, and Al Sharpton. I guess there are benefits for breaking records left and right in your first season. But is the episode any good?

After a long hiatus I've realized that I honestly can't tell just how "good" I think Empire is any longer. It makes me laugh out loud multiple times an episode, but it also makes me roll my eyes a lot. It's headstrong enough to take on the injustice of the American justice system, but we all know it's also fickle enough to not follow through and have anything more to say than it did in this one episode. Even if I decide to engage with the show that Empire is instead of the show I want it to be, I'm still left wondering how well it tells its story and how effective anything it does is in the long run.

And so I end up watching the episodes with a kind of battle raging in my head. "The Devils are Here" opens with a concert being thrown by Empire to raise awareness about Lucious' three month long incarceration. It's good music, Empire artists, and a general fun time, and I enjoy it. And then Cookie and Lucious' brother, who I don't remember ever meeting before, use the platform to drop stats and talk openly about how unjust the American prison industrial complex is. At this point, I'm left to wonder whether or not the fact that Lucious is indeed guilty and therefore right where he should be undercuts the concert's, and by extension the show's, message about unfair incarcerations. But clearly that's thinking about things too much when the point is to be entertained by the music and curious about the hints of sapphic flirtation between Cookie and Marisa Tomei's Mimi.

Meanwhile back in what looks like one of the most minimal security prisons that anyone accused of murder has ever been interred in, everyone's abuzz with the news that Frank Gathers (Chris Rock playing strongly against type) is about to be joining them. Apparently her and Lucious and Cookie all go way back and we're told more than once that he's crazy. Cookie's cousin Jamel, last seen murdering the wrong person on Cookie's orders in a drive by, is worried about Frank's retribution and attempts to appeal to an uninterested Lucious for protection. It's protection he clearly needs as we find him later in the episode having been beaten up and, it's at least suggested, cannibalized by Frank. So I should add "bad guy who eats parts of people right in front of them while trying to get information" to the list of insane things in this episode.

But crazy doesn't mean bad. There's nothing really wrong with the prison scenes in this episode except that they take time and attention away from Empire's greatest strength: the Lyons family. Lucious is in there on his own, and while I don't hate Lucious as a character, I also don't think there's very much to him outside the confines of the rest of the family.

The real meat of the episode takes place back at Empire records. Cookie and everyone who isn't Jamal is busy trying to secure a lot of money from Mimi in order to complete their hostile takeover and remove Lucious as CEO of the company. This seems to require appealing to Mimi's homosexuality with a big girl on girl party and lots of flirting from Cookie and Anika. Anika even sleeps with her (which leads to one of the funniest lines of the night), but it's all to no avail. Mimi has an off screen meeting with Lucious and decides to throw her money and influence behind him and Jamal. In another show, I'd lament the fact that so many of these scenes take place off camera, but the truth is I think it was for the best here. In last season's finale, I mentioned how uninterested in the hostile takeover storyline I was. This is mostly because in that episode they seemed more interested in explaining the legal side of it like I was in business school. But here they put it all in basic and dramatic terms and it works. Andre, Cookie, Hakeem and Anita need a couple hundred million dollars for Mimi and they set out to get it. By the end of the episode, they seem to have it and move in to make their announcement only to find out they've been double crossed. No talk about percentages or major shares or the strategy behind corporate takeovers. They set a reasonable and understandable goal and they go after it and then they succeed and yet still fail. It's basic storytelling, and that's where the show needs to stay.

The important thing about all of this is always the family. Jamal and Hakeem, once so close, are clearly at each other's throats over Jamal being named the heir apparent. Cookie is claiming left and right that she's trying to unseat Lucious not to oust Jamal, but to bring the family together, and through those statements we see just how torn apart it all is. Also, the more Cookie says "I'm doing this for you" the more I see Walter White saying "I'm doing this for my family," and I can't help but to think if the two characters aren't more similar than I ever gave them credit for being before. But either way, the fact that so much of these developments, even Anika's sex session with Mimi, happen off camera allows us to stick with the Lyons family and see the fallout from their schemes and plots.

It all adds up to one of the better episodes of the show. It elevates what Empire is good at, while limiting its flaws. But it's also the first episode in a show that's seen its season order bumped up from 12 to 18. I'm walking into this season not expecting any real serialization, no really deep commentary on the important social issues they continue to bring up but only skate over the surface, and for the show to continue at a breakneck speed that will make your head spin. My expectations, however, are that since I know to expect those things, they won't be so shocking or annoying this season as they were last. Also, in the event that the show decides to surprise me and carry those elements a little better this year, it'll all be for the better. Here's hoping, but not really expecting.

Random thoughts:

--Jamal's story this episode, if not this whole season, seems to be about how much he's losing himself in the wake of trying to fill Lucious' shoes. He's more forceful than is at all warranted with his boyfriend, uninterested in throwing his face behind this LGBT cause, and hasn't been able to make time to get into the studio at all while his current album keeps falling from the top spot on the charts. On top of that, his interactions with Hakeem and Cookie are heartbreaking since his relationships with those two were the stronger parts of last season. I'd by lying if I said I wasn't both excited and curious to see where this all led.

--Speaking of Jamal's boyfriend, Michael's back. No word on why or how, or why they seem to have an exclusively Spanish speak butler, but there's that, I guess.

--The exceptionally fast pace that was both the boon and the bane of last season is back as Chris Rock's character is both introduced and killed off in this one episode. I can't tell if I'm more impressed by that or disappointed that they didn't get more out of powerhouse like Rock.

--Conversely, Marisa Tomei's character could stand to stick around. IMDB only has her listed as being on this one episode, but lord knows they've been wrong in the past. Fingers crossed that we get more of her in the weeks to come.

--There's one dream / memory sequence for Andre about what he and Rhonda did to Vernon, but that seems to be about where that storyline ends this week. I'm assuming it'll be one of the serialized elements of this season and I'm already not looking forward to it.

--I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the final scene between Cookie and Jamal! It's really fucking fantastic and Henson and Smollett absolutely kill it. The moment he breaks down after closing the door and the look on her face as he backs her out are just priceless.

--"You can't even dyke right!" has got to be one of the funniest lines in TV history.

--Likewise, every time Porsha is on screen is a treasure.

So You Think You Can Dance S12E12 & 13

We're mere weeks away from the blessed end of this much derided, and probably final, season of So You Think You Can Dance, and I find myself increasingly happy about that. Since that amazing tenth episode, things continued their downward trend for the show; so much so that I honestly had nothing at all to say after last week's episode. It's wasn't overly surprising, and I don't think I'm even capable of being disappointed any longer, it was all just so bland. This week isn't too different, truth be told, so I'm not sure how to go about talking about these last few episodes. If there's one thing I'm kind of surprised over it's just how much the gender dynamics have evened out on this season. There were two guys and two girls on each team this week before Neptune and Derek went home leaving Virgil and Jim as the sole guys in the top six. But that's about all of the surprise I'm capable of mustering. So I think I'm going to do something a little different and talk about the last six contestants left in preparation for what's to come.

