Let him do his thing, and then you get him out. No messing with him for laughs.

Mal ,'Ariel'


Non-Fiction TV: I Reject Your Reality and Substitute My Own

This thread is for non-fiction TV, including but not limited to reality television (So You Think You Can Dance, Top Chef: Masters, Project Runway), documentaries (The History Channel, The Discovery Channel), and sundry (Expedition Africa, Mythbusters), et al. [NAFDA]


tiggy - Jul 23, 2008 6:32:31 pm PDT #6231 of 23273
I do believe in killing the messenger, you know why? Because it sends a message. ~ Damon Salvatore

the IV Real thing explained.


meara - Jul 23, 2008 7:52:31 pm PDT #6232 of 23273

AHHHHHHHHHHH. It ate everythign I wrote. GRR.

I was writing things as I watched, but I guess since there's only one more dance I'll read some of what y'all say before I post this. Hrmph.

I want Lil C back. I do not like this Toni woman.

I think the foxtrot was not as bad as they said. Or rather, it was terrible, but compared to other foxtrots on this show, it wasn't that bad. Mark was good in the separated parts. But given that Mary seemed to have forgotten how smokin' hot he was in his tango with Chelsie back in the day, it's clearly "We want Mark to go home" time, and hey, they paired him with Comfort and gave them a damn foxtrot, so...yeah. Clearly, Comfort and Mark are going home.

I didn't like Will and Courtney's lyrical hiphop to Alicia Keys all that much either.

But I did like Mia's door piece quite a lot, even though I felt like Twitch just had to act, and Katee did all teh dancing in it. It was still an awesome piece.

The tango that Joshua and Chelsie did *was* awesome, and I loved Dmitri's choreography.

I don't think this disco looks all that good. Unless by "people will think they could do this" the choreographer meant "this will look kinda amateurish and clumsy". Their tango was a HELL of a lot better


megan walker - Jul 23, 2008 8:25:19 pm PDT #6233 of 23273
"What kind of magical sunshine and lollipop world do you live in? Because you need to be medicated."-SFist

I loved all the dances except the last two. I didn't think the foxtrot was as bad as they said. More importantly, I really didn't like the disco. The whole thing seemed off, the song choice, Chelsie's look, the energy, eveything.


kat perez - Jul 23, 2008 8:30:08 pm PDT #6234 of 23273
"We have trust issues." Mylar

Mark, meet bus. Bus, meet Mark.

Mark's first Foxtrot was where the judges started to beat the drum for Mark to go, so they give it to him again. And they give him by far the weakest female dancer left. Yeah, bite me judges. He still turned the solo pieces of that Foxtrot choreography out and he did the best he could with the closed hold portions given his partner's limitations. (Although, I will give it to Mary that the closed work was hideous). Whatevs. I still love me some Mark. He managed to escape last week, but this week I'm fairly certain he's on the way out.

Will and Courtney were the best of the night for me. I thought Will far outdanced her in the NappyTab piece. I'm so over the whole lyrical hip hop baloney, but Will was fierce in this piece. I didn't actually think Courtney was all that great. Both of them were loads of fun in the Samba. Technically, not perfect, but sex-ay. Uh huh! And I loved both of their solos the best! Will's solo was super fun and unexpected from him. And Courtney's solo reminded me of why I fell in love with her and her ultra-cute grandparents in the audition rounds. (I'm pretty sure that was her audition piece, or at least the same music, no?)

I found Katee and Twitch's dances so content free from a technical perspective that I've already forgotten what they did. The Mia piece was almost entirely composed of Twitch standing around or walking while Katee hung off of his back (or on the back of a door) and writhed. I didn't mind the bed thing with Kherington, but there was just not enough dance in that dance for me to really enjoy it. And I didn't believe that they wanted each other. Tasty + Broadway = Me hating a dance. And tonight was no exception. I thought Toni was very on the money here in that I didn't really buy Katee in this piece. And since it mainly rested on the emoting, it didn't work for me. As always, I thought Twitch's solo was dynamite. Like dearly departed Gev, you can tell that Twitch thinks like a choreographer when putting his pieces together. I would swear that Katee's solo was exactly the same as last week's? Y'all am I crazy? Including the same music? What? If so, I call huge bullshit. Overall, I thought the judges way overpraised here.

