Hope you are all enjoying a fine holiday weekend, wherever you might be spending it, and whoever you might be spending it with. For those of you who are IBB’s (Iinternational Blog Babes) I say you just take a holiday anyway. Join us! Why not? You can officially wear white now and everything! (Don’t ask, I don’t know where we came up with that rule. )

So, for your holiday weekend fun (or not) I thought I’d give you all a little Monday MAC (that’s Morning After Commentary for you new babes…and no, not that kind of morning after! Mind outta da gutter! Besides, I don’t kiss n tell. I just snark on reality tv contestants. Much safer and occasionally equally salacious. )

Today’s victi–er, topic? The return of that dancetastic reality show, So You Think You Can Dance.

The two hour season opener puts that “So You Think” part to a definite test. It also tests the viewer’s patience. A lot. What’s really sad? Is I do finally get to talk about sex this morning, but is it fun? No. Is it even remotely sexy? No. Because…well, you had to be there. (And thank a merciful god if you weren’t, trust me.) Just….bad images, bad images.

Maybe it’s American Idol fatigue or the general “look at the loonies” overkill becoming so pervasive in Reality TV Land , or it could just be me (….nah) but pretty much after meeting Sex (yes, a guy named Sex, who instantly made me never want to have any again, ever) and his mother!!!!! (insert Hitchcock/Janet Leigh/Bates Hotel/shower stabbing music here) I was kinda done on that part of reality television. Yep. Officially burnt out on that. They went right past dear god please make it stop, well into the TMR zone for me. Yes, that’s just Too Much actual Reality, for me, thank you very much, Nigel. I know people like this exist. I get fan mail. But lets not give them faces. Much less mothers. (!!!!!!!!!!!)

I may need counseling.

So…I’m saying now that my commentary is definitely prejudicial (because normally it so isn’t, right? I know, just go with me on this…) but I’m deciding right now to declare a strike on covering the weirdo portion of the program and just MAC about the actual, you know, dancers. I realize this leaves me with little to discuss this week, but such is the way of me staying sane.

All right..the first actual dancer I liked… Uh. Um. (clock ticking, water dripping, crickets chirping…grass growing…) Yeah, it was kind of like that. (Instead we got the Orthodox Jewish face plant dancer. OUCH! He was a trooper though! And not a bad dancer, really, cute family, but nawt roit for ah bahnd, INXS. Wait, wrong show!)

Not that there weren’t some good dancers tonight, there were. Just not many I could find myself caring about. Well, except the few I thought had some raw skillz that didn’t get put through. Because, why do that? Why make the show interesting?

Instead we had Melody v2.0 (not one, but two of them. Yes, Claire and FungusNatalie, I’m looking at you.) with the constant leg extensions. Yeah, they felt repetitive to me. And Blake v2.0 with the fauxhawk auras and serious dance skills, but…kinda yawn for me, too. And James, who we’re supposed to feel sorry for, except…wha? You’re an alcoholic because your parents didn’t let you booze it up while in high school? Did I miss something there? I feel for the guy, he’s clearly struggling and a standing O for taking charge and cleaning up…but in terms of the whole dance thing…something’s not quite there for me.

I saw a lot of kids with airplane tickets who got zero camera time. Let’s hope some of them are interesting.

Right, so there were a few kids I liked. But I saved them for last so we could end on a positive note. Favorites so far? Well, Musa Cooper. Liked him last year and respect him for taking their criticism of his lack of formal training to heart and tackling that. Hope he goes far. (Might want to do a little ego check, but enjoyed watching him…)

The pop-n-locker, Michael Kim. Ouch! But…wow! I can’t help but wonder if making your forearms actually ripple like water hurts…but it was cool to watch. I liked that he was able to translate well to other forms of dance in the choreography section and got put through. I’m thinking someone with that extreme level of muscle and body control might go far.

The tap dancer. Hasn’t a prayer in hell in this race, but boy he loves what he does, doesn’t he? And he’s good at it, too. Maybe he’ll pleasantly surprise us all. Nice fresh face on him doesn’t hurt. Geeks rule.

And, two hours…that’s all I got. Three kids. (Yeah, yeah, the Russian Hamster couple was kinda cute — didn’t watch? don’t ask — but I’m not fully on board with them yet.) You have to do better than that, Nigel!! I’m tempted to wait until they have their actual final talent rounded up, but I’m too much of a sucker for that. Besides, it was nice seeing some of last year’s contestants in the opening sequence. Hi Artem! Hi Alan!

Oh yeah…and the new Brit hostess? BIG improvement over Lauren Sanchez. Not that this would be a majorly tough thing to achieve, but I’m such an anglophile anyway, I’m even easier with their choice. Like her. Two thumbs up. Now bring us some dancers, dangit!

Happy Holiday, all!

Tags: Writing //