they are!

Noooo! Not Mary Murphy and her squealing!! Aaaagh. For all the once in a rare while that she says something coherent about ballroom, there's so many MORE times where she's a gushing pile of "OW, MY EARS"

I love Mia, and would gladly have her judge, as long as she also got to choreograph (OK, some of her choreo I don't love, but some is awesome). Mostly I want to go to a dinner party with her, but that's beside the point...

ETA: Hmm, a reality show on Bravo? That might work for me! :)

I wish they would go back to having a rotating judge slot.

Me too, Jesse.

I prefer Mia over Mary. Mary is a good judge, but I can't stand the shrieking.

I actually sort of enjoy Mary's shrieking. I find her insanity endearing, for some strange reason. I adore the majority of Mia's choreography, but I didn't enjoy her as much on the judging panel.

But I'm also pretty sure that there's nothing in the world that could damage my love for SYTYCD.

My issue is that Mary doesn't shriek when she goes on SYTYCD Australia or Canada, so this is a uniquely American artifact. She is so knowledgeable and such a good judge out of the country.

I did not know that! That changes my opinion a bit, then. I assumed that we had to have the shrieking if we wanted the legitimate ballroom critique. Does she think she's fulfilling some sort of American quota that says there must be one insane judge on every reality show panel?

I think the producers must encourage her behavior. She is a really thoughtful, mature person in interviews and elsewhere. Only on the show, after season 3 or so did she turn into a crazy person.

If you put all the shrieking and the hot tamale train aside, Mary is a really good judge on most things and the only judge on the panel who ever truly critiques ballroom accurately. I get annoyed with her often, but I missed her on panel last year. If we have to have a permanent judge panel, I'd take Mary over Mia all day long and twice on Sundays.

Mia is a great choreographer. Even when I don't like her routines, I respect them and they challenge me to think while I'm watching. However, I find her to be a terrible, terrible judge. She is biased towards one particular type of dance and type of dancer and she just can't see past that. She has black male dancer issues that are deep and somewhat unpleasant. She makes snap judgements about dancers and she never likes to admit that she's wrong. She coddles the untrained dancers and pumps them up as being "raw" and "authentic" until they get to the stage where they threaten her favored pets (who invariably have training and get her crunchy, modern style) and then she turns on those untrained gems viciously and does everything she can to break them down. She . . . yeah, I have issues with her as a judge. Honestly, I'm glad she's going. Hope she sticks around as a choreographer, though.

While she's on the way out, she can take Shankdaddy. I love him, but he's been beyond disappointing as a permanent part of the panel. Which is a shame because I thought his guest stints on the panel were fantastic, and that even though he poured fuel on the whole "Danny is arrogant" fire. I think as a permanent member of the panel, he started treating the kids more like a director than a judge, if that makes sense. He still gave good critique sometimes, but it was more formative than summative, which is great if you are a an artistic director trying to develop dancers in your company but terrible if you are a reality show judge.

I want Nigel and a panel of rotating guest judges just like the good old days. Mary can come along some weeks. Adam can come back after a long enough break. I would kill to see BFree on the panel again. He's such a little freak. Even though I hate him as a choreographer, I miss Dan Karaty as a judge. Yes, he was a lech and watching him drool over the girls was sometimes uncomfortable, but he was also brutally honest and not afraid to bring the pain on fools when it was warranted. I like Toni on the panel. And when are we going to get more of Ms. Debbie Allen? Seriously, what does a sister have to do? I'm sure there are other folks who can be (or have been) good in the past, too.