Hailee is my favorite dancer left on team Stage. I think she's really pretty, wonderfully talented, with a great personality and a fun spirit. She hasn't really faltered much this season at all, but she also hasn't been challenged much. This is due to the easier choreography and the abundance of Hip Hop and Contemporary (or Jazz) numbers we've seen. I don't think we've really seen Hailee do anything outside of those genres so far in the competition. To her credit, she's done them all well, and I doubt she'd have much trouble with something like Latin Ballroom if she were to ever have to do it, but we also can't know for sure because of how paired down this season has been. Originally, I thought this was due to the Stage vs Street conceit, and I still think that that has a lot to do with it, but after hearing multiple sources saying it was between changing the show or getting cancelled last season, I'm starting to wonder if the elevation of the viewers' favorite styles isn't in an attempt to pull in more eyeballs. Either way, it's to the detriment of the show and the performers.

I was surprised to find her in the bottom this week, but not too much so. We're getting to the point where the people in the bottom and going home might not be about anything they didn't do or don't have in their arsenal but just about the fact that someone has to go. Her dance with FikShun at least was great and worth keeping her around hopefully for another week. She's more than proved what she's capable of doing in Hip Hop over the past few weeks, and watching her keep up with a previous winner was great fun. Much like Virgil, FikShun brings a fun personality and more than enough energy for Hailee to play off of. It's easy to see why she'd deliver such great performances with both of them.

Jaja is my favorite dancer left on team Street, and every week I'm left with the same feeling: She was more than good enough to make it far last season, and while I'm happy to see what all she can do this year, I would have loved to watch her work against the stronger contestants and with the stronger choreography of last season. Her solos are never anything short of strong, hard hitting, and intricate. She's got a control over her body that makes her fun to watch, and she's always so good at choreographing something to each little tick and bass drop in the music.

She's also one of the more versatile dancers on the show, or at least one of the ones who's been put

through her paces a bit more, with Broadway and Bollywood routines thrown at her in just the last two weeks alone. Both of those performances were stellar, and she, like Hailee, was given the task of keeping up with a former winner (last year's Ricky) and she more than holds her own. My default setting is to stare at Ricky when he's on stage, it's an old habit from last year as he just pulls attention so effortlessly, but I couldn't stop my gaze from drifting back to Jaja in this number because she's just so good. I think her personality is every bit as big and impressive as Hailee's, but she's more understated in some ways. She's more than capable of letting her dancing speak for itself and I can't help but to think that no matter what these next few weeks hold for her, she won't have trouble finding work in the years to come.

Megz rounds out my own personal top three at this point. I think she's got a style and a bearing all her own, and there's something refreshing about her uniqueness. I think we've seen a lot of different female contestants over the years, but for the most part they tend to fall closer to the feminine end of the spectrum; at least the ones who make it this far usually do. Megz has a way of flouting that while not having to come across as purely masculine. She's really just herself and that's appealing. I think it has a lot to do with how far she's made it thus far.

Sadly, last night's Paso Doble was the first real test she's had thus far and it came on a night that already saw her in the bottom four. The truth is that she didn't dance it all that well and there aren't really any excuses for that. However, I watched the performance and was left wondering if she'd been able to do a ballroom number or two prior to this point, or had been asked to do it in Vegas maybe, would she have been better prepared for this number? She looked far more out of her depth dancing outside her element this week than contestants tend to look in the top eight performance episode, and I can't help but to wonder if that doesn't have something to do with how coddled she and the rest of the contestants have been with these simple routines all in the same two genres. Sadly, I don't see her making it through next week, but that's got as much to do with the strength of Virgil as it does the weakness of her performance this week.

Virgil's status as the heir apparent to FikShun should be pretty obvious by now. They're both small Hip Hop dancers with big personalities who work their tails off to bring it each week they dance outside their styles. Virgil admits to his stint on (or was it off) Broadway, so we know he's got experience beyond the Street level. It explains a lot of why he's been so solid in the Broadway and Contemporary routines he's been given thus far. He's another contestant who hasn't danced any Ballroom or anything more extreme like Bollywood or Disco. This week's African Jazz was the closest he's really come to being pushed all that hard, and he actually managed to dance that well if not bring the top notch performance we're used to.

In fact, if there's a question still to be answered about Virgil it's whether or not he can convincibly

perform against type. He's so cute and fun and energetic and bubbly that when he's given a character that's more sinister and stoic, like he was this week, he has to try a lot harder to convey those things. He didn't do as good a job with this one as I think he could have, but he danced it well. So whereas Hailee and Jaja have proven themselves capable of tackling anything that's thrown at them, Virgil seems able to dance whatever they give him, but only tends to be given these same kinds of characters week after week with us unable to tell if he's got a wider range than that. If it's a complaint or a criticism, it's a small one, and one I'd feel better leveling at the choreographers than at Virgil himself. These kinds should have been tested a lot harder than this so far and that failing isn't their own. With that being said, Virgil hasn't found himself in danger once this entire competition, and while I'm not sure if he's got what it takes to win like FikShun did, I do think he's a shoe in for the finale.

Gaby has gone from a contestant I never remembered being on the show until I was watching her dance to someone that I think is another shoe in for the finale. In fact, I think Gaby might have what it takes to win the whole thing. She's crazy talented, and while her personality doesn't stick out as much as Hailee and Jaja's does, she's had a really strong dark horse quality about her these last few weeks which have seen her really vault to the top of the competition. The weakest part of her performances in the last two weeks have been her solos. They haven't been bad, but they've been stock Tap fare that we've seen a lot of in the last couple years. There were two Tappers on the show last year, so I think the bar has been raised on what we expect from a Tap solo, and I don't think Gaby's done anything to make me impressed on that level. She's got a strong rhythm and musicality that you expect from a Tapper, but there's yet to be that wow factor that I think we're used to.

Instead, she seems to save that aspect for her paired dances which have been great. The Hip Hop

number she did with Joshua last week was really strong and at the time I thought it might have been good enough to see it again on the finale, but then I watched her performance with Robert this week and I think that that's actually the number we'll be seeing again in a couple weeks. It wasn't only the best performance of the night, it's one of the better performances of the season. I think the first line of credit goes to Mandy Moore who returns after a too long absence and brings a level of creativity that has been sorely lacking this year. It's another of those dancers embodying abstract ideas kind of numbers that I love so much. And watching Gaby as a person struggling with strong social anxiety was just brilliant. It's also a number where I think Mandy's explanation of what the number was about enhanced the performance and clearly found itself embodied in the movement and both performances. On top of that, it's the sort of number that Robert's been excelling at since his time on the show, so it was great to see him as the all star for it. The judges have been a bit liberal with the standing ovations lately, but this was one performance where it was more than deserved. If Gaby does go on to win, I think we'll be looking back at this night as the one where she put it away.

