Gonna do this q & a style, as if I’m some kinda scholar/celebrity (haha):
Q: First things first, did Russell deserve the win?
A: I lean towards no. Although I LUV me a lil’ Russell (see above), he had the worst season of duets for any winner in the history of the show. How many “classic” duets did he have? By “classic,” I mean ones that will be rewatched on Youtube, linked, and/or tweeted for years to come. Russell had only one: the Transformers dance; sorry, the “Frog Dance” doesn’t even make my top 10 (see below).
If you go back to Jeanine, she had at least two classics: Travis Wall’s karate chop and NappyTabs’ last true lyrical. If you go back to the days when the winner of the show DOMINATED with classics, you’ll get Joshua’s incredible list:
- Lyrical Hip-Hop w/ Katee & NappyTabs
- Samba w/ Katee & His Big Butt
- Contemporary w/ Katee & Mia (holy crap)
- 1st Bollywood on SYTYCD w/ Katee
- Argentine Tango w/ Chelsie & Emmy
- Lyrical Jazz w/ Katee & Wade
- Russian Folk w/ Twitch
AND I’m being conservative here. There may be more classics. Of course, this leads to the argument that season 4 was simply more damn special, and yes, I admit it was (my personal fave). BUT, I’ll go as far as saying Russell didn’t even have the best season of duets IN HIS OWN SEASON, as you can read in my top 10 of season 6. That award goes to (and should’ve gone to) Kathryn or Jakob.
Q: So, what are your top 10 dances of this season?
A: Here we go:
- Ellenore & Jakob – Contemporary – “Tore My Heart,” OONA – Sonya – “Sonya’s Emmy” (see above)
- Kathryn & Russell – Hip-Hop – “I Can Transform Ya,” Chris Brown – NappyTabs – “NappyTabs’ Season of Redemption”
- Kathryn & Jakob – Contemporary – “At This Moment,” Michael Buble – “Contemporary Personified”
- Ellenore & Legacy – Contemporary – “Machine Gun,” Portishead – Travis – “Travis Officially Replaces Mia”
- Kathryn & Legacy – Contemporary – “2 Steps Away,” Patti LaBelle – “Addiction II”
- Kathryn & Legacy – Hip-Hop – “On & On,” Missy – “Kathryn, One Helluva Actress”
- Kathryn & Legacy – Jazz – “So Deep,” Hot Chip – Sonya - “Classic Sonya”
- Ashleigh & Jakob – Lyrical Jazz – “Time Flies,” Lykke Li – Sonya – “The Year of the Sonya”
- Ashleigh & Jakob – Hip-Hop – “Whatcha Say,” Jason Derulo – NappyTabs – “Ashleigh Does a Tabitha Impression”
- Kathryn & Nathan – Broadway – “Choreography,” Danny Kane – “Hmm, Kathryn’s Actually Pretty”
So, if you do the count, that’s 6 for Kathryn, 4 for Jakob, 4 for Legacy, 2 for Ellenore, 2 for Ashleigh, 1 for CHAMPION Russell. And my list is completely hip-hop/contemporary-biased, the only two genres Russell can do extremely well. Absolutely ridiculous that he won.
Q: But according to your wife, you voted for Russell. She said, and I quote, “After Transformers ended the finale, Loren started giggling and voting for Russell like a 13 year-old girl, and got mad after getting busy tones.” How do you respond to that?
A: Alright, I confess. Like the rest of (teenage) America, I fell hard for the (my) hip-hop bias. America is still in a luv affair w/ black music. In other words, there are not entire movies based on samba rolls, and there is no foxtrot mogul equivalent to Jay-Z (though it would be funny if there was).
After Russell’s win, I’m thoroughly convinced that if any true hip-hop dancer (i.e., not Kevin) does a decent job on his cross-genre duets (i.e., not Phillip), he will win. A hip-hop solo just gets the girls (and grown ass married men) shrilling more than any contemporary solo by the likes of limber Jakob and cutesy wutsey Kathryn (see above). And the allusion of a hip-hopper defying expectations when he survives a waltz is still greater than that of a contemporary artist when he bashes out hip-hop. Was it just me, or were the “Russell, you’ve grown so much” comments growing tiresome? How come Jakob didn’t get any of those for nailing NappyTabs?
“Russell’s kinda like Joshua in season 4,” said JY. At first, this got me kinda mad ’cause I have Joshua on an Obama-like pedestal. He’s the one that brought me to the dark side of mainstream reality TV. I even pulled out the RACE CARD on my “beloved” wife. But after a careful dissection of Joshua’s classics to debate JY, I realized that for all of them, Joshua relied on his sick ass partners. For each and every one of the dances (including hip-hop), you can’t really say that Joshua is the better dancer. In fact, KATEE SHOULD’VE WON SEASON 4. But like fellow technician Jakob, Katee fell to the krumptastic solos and the intriguing charm-swagger mix. Both Joshua and Russell could cry cute tears one minute (“I … I hurt my leg *sniff”), and then yell at you w/ total street aggression the next (“I like to give a shout out to my crew, my girl, and God!”). It’s a potent cocktail that can lead to SYTYCD glory each and every season. And of course, Katee and Jakob “didn’t grow as much.”
