SYTYCD: The Guest Chroniclers Strike Again

Hello, SYTYCD fans! It’s Kate and Melissa again, making our once-a-season appearance on the Chronicles while Marge is away. We are proud to announce that, though you won’t have the incomparable Marge in your Google Reader tomorrow morning, at least you’ll have something! And speaking of filling in, after the past few weeks, we were all ready to call up Fox and volunteer as guest judges. After all, we may not be famous, but (a) we aren’t afraid to offer constructive criticism, (b) we don’t have annoying catch-phrases like SHUT THE FRONT DOOR!!! and (c) we are virtually* guaranteed not to smooch any of our fellow judges (*unless one of our fellow judges happened to be Daniel Craig, in which case we might not be able to help ourselves, and yes we know he’s recently married but we can’t talk about that without getting emotional so for heaven’s sake let’s change the subject). Ahem. Anyway….this week, the guest judge was Jesse Tyler Ferguson of Modern Family, who actually did a fine job. He was funny, and he recognized that Cat is the best ever reality show host, and we completely agree! We love her even when she’s shiny and orange and wearing a dress that makes her look like an ostrich from the waist down!

As for the dancing, we felt a bit meh about this one. Each couple danced twice (which we suspect is why Marge chose this week to head out of town…QUITE the coincidence there, we think), so we’ve lumped both dances together for each couple below.

Sasha and Alexander were up first in a paso doble by Tony and Melanie. This dance was envisioned as a battle, and Sasha was definitely up for the challenge: it really showcased her powerful style (and kind of made Alexander look like a marshmallow). We liked the girl-power, women-can-do-anything message (that’s right, we don’t HAVE to be the cape anymore, ladies!), but when it comes right down to it, skirt-swishing is just part of the paso doble, so the absence of a skirt was somewhat jarring. But overall good and the judges liked it too.

Their next dance was a jazz routine by Tyce on the theme of “that’s life.” Sasha and Alexander felt that this dance showed who they are as people, so we all now know that Sasha is a person who would trip over her own feet and then blame it on an innocent lamppost (and yes, we have Tivo, so we can say for certain that the lamppost was nowhere near the scene of that stumble). Again, this was not a bad dance, and for once Alexander was able to outshine Sasha, which we’re sure felt good.

Jordan and Tadd had a Travis Wall contemporary piece, in which Jordan played a black vulture beast who takes advantage of weak men. Your reviewers have different opinions on this routine, but we both agree that it wasn’t up to Travis’s usual standards and that Jordan’s costume reminded us both of Natalie Portman in Black Swan, and we hope we don’t have cuticle-related nightmares tonight.

We also agree that that routine was practically a masterpiece compared with Jordan and Tadd’s next dance, which was a Broadway number choreographed by Spencer Liff. This was the story of a princess who has been asleep for 100 years (although the costume department may have thought she had just been asleep for 30 years, considering her 1980s-era hair and dress), when a prince awakens her with a kiss. At first we thought that Tadd (who was wearing the skirt that should’ve been in the paso doble) was going to be playing a pompous prince who gets rejected by the princess, but apparently he got less pompous over the course of the dance, or maybe he wasn’t ever meant to be pompous in the first place. Who knows? Who cares? Moving on…

Next up were Ryan and Ricky, dancing a Broadway routine by Spencer Liff in which a beautiful girl in a movie poster comes to life. Now, we have liked Ryan since the beginning, but we’re starting to think it’s time to say goodbye. You just cannot dress like Audrey Hepburn and then clomp around like a giant galumphagus. Despite some resulting awkward moments, this was overall a pleasant little bit of Broadway fluff, but nothing memorable, and the judges weren’t enthralled either.

Ryan and Ricky also danced a cha-cha by Louie van Amstel. This was better than we expected it to be, and Ricky was actually very good. Ryan and sexy, however, seem not to go together, and this is the first time in our recollection that Mary put half of a couple on the hot tamale train and left the other half standing on the platform.

Caitlynn and Mitchell danced a Christopher Scott hiphop routine, which was inspired by the children from Uganda and the Congo who are abducted and forced to fight in wars. We hate to have to tell someone to be less ambitious, but really, Christopher: this was terrible. Whatever story he was trying to tell was completely trampled by the utter lack of synchronization. Bad, bad, bad. (So we’re starting to feel really ornery and mean-spirited here, but we’re afraid we can’t stop just yet. Hang in there, though! We’ll say something pleasant within the next few paragraphs!)

Caitlynn and Mitchell’s second dance was a Travis Wall jazz routine about a woman who finds out that her man is married. One or both of them may also be rock stars; we weren’t completely clear on that. Nor were we completely clear on the story overall…she was flirting with him, then she was pushing him away, then being flirty, we guess in a taunting sort of way? The dancing was fine, and the judges loved this, but we’ve grown to expect outstanding from Travis, so we were disappointed.

Melanie and Marko were next, dancing a Louie van Amstel tango. This was very tango-like! It had a really jaw-droppingly amazing lift/flip thing at the end! And in the interest of being pleasant, we’ll barely even mention Melanie’s unflattering dress.

And now (cue harps: ahhhhh!), we get to the nice paragraph! Melanie and Marko’s second dance was a contemporary routine by Dee Caspary, and it was really lovely. It was about a woman trying to pull a man away from the dark, or into a deeper phase of their relationship, but it doesn’t really matter what it was about. It was beautiful and evocative and simple…just two people, a lightbulb, and some great dancing.

Our final set of dancers was Clarice and Jess. Their first dance was a lyrical hiphop routine by Christopher Scott. It was about a woman who is insecure about her beauty until a man reassures her that she’s gorgeous just as she is. Maybe it was the “you go, girl” message of that first paso doble, but we found this theme slightly annoying. Why must the girl be insecure? Why must it take a man to boost her self-esteem? Why must they use such cheesy props? But all that aside, Jess really did a great job with this. We didn’t have much faith in his hiphop abilities, but he has some swagger! Good job, Jess.

And the last dance was a jive performed by Clarice and Jess and choreographed by Tony and Melanie. Her dress was lavender and big, and the judges really liked this. We were exhausted at this point, so that’s all the notes we have on this one.

Whew.

Finally, here are our predictions for bottom three couples: Ryan & Ricky, Caitlynn & Mitchell, Jordan & Tadd. And our prediction for next week is that it’s going to be loads better: the all-stars appear! And even better: Margaret will be back! It’ll be grand!

Loads of dancing love to you and yours,
Your Guest Chroniclers