Jim rounds out the top six and he's got the unenviable position of a dancer with all the technical ability in the world and not nearly enough performance ability or personality. Where Gaby fades into the background in her solos, Jim shines and effortlessly justifies his continued presence on the show. But then the partnered numbers come around and you're left feeling flat. I assumed this would be a problem from him way back when he had to share an interesting fact about himself and the best he could come up with was that he likes baths. Now we see him lacking in any kind of passion or connection to his partners and it's just sad. The All Stars usually serve to elevate the show and the performers to new heights, bringing something out of them that their fellow contestants often can't seem to reach, but in the case of Jim the opposite is true: he was better off dancing with his contemporaries because at least then his technical abilities were able to outshine the competition and justify keeping him around.

In the last two weeks we've seen him dance with Jessica and Comfort, both of whom are just as technically strong in what they do, and it leaves him being overshadowed either in technique (as is the case with Comfort in the Hip Hop number this week) or in performance (as with Jessica last week). Given the results, I'm guessing America saw something in his number with Jessica worth picking up the phone for. I fully expected him to be in the bottom this week with Derek going home, but for some reason he was safe and Hailee was in danger. To his credit, he danced the number as well as he could, but I still think he just looked like a Ballet boy playing at Hip Hop, and gone is all the undeserved praise Nigel heaped on him after his Hip Hop number with Jaja earlier this season.

The voting this week left me feeling unsure about what's coming next week. Either Megz and Hailee's fanbase isn't strong enough to rally and keep them in the competition, or it was just a momentary lapse and Hailee, at least, finds herself beating out Jim for a spot in the finale. I don't think Megz is strong enough to beat out Jaja and Virgil for a spot at the top of team Street, so I have to assume she's going home next week. But if Hailee goes with her, then we'll end up with a Jim, Gaby, Jaja, and Virgil top four which will see the early gender imbalance of the season rectified and give us an even split. I'd be lying if I said I was excited or curious about what was to come, but the fact of the matter is that this season has been so weak that the most interesting storyline to follow thus far has been the shifts in the numbers along gender lines. It's a sign of just how far SYTYCD has fallen that as we gear up for the finale I'm more interested in talking about how many boys and girls there are on the show than I am about the actual dancing.

Random Thoughts:

--One of the good things the show is doing is the video packages at the end as we say good bye to the contestants. The other contestants offering their thoughts and what they'll miss about their fallen friends is very touching, though I have to wonder how they went about getting the segments. Were they specifically asked "Hey, what are you going to miss about Derek when he leaves this week?" or is it something more misleading? If they're being told before hand who's going and who's staying, then I'm not sure what to think anymore.

--On the other hand, the judges comments this week made it so obvious who'd be in trouble and who was safe that they should be ashamed. They need to do a better job of that and tone down the "Your career going forward will be so bright if you just..." talk.

--I enjoyed the idea of the dancers doing their solos to songs from Empire last week. It was a nice piece of cross promotion, though it was obvious who was more comfortable picking a song and who wasn't. Derek's audio-only Drip Drop told me he wasn't sold on it at all. They all picked their own music this week and he went with a about two men in love. I'm happy Derek's been able to wear his sexuality on his sleeve this entire time, so many other performers in the past weren't able to. But I would have liked him to pick a better song last week. There are gay people on Empire too, Derek!

--Same-Sex Speculation Space: One of my very very favorite performances in the history of SYTYCD was done by Mia Michaels (surprise surprise) and it was danced by Billy Bell, Alex Wong, and Ade. Instead of suggesting my own story for a Same-Sex dance this week, I'm just going to refer back to this one and ask for more stuff like that. In fact, now that I think about it, it's odd just how good the show used to be at Same-Sex numbers even when they didn't have to have them like they did this year. Billy Bell and Ade also had another of my all time favorite numbers. And who could forget this Lacey and Sabra number? What the fuck happened, guys?

So You Think You Can Dance S12E11

I thought, after last week's stellar episode, that maybe I had judged this season too harshly and we were finally getting back into what made this show great. The talent's been culled sufficiently enough that we can believe only the best are left, and we're gearing up for the top 10 which is always an exciting time. And then this episode happened and it became painfully clear that Burim and Asaf weren't season 12's problem; the Street v. Stage conceit and the choreographers are. It's enough to make you see that this show at its best is a well oiled machine of wonderfully working parts. The talented dancers work in tandem with the genius choreographers to bring their vision to life, and then the judges work to bring it all down to earth and give us solid critiques to help us make some level of sense of what we've just seen. At different points of the season, one or more of those cogs weren't spinning properly, and this week I think it's the choreographers.

Though to be fair, when they get it right, they get it very very right. Jim and Yorelis open the night with a number welcoming back a very busy Sonya Tayeh back to the SYTYCD stable of choreographers. And everything about the piece is perfect. It's danced wonderfully, and everything from the concept to the costuming is just pitch perfect. I watched it with my jaw on the ground and my eye bulging and I thought the hot streak of the season would continue. Sadly, it was a bumpy ride from that point on, but we at least started on a serious high note.

Jaja and Edson turn out a good but not great (by any means) performance that left me thinking more about Jaja's skill level at giving a great performance than it did anything else. It was enough to make me think, and not for the first time I might add, that she would have been a welcome addition to the program last year if she'd made it. The girls from  last year were never very strong and none of them really stood out at any given time. Jaja would have been the one to really carry the girls through the performances, and she would have been quite a character amongst those other contestants. I don't think she could have challenged Ricky for the win, but it would have been nice to watch anyway. I will say that watching the judges disagree at the end of the performance was a lot of fun. Maybe they do all have real opinions after all.

Virgil and Hailee are paired together again for a Tyce routine. Tyce is one of my least favorite choreographers, or at least I find him to be one of the more hit or miss choreographers in the bunch.

You never know one week to the next what you're going to get from him, though recently I think we've seen a lot more bad than good. This number isn't one of his worst, but I did think it was oddly choreographed. It was a story about a possessive woman who refuses to let her man leave her, and the guy who is trying to do just that. And yet there were multiple moments in the piece where Virgil seemed to go towards Hailee and pick her up off the ground instead of taking his shot and just leaving. I've had this problem with Tyce before where I think his idea is solid but then I watch the performance and can't help but to think that I can't see it being translated into the specific movement. At the very least, Virgil and Hailee danced it well and presented yet another strong performance from the pair of them, this time more in Hailee's comfort zone than Virgil's. If they'd been paired together this whole time, they'd be a force to be reckoned with heading into the top 10. And collectively they've got personality for days.

