Deeley’s little black dress was the most conservative I’ve seen her yet. I was expecting something more of a pop-can and fishing line arrangement as a logical progression from the recent fashion wierdness she’s been suffering from.

Judges

The guest judge tonight was Toni Basil, of “Mickey” fame, who’s been making a living choreographing the elderly lately. Of note was her cute old-lady racism, at one point making the implication that the “funk” music favored the colored folk, but whatever. She’s a cute old lady.

Things that should just stop

• Touching your right shoulder with your right hand. I don’t care what it means, please stop doing it.
• The judges pretending to be surprised at the dancer’s capabilities outside of their pigeonholed-genre. Especially as it comes to light that all these dancers cross-trained…even Comfort, who gets the asterisk* more than anyone else.
• Girls’ costumes which somehow conspire to leave an entire stripe of flesh from shoulder to foot exposed. I like the bodies as much as the next dude, but there’s got to be some variety–oh, wait, did they make Katee dance in a trash bag?
• Judge “fake-outs”. Especially Mary. Its not funny, its not shocking, it just makes me groan and pinch the bridge of my nose painfully. Pretending you don’t like it and then revealing that–surprise!–you really loved it is not high drama.

Couple Dances

Will and Courtney
    Samba by Jean-Mark danced to “I Fell In Love With The DJ” by Cha’ Nelle.
Jean-Mark is often so much more entertaining in his video packages than his resulting choreography and music choices.
Tonight, however, he chose a music number less than twenty years old. Still not as entertaining as the Josh-Katee Samba from a few weeks ago, Will and Courtney’s samba was pretty good, even if Will looked a little stiff at times.

    Slow Hip Hop by Tabitha and Napoleon danced to “Like You’ll Never See Me Again” by Alicia Keyes
The theme Tab and Napolean came up with was one of sadness and loss of..what, a soldier boyfriend? Regardless, the highlight of the video package was when Will got all specralized for awhile. How’d they do that?!? Unpossible.
The dance began with Courtney flipping an hourglass to telegraph in the most obvious sort of way that she’s turning back time to remember her lover. I’m not a big fan of slower R&B/Hip-hop dancing, and this number didn’t change my mind. I could tell there was a lot of skill to the synchronized movements, but they just weren’t fun. The photo album was cute, though!
Nigel disagreed with me, enjoying it through his haze of antidepressents and painkillers**. Toni was one of the first “lockers”?!? Before her, kids put their school stuff in group closets. But then they started putting books in Toni Basil and the world changed forever.

Twitch and Katee
    Contemporary by Mia danced to “Mercy” by Duffy.
Angry break-up dance! Will in a wife-beater and a fedora vs Katee in a Hefty Yard Bag with a mini-beehive? Why not!
The music was very reminiscent of Amy Winehouse, and I assume they just couldn’t secure the rights to the real deal in time.
Nigel’s stand-up routine was somewhat amusing, and he led the gushing that was the judging of this routine. I admit it was funny, but there wasn’t much grace to the thing, and a few jumps from Twitch that looked like they went all wrong.

    Broadway by Tyce danced to “Sweet Georgia Brown” from the original cast of Bubbling Brown Sugar
Can I say Katee seems like a dance-nerd? Oh, I already said it. Tyce wanted the piece to be a cat-and-mouse affair with Katee playing the cat to Twitch’s demure rube. Not sure how much of the story came through in the choreography, but Twitch’s expressiveness is so winning that its hard not to like the dance. While he never seems to extend his legs properly, but Nigel gave him a pass. Katee did her normal excellent job, but I read no sultriness in her demeanor at all.
Thank god, Mary consciously avoided another annoying fake-out.
Toni Basil wants Twitch in her bed, I think, but I’ll give her credit for noticing the lack of sultriness in Katee’s performance.

Mark and Comfort
    Hip-Hop by Tabitha and Napolean danced to “Party People” by Fergie featuring Nelly.
Tabitha and Napolean are cute, and their choreagraphy is usually a charming series of vignettes. This week shows a high-school classroom scene with Comfort corrupting the studious Mark in record time. This turned out to be an amazing routine with Mark presenting Cat with the ironic double-entendre of “I Will Not Be in the Bottom…” written on the paper over-and-over. The tricks were great–especially the pickup into a back-flip over the shoulder thing, the pairing was awesome. Nigel noted that Comfort seems much better when choreographed than she does in he solos. I agree wholeheartedly. Toni rambled on about the ear and admitted to taking jazzercize at the Y taught by Tabitha and Nopolean. Look at the dust falling from her hair! Toni is OLD.