The Josh/Chelsie Tango was excellent!! I loved, loved that piece. The footwork was insane. And I know I say it every week, but Chelsie's feet and legs are awe inspiring. The toe point on that woman! To die for. Dmitri is turning into quite the fantastic choreographer. I think I've enjoyed everything he's ever done. I'm going to step away from Mary's comparison of the this Tango to the Chelsie/Mark Tango because I don't want my blood pressure to go up. The disco was ridiculous bad and the judges gave them a hugely undeserved pass. The lifts were labored. All of them. And the actual dance steps reminded me of the Brady's singing "Keep on Movin" on the mall escalator. I did not enjoy. Yes the lifts were difficult, but the routine was not good. So who cares? Chelsie's solo was the same level of not bad/not terrible that most ballroom folks land at on this show. Only Benji has been able to break out of it. I thought this was Josh' weakest solo thus far. Cute, but it didn't knock me out. They are definitely one of my bottom two.

The other is, sadly, Mark and Comfort. After the hip-hop, I had hopes that they might actually pull it off. Because their hip hop? Was beyond belief. They killed it, brought it back to life and killed it some more. So, so good. I think it might be my favorite hip hop of the season. Both of them were on fire. And props to NappyTab for bringing it in something other than "lyrical" hip hop and proving that they can, in fact, put it down. And then came the Foxtrot. As Toni noted, Mark turned it out in the jazzy, solo pieces. As long as he wasn't actually partnering Comfort, he was a joy to watch. The partner work was not all that great. BUT, I thought it could've been so much worse. Given what they both had to work with, I thought they acquited (continued...)


kat perez - Jul 23, 2008 8:30:35 pm PDT #6235 of 23273
"We have trust issues." Mylar

( continues...) themselves very well. In fact, I thought it was easily better than the Josh/Katee disco. But Mark is a Dead Man Dancing with these jidges, so. . . and he didn't help all that much with his solo. I've seen one of his You Tube videos where he is dancing to that MIA song and just smashing it. He should've done that tonight b/c what he did was a hot mess. And Comfort is just not good at doing DoDs. Definitely a backslide from last week. barring a huge upset, they're both B2 again and both going home. Which is a shame, because I do feel that Twitch is a more limited dancer than Mark and should go home first.

I liked Toni for the most part. I would take her and Lil C on the permanent panel over Nigel and Loudy McScreams-a-lot any day.


megan walker - Jul 23, 2008 8:33:25 pm PDT #6236 of 23273
"What kind of magical sunshine and lollipop world do you live in? Because you need to be medicated."-SFist

Yeah, I thought Toni was a good judge with comments that actually made me learn more about dance.


kat perez - Jul 23, 2008 8:42:55 pm PDT #6237 of 23273
"We have trust issues." Mylar

I didn't think the foxtrot was as bad as they said. More importantly, I really didn't like the disco. The whole thing seemed off, the song choice, Chelsie's look, the energy, eveything.

You and I are as one here. Given the train wreck they could have laid down, Mark and Comfort managed to really hold it together in the Foxtrot. And Mark in a suit and/or tux is always a great thing. On the flip side, both Chelsie and Josh looked really uncomfortable and tentative in the disco. Neither one of them committed to the dance. It reminded me a lot of the disco Danny did last year with Mischa Chan.

I missed nekkid Will tonight. The mesh shirt helped, but I've been spoiled and now I want nekkid Will every week. And where is my nekkid Mark? I'm gonna lose him tomorrow without ever getting him shirtless. What's up with that?

And Nigel's weird obsession with Josh' ass has got to stop. Umm, can someone tell me the safe word? Because I am really uncomfortable.


flea - Jul 24, 2008 2:16:23 am PDT #6238 of 23273
information libertarian

I find it hilarious that at some other sites, people are starting to be like, "Is the show rigged?" I mean, the easy pass everyone gives Twitch (who I am starting to hate as a result of the blatant favoritism), the hate-on for Mark, the Princess Will issue - of COURSE the show is rigged, as far as they can rig it in terms of partnering and dance choices.

I agree Mark and Comfort are going home, and it should be Twitch and Comfort. And it should have been Twitch last week.


flea - Jul 24, 2008 2:18:18 am PDT #6239 of 23273
information libertarian

Oh also, tonight my TV will be in a moving van and I'll have no wifi! Wah!

Also also, has there ever been a really really good disco? It's ALWAYS kinda off.


Jesse - Jul 24, 2008 3:01:14 am PDT #6240 of 23273
Sometimes I trip on how happy we could be.

For msbelle and anyone else, here's the Josh/Chelsie disco piece: [link]