If the first three performances of the night ranged from great to good, the Jazz number between Alexia and Ariana started the overall doom of the episode. It's interesting that the two worst numbers came from same-sex pairings. I've been clamoring for more of these kinds of pairs for the duration of time that I've been watching the show, but what I really wanted were good same-sex dances. I should have been clearer. Instead, the two same-sex numbers of the night have the girls portraying burlesque dancers and pinup models.  Don't get me wrong, there's nothing at all wrong with being a burlesque dancer or a pinup model, but it does expose just how limited the choreographers are when it comes to thinking up stories for female dancers. Any all girl performance thus far this season has either been sexy for sexiness' sake, or some bland blanket level "girl power" concept. The judges aren't shy about ripping the girls in both of these dances (Alexia and Ariana in this one, and then JJ and Kate a bit later on) a new one for their performance, but no one thinks to acknowledge the fact that they never should have been asked to do this in the first place? Remember a few seasons back when two of the guys performed some weird Russian jumping dance and Nigel was quick to point out that it wasn't them it was the style, and we've never seen that style on the show again? Where was that same level of concern for these girls? Instead the judges say things like they clearly didn't commit to doing what they were told, and they should just fake it till they make it when put in a position to perform something they don't believe in or that makes them uncomfortable. The extent of how problematic all of this is would break my brain if I tried to parse it all out. Suffice it to say I'm way more disappointed in the choreographers of these pieces than I am the dancers.

The other two performances of the night aren't much better. Megz and Derek's hip hop number is painful to watch. Megz is at least OK and seems to do just about all she can with a significantly inferior dancer in Derek. He's back from missing last week and clearly needs to knock his performance out of the park since his lack of performing automatically put him in the bottom three this week. And yet at no point does he show even a hint of an ability to dance Hip Hop. He dances too high, in his shoulders, and with too much control to hit his pops at all hard enough. It was bad enough to show that had he been asked to dance outside of his style during Vegas week, he probably wouldn't even have made it to the top 20. Unless my notes deceive me, or I missed something, it's his first time dancing a hip hop number, and it comes right before the formation of the top 10. Pathetic. Neptune and Gaby's dancing isn't horrible, but it's a routine in which Stacey Tookey has decided to tackle racism. And of course it looks and feels like just about every conversation I've ever heard about racism from the point of view of a white person. In short, she's not the person to tackle this subject, and she clearly should have left well enough alone.

The group numbers at least brought a high level of skill and concept to the close of the show. Sonya
having two numbers on the night was exactly the right way to go as her number for Team Stage about the immediate moment when you get heartbreakingly bad news is really perfect. And the weird carnival sideshow number for Team Street was a lot of fun too. At this point, it feels like Team Street's group numbers have been been more about team work and pulling together than Stage's have. This one sees all the members of the circus together, dancing, and celebrating their differences. It's both very straight forward and very rewarding all at once.

In the end, the judges can't save anyone, it's fully up to America's twitter voting to decide which one dancer from each team's bottom three will go on to join the top 10. Therefore, it should come as no surprise to anyone that Neptune and Derek (the only two guys in the bottom at all) get saved. Derek's rewarded for his horrid Hip Hop number by being allowed to stick around for awhile, and Neptune stays in spite of Yorelis' significantly superior performance on the night. It's not that Neptune doesn't deserve it. To me, he shouldn't have been in the bottom in the first place. It's just that if this is the week he ended up in the bottom and we were basing who to save on the performances of the episode, Yorelis is a the keeper for sure. But it's just another lackluster result from this lackluster season, so what more can we even expect?

Random Thoughts:

--Shout out to Megz’s Celebrity Man Crush question to Derek during their video package. Acknowledging our guys sexuality is important and something this show has always shied away from in the past.

--One of the things I noticed in this episode was just how undiverse the dance forms all were. In the episode to decide the top 10, every sing performance was either Jazz, Contemporary, or Hip-Hop. No ballroom, broadway, disco, or Bollywood in the entire hour? What the fuck is up with that?

--Same-Sex Speculation Space: In spite of the show's obvious lack of interest in presenting any good same-sex stories, I've decided to keep this going. This week, the guys. Imagine a routine about two guys who are best friends. One of them has a kid, the other doesn't, and the guy with a kid has recently found out that his wife has died and he's going to be left to raise their baby on his own. His friend comes over to offer his support in the matter, but the guy in a pure macho man fashion refuses to show his weakness to his buddy. In my head, I'm seeing something where one of the contestants puts on a bravado and brave face each time the two of them are facing each other, but every time his friend's back is turned, he breaks down and his true pain, fear, and despair shines through. Until the end when he clearly asks for help and allows his friend to see just how vulnerable he is. 

So You Think You Can Dance S12E10

Last year around this time, SYTYCD was shaping its Top 10 in an episode that I had nothing but glowing praise for. This year, the show isn't as good, the talent isn't as strong, and we're still one week away from finalizing the Top 10, but this was just as strong of an hour of dance as that one was. I didn't think I'd find myself in a position to say it again but this is why I watch this show. This episode served as a reminder about all the good this series has to offer the world, and if they'd been bringing it at this level for the entire season, I think I'd be lamenting the show's probable cancellation a lot more than I have been. But on the other hand, if each episode had featured such a group of stunning performances by now, maybe the effect would have warn off and this episode would have paled in comparison. I don't want to recommend mediocrity as a course of action, but I do think that the fact of the matter is that this episode sores as high as it does in some small part because of just how bad and boring the episodes before it were. The routines were also original, challenging, and well thought out in a way that they haven't been this season, and they were danced with a fire and passion we haven't seen so far, but I still think the low bar set by the earlier episodes made it easier for this episode to be so rejoiced.

This, I think, rings truer for the first paired performance of the night, Jaja and Hailee in a jazz routine. I loved it when I watched it taking place. Hailee and Jaja are easily my two favorite performers on the show so far (with Megz rounding out my own personal top three), and I've been hoping for more same-sex dancing on this season as the gulf between the girls and guys gets wider and wider. The general "Girl Power" theme of the number is so played out on the show that I wanted to gouge my eyes out when I heard it, but Hailee and Jaja bring a fun and playfulness, but also a strength and fire to it that it made the routine worth my momentary cringe. So the point is that I enjoyed the number very much and I thought it was a great way to kick off the episode, and then as things went on I totally forgot it had even existed in the face of the better routines that followed it. This isn't meant to be a mark against these two, but I wonder if they won't find themselves in the bottom next week based simply on how forgettable the number was in the grand scheme of the rest of the episode. I wouldn't be surprised if their fanbase was strong enough to vote them through, but I also wouldn't be surprised if they found themselves in danger (though still pushed through to the top 10) next week.

