They don't have any ballroom all stars who specialize in the smooth dances. Anya and Pasha are Latin dancers, so the five dances they would normally compete include jive and samba. Most ballroom pros are not ten dance specialists. That said, I'd bet we get smooth ballroom numbers before the season is out. Anya and Pasha showed that they can more than hold their own in those styles on their season. The Danny/Anya Foxtrot was a dream! And Pasha and Sabra had one of the more competent Quicksteps thanks largely to him. Alex could do very well with a standard ballroom routine - Foxtrot, Waltz. He has the carriage for it. Ashley as well. If they really want to keep Billy around, they'll give him a standard ballroom as well, I think. A Latin ballroom routine with Anya has the potential to be as much of a trainwreck as his Krump with Comfort.

I thought the group routine was a hot mess.

amen. Carmina Burana is totally overused. Plus, the direction was terrible, I couldn't get a sense of the dance because the cameras were all over the place at weird angles and spending random spotlights on the individual dancers.

You could also really tell during "The Garden" that this stage is just not conducive to actually getting into the dances. It just didn't have the intimacy of the original. At least for me.

I miss the stairs and levels, it made for some interesting possibilities. What would Ramalama have been without the stairs?

No kidding, smonster!

What would Ramalama have been without the stairs?

I know, right? The old set was just so much more intimate. I hate this new set and think it may be a contributing to the seriously cracked out camera work. Like maybe the cameras are too far away from the stage. They don't even have the big screen at the back of the stage that ticks down the seconds during the kids' DoD. What's up with that?

Plus, all of the weird lighting effect may be contributing to the awkward camera placement.

Since I'm home on the couch I decided to check out Work of Art. I didn't think I would like it, but after three episodes I'm eager to see more.

SYTYCD: Ok, I'm totally catching up, but via the internet, so I'm kinda random about how I saw stuff.

Love for Alex, of course. That was a great routine, despite the NappyTabs! Twitch was great and it was so good to see two partners really synch up the timing. That's something that's been missing in a lot of the hiphop I've been seeing on my teevee lately, including ABDC. Anyway, so happy to see Alex bring it. Yay for ballet dancers!

Glad to see Melinda go, finally. I was going to make a comment about how YET AGAIN she gave no new info in her profile piece, but as she is gone I no longer have to hear from her or look at her awful, awful feet again.

I am perfectly happy with the women being gone as it was clear from the beginning that the men cast were stronger. I think that it's shocking that the female dancer I dislike least is Lauren, but okay, whatevs. I am ready for the other one to be gone, or at least to get assigned ANY other genre than contemporary.

I watched the solos first, so about Billy, it is interesting to see his choreo improve and broaden. Not so much for Kent, as he's incorporating other people's moves, but he doesn't really understand movement. So he's just copying, not learning.

I was not surprised to see Billy in the bottom. But I would have been if you'd told me at the top of the show. Is he suffering from smart-kid college syndrome? Where he's used to be being the best dancer of everyone around him, and all of a sudden he's just a good dancer among very good dancers and it's messing with his head?

Thinking it over, I think it's a lack of commitment with him that's his failure at the moment. Looking at him laughing about the krump, well, if you think you're funny in it, you're going to put up a weak performance. If you fully commit to the movement, if you're willing to be seen as ridiculous, but you're going to do it with your whole being, then your odds of success are better.

There were some goofy, funny moments in the Alex Wong choreo he was asked to do this week. But he fully committed to it, limbs going to their full extent, face and passion all out there, and it was amazing. Billy needs to let himself go some. It's like the brief clip we saw in the early ep, where he was being told to forget about technique. That was good advice and he still hasn't taken it. He's good at technique. He doesn't need to spend his brain cells on it. He needs to express through the technique and that's not happening yet.

It's good Adéchiké stepped it up. It's good Jose at least tried to master Anya, even though I agree that the choreography was slimmed down for him. I am over Robert, and he needn't aspire to Mark, because he'll never get there with his hammy camera schmaltzy face.

The SO discovered Work of Art this week in the hotel, so we'll have to see where that goes. I still haven't seen it; I was completely crashed out.

SYTYCD episodes now available online in full from Fox: [link]