Q: Do you think there will ever be an exception to the “Hip-Hop Bias” on SYTYCD?
A: Unlike the rest of the blogsphere, I don’t think a male technician like Jakob or the return of Billy Bell could bring down the “Hip-Hop Bias.” The allusion that they don’t grow as much ’cause of their Juilliard-like training is too much.
It’s gonna take the female ”Good Personality Bias.” Or the “You-Were-Ok-in-That-Cha-Cha-But-What-a-Cute-Personality-You-Showed” Bias. Or the “Jeanine Bias” ’cause that’s how Jeanine won. Was she a better dancer than Brandon or Kayla? Heck no. But while Jeanine was cracking solid jokes, Brandon was too busy being insecure, Kayla networking w/ Tyce.
Perhaps next season we’ll get the Battle of the Biases, the battle between the Russell’s and Jeanine’s of America. This season, Mollee was a tad too young, and Ellenore a tad too old (and obviously weird). Teeny bop gals wanna be like Jeanine, they are Mollee, and Ellenore is like their single, hippie aunt. Sidenote: Kathryn’s drama queen personality cost her. She was this absolute vixen/perfectionist/killer on the dance floor, but when she opened her mouth, it was Niagra. She should consider 3rd a victory, but it looked like she expected more based on her resounding finale. Just go network w/ Tyce, Kathryn. Go. And bring 5 boxes of tissues.
Q: So, with the flawed victor and the other critiques of season 6, do you think this season was a failure?
A. Absolutely not. Here’s some of the reasons why folks think season 6 was a failure (from buddytv.com), and why I think everything’s still a-ok:
- Shortened Season, Extended Auditions. I think a tight, short season of good choreo is better than a longer one of mixed results. As far as I can tell, the choreographers were saving their good stuff for the end anyways. Plus, like an argument for not extending the NFL season, didn’t the dancers in the finale look damn tired to you?
- Judge Choice Eliminations. I’d agree with this if they got any wrong, but they were pretty dead on this season. Meanwhile, my trust for the American public is still reeling after Evan.
- No Mia Michaels. Yes, her choreo was sorely missed, but some of her wtf statements were not (e.g., “I hate you, Brandon.”).
- No Guest Judges. No argument here; I missed “snapalicious” Tyce the most. They’ll bring them back next summer.
- The Season of 10,000 Tears. I thought the tears (and overall cheese) were truly entertaining, especially Ryan and Ashleigh’s for each other, and Nathan’s for his jetskiing parents. Yes, can’t say much about their dancing, but their unintentional comedy added a lot to the fun of this season.
- Injuries Galore! I may be wrong here, but I kinda believe the blogsphere’s theories that Russell’s lack of training caused most of them. I mean, Noelle, Ashleigh, and himself? Coincidence? I think not! Another reason why Russell is the worst champion in SYTYCD history.
- Lackluster Choreography. Yes, it was worse overall, but it doesn’t make the show a failure. Even the lackluster is entertaining as hell to mock and better than Law & Order reruns. Some of the new choreographers were slowly getting better, and I believe it’s more exciting to discover the next NappyTabs than to see them run out of ideas (which they did at times).
- The Gigantic Neon Dancer-Swallowing Disaster of a New Stage. I’m a sucker for hi-tech stages and cameras, so no complaints here. And it’s interesting how Korea’s been sporting these kinda stages since the late ’90’s (w/ LCD’s on ALL sides), and America treats it like such a new, revolutionary thing. I say, well done, SYTYCD, finally!
- Top 6 Finale. An Hour Long Performance Finale. Have to concede these. These were absolutely ridiculous. No pageantry; no more final chances for Jakob to defeat the “Hip-Hop Bias” via videos; no understanding of the meaning behind Sonya’s last piece! And what kills me is for what reason? Obama? Yankees-Phillies? NO! GORDON “ANGRY FOR NO REASON” RAMSEY. Cooking show 1 outta 1 million. They couldn’t move him to next week? Or Friday? What happened here, Nigel? Please provide us one of your explanation tweets. Thank you.
Bottom line: besides the lesser finale, it was still a solid season of SYTYCD. Still had goosebump moments, still had an impressive final 4, and still had unintentional comedy all-stars (e.g., Team Di Lello, Team Teeny Bop, Team Tappers). Every hiccup this fall will be corrected next summer, when we get the kids w/o school in the Kodak, the abundant air time, and the ultimate battle between Hip-Hopper v. Funny Girl in season 7!