Part of this is because the Alexia and Neptune number that follows them is just so much fun and so great to watch. I don't know that Alexia brought out the very best Hip Hop performance we've ever seen from a Contemporary girl (in fact I know she hasn't since this routine from Lauren and tWitch still exists), but I do know that there was something phenomenal about this number. First off, Neptune brings yet another high level of chemistry to a "romantic" performance. Last week he was vibeing with Kate on a level I didn't think possible for a mismatched pair who hadn't ever danced together, and this week it's Alexia. Both performances were real and believable, but this one was also fun and intriguing. I think we've seen all kinds of relationships on this show over the years, but this has to be the first time we've seen one between two mental patients. It was genius, and cute, and so much fun, and wonderfully danced, and everything you hope a performance on this show will be. Alexia's face went through a range of expressions and emotions throughout it that I think really sold the character, and both of them just preformed it wonderfully.

After two stellar performances and news of Derek's injury, I was expecting a less than impressive Ballroom number from JJ, and then I was wrong. It would be easy to attribute the skill and effectiveness of this number on the presence of the choreographer dancing with JJ. If anyone's going to know how to dance the number, it's the person that created it. But the fact of the matter is that JJ was honestly the star in this pairing; I couldn't take my eyes off of her. I don't want to down play the amount of that which is due to his partnering in the first place. One of the things I find fascinating about a lot of ballroom numbers is the fact that the male partner is often there to simply present and be there for the female partner. He often has more to do than just lift and pose, but in a lot of these kinds of numbers the guy is meant to be an afterthought really. And that's what happened here. Who knows if the number would have been as remarkable had Derek been well enough to perform it with her. Given that his injury came while practicing the lifts, it seems like he's lacking the upper body and core strength needed to pull this routine off. But whatever the case could have been had he been in there, we know what it was without him, and it was great. If I have one complaint, it's that the sexiness of the routine seemed to come from the costuming and the choreography more so than from any actual connection between the two dancers, but that's to be expected in some ways.

Everything up until this point in the night was good, but the number of the evening was Jim and Ariana's Contemporary piece about a man's struggle with depression. I'll admit my bias here; I love the performances on this show that have a dancer embodying more of an abstract concept than an actual person. Mia Michaels' Addiction piece will forever be a standout for doing just that. So as soon as Cheeseman said the word depression I was hooked. But then Jim (towards whom I'm decidedly indifferent) and Ariana (whom I actually like but haven't committed to memory until now) danced it and it was even more brilliant than I originally expected. Nigel mentioned that Hailee and Virgil's performance from last week would be remembered from here on out, but I think this will be the number that comes out of this season and lives on in SYTYCD history as maybe one of the top three or five best things to ever come out of the show. There was a strange indifference and detachment to Ariana's performance that I loved. While Kupono's stint as Addiction was more malevolent, Ariana's Depression just kind of was. There was a matter of fact quality to it that I thought worked wonders because depression isn't malevolent, it isn't malicious, it just kind of is. And Jim's struggle to get out of it was believable. I thought at the time that he could have shown a bit more sadness in his face, but now I think it's possible that his character was maybe past any sadness and had moved on to just a sheer force of will to break out. And if that's the case, I think it worked. Either way, I loved this from start to finish and I'll be shocked if either of them find themselves in the bottom next week.

I could go number by number like this, but the fact is that the rest of the episode ran apace of what came before. Virgil and Gaby had a really fun and cute broadway number that had me grinning and laughing out loud for a lot of it. And Marissa and Yorelis' hip hop number was good, though not great. The lowest point of the night came from Asaf and Kate's number, but that was no surprise. To his credit, Asaf was better than he was in that horrendous waste of time last week, but he still showed why he shouldn't have been kept around. The best moment was during the video package when Kate confirmed what I said last week: his being her partner made her fearful of her own safety. It's an eye opening moment of honesty. She cries because on the one hand she wants to help him get better and carry him through the performance, but on the other hand she can't really relax into any of the lifts because she's constantly scared he'll drop her. These contestants put their bodies, careers, and lives in one another's hands each week, and to keep someone around who isn't up to the task of taking care of his partner is negligent. And the judges' thin and pathetic justifications for keeping him felt like a slap in the face of everything this show has stood for over the last 12 seasons. This wasn't a case of America simply failing to see the greatness within a dancer (like Billy Bell for example) and constantly letting him fall into the bottom for the judges to save him and try to impress upon everyone how great he really is. It was simply about them pushing their own agenda in hopes of getting the best story. But it's over now, America put him in the bottom again and the judges did what they should have done last week and sent him home.

But instead of ending on that sour note, I think it's worth mentioning the other standout performance of the night. I was hard on the judges for keeping Edson instead of Moises last week, but given his performance with Megz this week, I think it's clear that they made the right choice. I don't think Moises had the strength to pull of that number as well as Edson did, so this was a situation of a more optimal pairing. Plus this new choreographer, Talia, is really quite wonderful. It's another number where a dancer embodies something abstract instead of a character, this time with Edson performing as Temptation and Megz as the tempted party, and it's just brilliant. The stuff with the shirts, and the hiding, and the lifts, and the eventual acceptance at the end, it was all wonderful. A great end to the best string of performances the season has seen.

The group numbers were fun too, but I'm starting to think they've run their course. Marissa goes home from team stage which will at least stop the bleeding of male contestants for awhile. During the team stage group number, I had a moment of shock when I thought Edson and Jim were the last two guys on the team altogether before I remembered that Derek was just hurt for the week. The girls are clearly better, I've said it a number of times by now, and I can't help but to wonder if we aren't in for an all female top six or five. After all, the street team is officially down to just Virgil and Neptune for the guys. But whatever the ultimate gender breakdown of the show when we reach the end, if they keep having episodes like this one, I can at least say it'll be worth the ride to find out.

Randoms:

--Same-Sex Speculation Space: given the continued shift towards an all girl group by the last few weeks of the show, and also given my continued urging for the show to embrace same-sex pairings for their dances, I've decided to create a space where I can posit stories for same-sex numbers in the future which have nothing to do with romance since I think the show tends to shy away from these pairings because they don't want the romantic implications. Let's start with the girls: imagine a number, maybe a Broadway or a Jazz number, about an older dancer who's time is running out and a young girl who reminds her a lot of herself at that age. The young girl is all sex appeal and easy talent which makes her not want to put in the hard work to be as great as she could be, and instead of being jealous and catty about it, the older woman tries to take the young girl under her wing and inspire her to be the great dancer she's meant to be. Nothing romantic about it, and not the typical "women fighting and being jealous" storyline we're used to seeing. But also not the general "girl power" rubber stamp the choreographers tend to roll out in these situations. You're welcome, SYTYCD, I'll let you have that one for free.

--My mention of Virgil and Gaby's performance was brief, but I really have to say that I was laughing for a couple minutes when they pulled out those glasses. Those two have personality for days and it's so worth it.

--I complained last week about how the lack of pairs stops us from having the "learn more about this dancer" segments that the show usually has, and then they rolled out the "one thing America doesn't know about me" segment this week. Kudoes to Kate (almost kidnapped? wtf?!), Virgil (awesome Jazz band), and Derek (cute adoption story) for actually picking interesting and worthwhile facts. Everyone else either bored me to tears or at least were pretty simple and straight forward as if they hadn't put any real thought into it.

