good grief. One has to ask, why did they cast the two eliminated tonight if they were going to kick them out so quickly?

I don't disagree with the male boot, after I saw the final two, I know whose goose was cooked. The women? Damn. I would have booted the "hair flinging nightmare."

I loved the Stacy Tookey number--it was great choreo and a great song. But Kathryn actually could've used some more facial expression. I was enjoying it a lot, but by the end couldn't help wondering what it would look like with some other previous contestants.

And I loved the Kevin/Karen number--much fun for her. (I so shouldn't be in here being spoiled yet, but....Kat, aren't you on West Coast? Are you getting this ahead of time somehow??)

Man, there really aren't THAT many African Americans in the show this year. :-)

Hah! I'd be all for it, LeN, if it mean more pretty boys to drool over, and fewer annoying blonde hair fling-y girls for Nigel to be drooling over!! Sadly, it was just my cable box misbehaving while I was out of town. Hrmph.

Well, I had a nice long post ready to go when my keyboard disagreed with me and blew it all up. Anyway, I was just going to agree with Kat on just about everything--loved Peter in the Wade piece, loving Kathryn so far, will miss Phillip's pretty face but he just always looked like a Broadway tapper and couldn't get his upper body movement past that, like Legacy so far but am waiting to see how he mangles ballroom, and thought that the tango was well done but paled in comparison to Brandon and Janette. I thought that Ryan should have been better, considering his background in ballroom should have given him a little more experience with the tango than Ellenore has.

Really liked the waltz (even though it should definitely have had more actual waltzing going on) and the Bollywood was excellent. Both hip-hop numbers were surprisingly good. I'll probably be keeping the Wade piece, Legacy and Kathryn's number, and the Bollywood for burning to disc later this season.

Some reactions:

Noelle & Russell: Loved that it was actually hip hop, but didn't like the tennis concept. And they were just too uneven as a couple.
Ashleigh & Jakob: Fine, but yeah, the choreographers blew it here. This reminds me of the Melanie leg-lift syndrome.
Bianca & Victor: Hated this.
Mollee & Nathan: I think I was watching a different dance than the judges because I thought it was sloppy and that it was obvious Mollee had no idea what she was doing.
Channing & Phillip: This was just awful.
Karen & Kevin: This dance had me liking Karen way more than I thought I ever would. She nailed it.
Kathryn & Legacy: I have a feeling that I will look back on this and realize that this is when I fell in love with Kathryn. And Legacy was way better than I thought he would be.
Pauline & Peter: Love. Love. Love.
Ellenore & Ryan: I think she didn't have her focus, but I attribute that to the dress glitch. Loved the drop.

Bottom three should have been: Noelle & Russell, Bianca & Victor, Channing & Phillip.
I would have sent Noelle and Phillip home.

meara, I wish that I knew of a way to get SYTYCD early. I am in the Chicago for work, thus I saw SYTYCD a full two hours early. What, what! Here's what I thought about the show tonight. Although y'all already know all about it because I always post it here first before it makes it into my blog. And now to bed. My body is telling me it's barely 10:30, but the clock is telling me otherwise.

It had a similar movement quality to his piece for Brandon and Janette last season in a lot of ways, and was a teensy bit reminiscent of his Triplets of Belleville piece for Chuy and Sarah.

That was the problem with it! It was all of Wade's moves, all in a row. I even saw an N'Sync move in there. It had nothing to do with the theme -- if you could even choreograph such a thing.

I love Wade, but just say zombies. It's about zombies. Stop biting Thriller and go back to where Hummingbird came from.

The bad: I was wide awake at 4am. The good: STYTCD on Tivo and the kids stayed asleep so I could watch it!

I thought that was one of the weaker Wade routines we've seen - I was negatively comparing it to Janette and Brandon the whole time. Also comparing the tango to J&B - I didn't get the laser intensity from Ellenor, I got a very flat affect. (I love Ellenor and her baby-talk Japanese and her channeling Katharine Hepburn, though!) The coping with the skirt problem was VERY professionally done - contrast the sheer terror in the Phillp/Channing routine, where nothing even went wrong.

I think Channing is an incredibly beautiful girl. I'd like to see her dance without looking terrified for a change, though. It's painful. Maybe she and Victor will get something happy next week.

I actually liked Noelle in the hip-hop. I wonder what the jidges' beef with Russell is. Clearly they have shifted their "up from the streets" narrative to Legacy (where it was more appropriate anyway.) Stacey Tookey wins the choreography prize. Jakob again wins the "you can do a jete every week" prize - but his feet are always ballet feet, when they should be ballroom feet. (Danny, despite his general awesomeness, also kept pulling me out of ballroom numbers with ballet feet.)

Didn't love the Bollywood - the camera work SUCKED, and they never did anything really FAST. What did I forget? Oh, Karen. Love Karen. Kevin is just okay. I think finding out he's modeling made me not respect him.

In sum: I was okay with the exits. Gosh, the tears on the staying dancers! Phillip, what a sweet spirit.

I could be making up a whole storyline that has no basis in reality, but I think part of the Channing/Phillip problem is that Channing is not a small girl and Phillip has no lift experience and not a hell of a lot of upper body strength from what I could see. I think she has been terrified of relying on him as a partner for lifts and catches and lead strength. Phillip always struck me as having up a big wall, holding a lot back and not throwing himself into things, but I realize that may be a really unfair assesment based solely on his smiley face.

I get the comparison of the tango to last season, but wasn't Brandon/Jeanette like the dead end of the season?

I think the Brandon/Janette tango was their last dance before they got to top 10, wasn't it?

My main problem with Phillip (in addition to his inability to do lifts that msbelle noted) was the carriage of his upper body. He couldn't get away from that very Gene-Kelly-esque stance even when he was doing the samba, and it detracted from the number.