--I think one part of why this episode's performances were so much better was that the choreographers finally took off the kid gloves and started putting the contestants through their paces with these routines. It looked like there were a few lifts in the video package for Asaf and Kate that were edited out of the final number, but that doesn't seem like it's for lack of trying on Cheeseman's part to get them in there in the first place.

--I really liked Nigel's Nigel’s point about Yorelis looking like she hasn’t been choreographed but just feels the music and lets it move through her. She's not my favorite, but she's certainly got that particular quality, and I never could have found the words for it without Nigel pointing it out.

--What're the chances Burim could have danced with Kate in that number better than Asaf did? I know it's not a strict one-to-one trade off since the pairs aren't set. If Burim had stayed, he could have just as easily been with Gaby instead of Kate this week. but since he was gotten rid of instead of Asaf, I just felt the need to compare the two, and I can't help but to think he would have turned out a better performance to show why he deserved to be kept around than Asaf did.

--Is it just me or is Derulo actually getting more helpful and more palatable as the show goes on?

So You Think You Can Dance S12E8 & 9

An odd thing about reality tv in general is how dependent on outside forces it is to be "good." The participants have to be interesting, and in the case of SYTYCD also talented, you have to be able to form an attachment to any number of them, and then the "right" people have to be sent home each week to allow the drama to remain compelling and to leave the viewers feeling vindicated that the "right" person has won by whatever metrics such a thing is being judged. After so many episodes this season, I'm shocked by just how many ways this show is failing in those areas.

First off the good, because there is still good. Virgil and Hailee's number that closed the competition routines last night. It's the best thing that's happened this season. My jaw was on the floor, I cheered throughout it all, and couldn't help but to be amazed. Both of them danced it wonderfully, and I have to agree with Travis' point that Hailee was the best person from his team for this number. The two of them together were the perfect duo for the routine and they worked hard to start to distance themselves from the competition.

The number before it staring Neptune and Kate was equally impressive on the other end of the spectrum. The judges can wax poetic about the dancers dancing out of their styles each performance all they like. The fact of the matter is that that's always been the bread and butter of this show. So while it's impressive that Hailee was capable of dancing Hip Hop so well and that Neptune delivered on contemporary as well as he did, it's no more impressive than the many cross-style performances that came over the 10 years before it. But that's not to diminish the number itself which was just brilliant. Neptune and Kate had a chemistry that we haven't seen thus far in the competition because no one's danced together enough to build it. That they can just fall into a new performance and sell the emotion on such an astounding level is to be commended. That's not even mentioning how skillfully it was danced. Kate's skill level and training brought a crispness to her movement that Neptune lacked, and that was all for the betterment of the piece. I got the impression watching them that they were really two different people from two different worlds, but that they honestly loved each other and the entirety of their relationship made sense. Sometimes when two contemporary dancers get together in a routine like this one, their combined skill level leaves it feeling a bit homogenized and like they're both just two halves of the same performer. But there's something about the difference in the quality of Neptune and Kate's movement that really added an extra layer to the story that deeply resonated with me.

Sadly, I think that's where the good ends thus far. The first episode with everyone dancing outside of their comfort zones wasn't as bad as I expected, or as bad as this episode for that matter, but it hasn't been on par with where we're used to seeing this show at a comparable point in previous seasons. The bulk of the dancers, and that's on both teams, simply aren't as good as they usually are. The Stage dancers seem to be low on personality and performance ability. It feels almost as though the 10 of them that made up the top 20 were chosen specifically for that purpose. Whereas the Street team has personality in spades and very little technique and skill. This was expected from the moment the theme of this season was announced, but the failings on the Stage team are more surprising. I think it was orchestrated this way simply because if you took the best Street dancers you could find and pitted them against the best Stage dancers in this show's history, they'd be slaughtered. So conceits were made on both sides to try and keep things leveled. The results are just bad performances that can't solely be blamed on the less trained Street competitors.

Darion going home last week after his technically interesting but ultimately bloodless Ballet number with Jim and his seriously lagging number with Hailee and Yorelis was evidence of this. Here's a classically trained Ballet dancer with all the technique in the world. And we've seen Ballet dancers on this show go far when they let their personality and performance level fly. But Darion didn't have that second level. In fact, he was so lacking in being able to bring out any emotion that I was left wondering if he'd have been on the show without the need to keep the Stage team down closer to the Street team's level to create a fairer competition.

"Would they be here if it were just a regular season?" was a question I expected to be asking of the Street dancers, but not of the Stage dancers. But that's not to say that it isn't fair to ask of the Street team too. In the cases of Burim and Asaf, the answer is clear: No they wouldn't be. Asaf at least shouldn't even be on this season seeing as how the judges cut him only to bring him back to fill in for a last minute injury. Burim at least has a leg up on Asaf in his skill and his ability to pick up choreography, but he's not at the level of some of the better B-Boys we've seen in the past (Hok and Legacy come to mind), so while I think he might have been a good choice for this year, I still ask if he would have made the cut in seasons previously. And yet for all of that, the judges decide to keep Asaf and to lose Burim this week? Over the years, I've seen some really confusing choices be made on this show, but one of the things that generally kept me watching was that those choices were usually made by the voters and then rectified by the judges. The judges' ability to decide who from the bottom three vote getters would be going home until the top 10 was formed was one of the things that always set this show above others. And while they haven't always been perfect, they've at least often made their decision with a level of understand-ability. Not this time. And the lack of explanation on their part doesn't help to make this seem like a reasonable choice either.

How can anyone justify keeping Asaf after he turns in what can only be described as the worst performance of the night. The Cha-Cha routine he was given was even streamlined and simplified for him and he still managed to make it slow and boring and lifeless. The fact is Asaf isn't a strong enough dancer for this competition, and instead of admitting that and sending him on his way, the judges subject us to him for at least another week. The choreographers don't know what to do with him during group numbers, which is why he's always in the back or off to the side and never focused on from the cameras. And he's hurting his partners each week by not allowing them to let lose and just dance for fear that he might not be there to catch them when needed. Keeping him around at this point is both boring and dangerous, and yet he stays because he tries really hard and the judges like the idea of seeing his overall arch when everything is said and done. This isn't a competition to find the best sob story or the most improved dancer, it's about finding the best, or at least America's favorite, dancer, and the judges just undercut that in a big way.

Oddly enough this is also reflected in their decision to cut Moises instead of Edson. Neither of them danced particularly well this night, but Moises proved last week, at least to me, that he's got more performance ability than I expected. He's maybe the most technically sound Stage boy left in the competition, but the way he was capable of bringing out a strength and masculinity that I didn't think he had last week won me over on his performance ability. Conversely, Edson hasn't. In his number this week, I didn't buy for a second that he wanted either of the two girls he was dancing with, and since his character was at the center of a love triangle with them, that was important. But after a lackluster Bollywood routine last week and an unbelievable performance this week, he somehow manages to stick around while Moises is sent packing. It's two bad decisions in one night from the judges and it leaves me thinking that they're more interested in keeping up with their theme than they are in presenting the stellar level of dance we're used to seeing from the show.

It all boils back down to what I said in my very first review of the season; the show is trying to change fundamental aspects of itself, and in doing so it's losing its identity and not picking up a better one to replace it. The Stage v Street concept isn't without it's strengths. The group numbers that have been closing the night have been consistently stellar in my opinion. And their willingness to get rid of contestants without considering gender opens the door for more same-sex pairings. Granted it's a door they don't seem at all interested in walking through as each episode has seen groups of three and four dancing instead of the traditional duos (which has also been the show's loss). But we've still reached a point where there are five girls and three guys on each team. And that's understandable since the girls are so much better this year than the boys. But instead of just having that happen, they need to capitalize on it and do something with those dynamics. What this show doesn't need are more crowded and convoluted routines like Stacey Tookey's number for Derek, Jaja, and Alexia. That didn't make sense and wasn't very interesting to watch.

These routines also speak to the other thing the show has lost: the strong storylines born from the chemistry (or lack of same) of the early pairings of dancers. Being paired together gave the dancers incentive to do their best to help their partner as well as themselves, and it gave us those cute but silly video packages where the dancers would tell us something special about their partners. Instead we're left with very little idea of who the contestants are, and therefore left without much of an ability to latch on to anyone to really root for. Beyond Virgil and Jaja, I couldn't tell you who the Street performers are. Same goes for the Stage team now that Moises is gone. I know Hailee's name after her number last night, but prior to that I wouldn't have recalled her.

So if we know next to nothing about the contestants, and the people who were allowed into the season aren't that talented, and the wrong people are being sent home week after week, then what does this season of SYTYCD have going for it? Nigel remarked at the end of Virgil and Hailee's performance that when this show turns 20, it would be a performance they'd still be talking about. The hard truth is that this show probably won't make it past its 10th birthday, never mind its 20th, and as I watch each episode thinking these are the last we'll ever see, I'm left wondering how we're going to remember the show. They made it a point to look back over the first 10 years during that one hour long special last week, but this season isn't the capper to that remarkable journey, it's just the last death rattle of the end.

Randoms:

--Speaking of the one hour special from last week, how much of a hot mess was that? I don't want to throw it under the bus too bad, but one hour wasn't enough, the current contestants dancing solos wasn't needed at all, and the constant toss ups to Ryan Seacrest about his new show were pointless and took up way too much time. It left something that should have been a wall to wall celebration of what came before feeling empty and rushed. And I also had a problem with Paula and Jason getting to pick performances to see again. They've been there for all of two days and they get a vote? If there was ever a time to bring back Mary Murphy and Mia Michaels, and Lil C, and Debbie Allen, and all the people who've made this show what it is today, this was it. The producers and Fox could have done better; this show deserved better.

--Last week, Nigel had a lot of glowing things to say about Jaja and Jim's performance and about how remarkable it was to see a Ballet dancers and a Hip Hop dancer together making a great performance. He went on and on about it as if this was the sole doing of the Street v Stage conceit, and the entire time I kept thinking "But that's what the Alex Wong and tWitch performance was, and it was a million times better than whatever we just watched." But he didn't even make mention of that piece of history. And then the very next night we get to see that performance again and I felt validated.

--The twitter save thing is another interesting change to the format that I want to like but I'm not sure I think it's being used to the best of its ability. I guess restricting the tweeting to the last 5 minutes makes a level of sense, but I think allowing people to do it throughout the show would encourage live tweeting of the episodes and get the word out even more about the show on social media. But in order to do that effectively, they'd probably have to reveal who the bottom 6 were at the top of the hour, and we already know that that doesn't really work, so I don't know. Either way, it feels to me like a good idea that just needs a little more refining.

--Pharside and Phoenix have been wonderful additions to the ranks of SYTYCD choreographers. I've enjoyed just about every routine they've made over the last couple seasons, and they're winning streak continues into this week.

--I can't express how upset I am over Burim going home. Not that I think he's top 10 material or anything, but that they had the prime excuse to just get rid of Asaf and they didn't take it bugs the shit out of me. Plus, I'll miss his beautiful blue eyes and cute little accent.

So You Think You Can Dance S12E7

I've long believed that if you don't enjoy a story, whether it be a book or TV show, you should give up on it. Life's too short to waste it reading books you don't enjoy or watching season after season of a TV show you're no longer into. Starting a new series is not the equivalent of a marriage. There are no vows, no promises, not even really lofty notions about eternity. It's more of a simple handshake deal. You sit down and you say, "I'm going to give you so much of my time, and in return you're going to entertain me to whatever level I feel I require to be entertained. If you fall short of that task, then I'm leaving you for another form of entertainment and you can't complain; if you wanted me to stick around, you should have been better." It's an odd one way street whereby you don't owe a show anything, but that show owes it to you to be entertaining and to contort itself into whatever odd shape your desires dictate in the moment. But with that being said, I'm only human and I come with my own set of loyalties. So when So You Think You Can Dance announced a set of changes that I felt sure would ruin the show, instead of giving up on it on the spot I decided to give it another go. A show that's built up some capital with me by being good in the past will inevitably last longer and get a stay of execution or two before I give up on it all together. I watched two of the audition episodes this year before I decided to give up on that and check in when the competition started in earnest, and then I decided that I'd give the season a fair shake of about two or three episodes before I decided for sure if I'm going to stick out this 12th and probably final season. After the Top 20 Showcase episode, I'm still on the fence, but not for the reasons I expected to be.

As I mentioned last year, the Top 20 episode is one of my favorites. In the past, when Fox had more faith in the show and give them more time to do their thing, it was an episode that served to simply show off what the contestants could do. Freed from the requirement of dancing for America's votes and from the constraints of having to dance outside of their given styles, the contestants skilled and lucky enough to make it to the Top 20 were allowed to just let loose to some great choreography that was often more about the beauty and the joy of dance than anything else. Now that the showcase has been integrated into the competition, I like it a little bit less, but I still respect the place it holds. This year it's still a solid showcase of strong dancers dancing well, but it's not quiet up to the level of previous years for a very simple reason: The choreography is lazy and uninspired.

When I found out that everyone in Vegas would only be dancing within their own styles, or more specifically that the "Street" dancers would only be dancing in Hip Hop styles and the "Stage" dancers would be dancing in all the different styles, I decided not to watch the auditions. As a result, I walked into this episode not knowing anything about any of the contestants except for Jaja who I loved last year and therefore is my early favorite, and I fully expected the Street dancers to enter this stage of the competition at a distinct disadvantage. In the past, the Vegas round was the most difficult aspect of the audition because it was supposed to prepare the dancers what what they'd be facing in the weeks to come. Here it was lightened in order to coddle them towards instead of away from success. Simply put, if the Street dancers had to dance Ballroom at these early stages, they would have been eliminated in large numbers leaving us without a team of ten in the top 20. So my expectation was that they'd reach this point without an ability to even perform choreography and then get tossed into the deep end against contestants who can do whatever is asked of them. On the one hand, that's not the case as the Street dancers clearly have the better set of performances on the night and take an early lead in the competition. But on the other hand, were any of them actually really challenged and pushed hard enough, or critiqued firmly enough by the judges, to make a fair accounting?

There are a few places were I think the routines lived up to this stage of the competition. The first of which is Brian Friedman's routine for Alexia, Hailee, and Marissa. It's a type of routine that I don't generally care for: sexy girls being sexy for sexiness' sake, but he choreographs it is killer high heels and has them doing a lot of moves in those shoes that should have broken their ankles. To their credit, the girls move around in those shoes well, I only noticed one point when someone looked like she was about to fall, but she caught herself just in time. But the problem here is really that the routine is sexy, the costuming is sexy, the shoes are sexy, and then on top of that the girls decided to pull overtly sexy faces too. It's one thing too much and the judges are quick to tell them to dial it back and not try too hard to be sexy when you've got so many elements making you sexy already. In spite of that one aspect to the execution, I thought the choreography was suitably strong for dancers good enough to make it to the top 20.

Likewise, Darion and Jim's Ballet routine featured a high level of difficulty. They weren't quite as in sync as they should have been, and they noticeably missed the connection on their first lift, but given how difficult the entire routine was, I'm willing to give them a bit of a pass. I didn't think it deserved the standing-O the judges gave it, but it was nice nevertheless. The two group numbers that closed out the night were also impressive and featured a high level from the choreographers. Team Street going last was exactly the right call as they blew the roof off the building and solidified their round one victory.

Everything other than those four performances, however, left something to be desired. It felt like the choreographers were going easy on the contestants in an effort to ease them into the competition, but the result was uninspiring and uninteresting numbers. Even Travis Wall's number was surprisingly lackluster, and that's from someone that I've praised again and again as a genius and the best thing to ever come out of this show. This week his story was simple and overdone, and the movements either didn't suit the story or weren't executed well enough by Edson and Kate to convey the story. It's a strange misstep in what otherwise should have been a home run.

To make matters worse, the judges overpraise the Street dancers at every turn while giving (understandably) harsh critiques to the Stage dancers. The other standing-O of the night came at the end of Chris Scott's number for Jaja, Lily, Asaf, and Burim, and that was horrible. Or maybe horrible is a bit strong, but it certainly wasn't anything to leave your seat over. Scott starts the video package by saying he doesn't really have much of a plan beyond wanting to showcase what each of the dancers is good at. Which......ok? I think I've made this analogy before and if I have, bear with me, but there's something that happens when a coach makes a guts call in sports: if it works, he's a genius, if it fails, people will be calling for him to be fired. There's something purely results based in sports that renders individual decisions incapable of being judged on their merits alone; it's all about if it worked or not. Chris Scott's decision to not come up with any kind of story or put forth any distinct choreography didn't work. And then the routine was filmed in a manner that left each individual dancer on stage as pretty much the only person in the frame while they were dancing. So if there were moments of synchronicity or of two people dancing against each other at the same time, we didn't really get to see them. The moves the dancers executed were nice, but there was no sense of great scale or purpose to it all, just four people on stage doing their own solos, and that's not what this show is about.

Compared to the Pharside and Phoenix routine for Virgil, Yorelis, and Ariana about a man trying to get into the pearly gates and being courted by one angel and one devil, the Chris Scott routine looks like amateur hour. Granted even this routine wasn't my favorite. I didn't find the difficulty level to be too high, though it was still higher than a lot of the other routines of the night, and there certainly weren't enough tricks or lifts in it to keep my attention for long. But it at least had purpose and showed that the choreographers were thinking about what story they wanted to tell and how they could both challenge the dancers to step outside of themselves while still showing off their talents. After a string of solid numbers last year, Pharside and Phoenix are really stepping up as a choreography duo that can stand toe to toe with NappyTabs, and that's a good thing.

This first episode of the competition wasn't enough to measure the show by. The real test will come next week when the dancers are paired up and forced to dance outside of their given styles. But even through the first hour some of the problems are still seeping through. Jason Derulo has yet another performance in this episode. It's not the first of the season and I'm willing to bet it won't be the last, and I'm already seriously beyond bored with him. His critiques have at least gotten better, and he was the only judge to fairly criticize the first routine of the night, so I'll give him that much. The new format has the dancers running off stage into the loving arms of their respective mentors after each tongue lashing from the judges, and then we cut to their very brief (seriously I think it was like three seconds) conversation with their mentor as they respond to what the judges said and he rushes through some kind of advice. Listen, I love tWitch and Travis Wall, but this is horribly fucking pointless. In order for this to work out, they need to better justify these two being such a big factor in the show. Travis choreographs one of his team's performances, but tWitch doesn't, and the advice we see them giving throughout the episode amounts to nothing. I'm hoping that we discover next week that the two of them have a hand in deciding the pairs and maybe even choosing dance styles for those pairs in the weeks to come. If they have insight into what these kids will be good at, I'd like to see them use it to make the show better and also to challenge the contestants to do better. But I'm not optimistic. In the mean time, it just looks like their going to be sticking around to wait in the wings and to pretend to be important. Much like So You Think You Can Dance's 12th season is shaping up to do if things don't change.

Random Thoughts:

--Asaf is the only dancer who seems to be too far out of his depths during this stage of the competition. And since he's only in the top 20 to fill out a spot vacated by a dancers who was injured in the last minute, I guess that's to be expected. I must say I found it pleasantly surprisings that he was the only dancer out there seemingly incapable, or maybe just unwilling, to pick up choreography.

--Megz is another early favorite of mine. She's beautiful and very expressive in her performance. She and Jaja are two reasons the female Street dancers are being so heavily praised this season, but it's not praise that's misplaced at all. From what I can see, the girls on the street team are much better than everyone else at this stage of the competition. It still remains to be seen how they'll do in other styles, but I'm hoping they stick around for awhile.

--Is it just me or are the Stage team boys really really gay this year? It just seemed like each time any one of them opened their mouths, a purse fell out. It's not a judgement, simply an observation. In the past, it's seemed like even a lot of the gay contestants (Travis and Benji both come to mind) were at least passable enough that you might not have known they were gay unless you were paying attention. This year....not so much.

--This year is also short on dreamy boys. No cute and derpy Kent Boyd, no one with the more adult sex appeal of Dmitry Chaplin, and certainly no one as adorable and bear cub-ish as Will Thomas. No one stood out to me this year and that's odd for this show. Who will the young girls who make up so much of the voting viewership of this show vote for?