FoxTrot by Jean-Mark danced to “Lady Luck” by Brian Setzer
Comfort is supposed to be “Lady Luck”, which matches her unlikely and undeserved good fortune on this show lately.
Another creaky old number by the little Joe Pesci look-alike. It seemed a little on the slow side at first, technical pretty rudimentary in appearance and fell pretty flat over all. Nigel and Mary and even old Toni panning it with Mary pooping all over it.

Joshua and Chelsie
    Argentine Tango by Dimitry Chaplin danced to “A Los Amigos” from the original cast recording of the Forever Tango soundtrack.
Chelsie is so friggin’ cute in the lead-in video and Josh was Josh.
Good LORD Joshua is preternaturally graceful. He may not have the technical prowess of Will, but I think he has far more natural fluidity to his movements. Chelsie was beautiful in her blue dress and the footwork seemed sharp. From the slow and sexy openning to the flurry at the end, I think Joshua is simply MADE for latin dance. Toni once again showed some lovely old racist attitude by saying Josh’s success may be due to the Tango being “street”. She’s so creaky.

    Disco by Dorianna Sanchez danced to “Everlasting Love” by Gloria Estafan
The video lead-in cemented in my mind the opinion that these two have the mose appealing personalities of the contestants on the show this year.
The whole number looked balanced on the precipice of failure, each lift looking precarious and at least one spin from Joshua almost ending in a tumble. But they made it through, and there were TONS of lifts, all in the same number–Josh is one strong dude.

Solo Dances

    Comfort
    Dancing to “I Got This Down” by Simian Mobile Disco
I liked the music, enjoyed the name of the band/artist even more, and found the dance to be snooze-worthy. Comfort didn’t hit hard on anything. *sigh* I hope this is her last week.

    Will
    Dancing to “Get Up Offa That Thing” by James Brown
In his lead-in video package he revealed that he was inspired to dance by Patrick Swayze in “Dirty Dancing.” How many is that?
Anyway, his solo, in an honest-to-god James Brown costume, was free of the usual pyrotechnics of a Will dance, happily replicating the Gofather of Soul’s dance moves. More gimmick than substance, really.

    Katee
    Dancing to “Taking Changes” by Celine Dion
Her video package revealed the um, surprising, fact that she has been dancing her whole life…
Her dance solo revealed that she was able to locate the one Celine Dion song with a back-beat and a drum kit involved.
Is it me or are these solos a bit lack-luster this week? Probably because the choreagraphy is taking up all their time, but still… Katee just looked tired.

    Mark
    Dancing to “Creator” by Santogold
In his vid we find out his first love is musical theater and that he was the only boy in an all-girl dancing school. Another surprising truth! …or not.
His “dance” was a lot of twitchy movements, running around and jumping a bit gracelessly. Another ignoble solo. I found him dancing to Cat’s speil more entertaining–seriously.

    Chelsie
    Dancing to “Damaged” by Danity Kane
Her video revealed another surprising life-long dance career, including one still in which it appears she’s dancing with a Micheal Anthony Hall look-alike. Which is wierd since it was Ilan Mitchell-Smith who had ballet training***!
The dance was a hip twisty affair with turny leggy stuff. Probably the best solo so far in the evening if only because it succeeded within its genre. And its Chelsie’s birthday!

    Joshua
    Dancing to “Shawty Get Loose” by Lil Mama featuring T-Pain and Chris Brown
Yet another life-long dancer, although the moonwalk through the school story was really very cute. Thanks, Ms Wyatt!
This solo started off as a pop and lock affair of superlative quality, but he finished it with the same moves he uses EVERY time he solos. Too bad, really. Twitch never seems to have this problem.

    Courtney
    Danced to “Where I stood” by Missy Higgins
Generic alt-girl-crooner tune and a generic contempo girly dance. These girl dances seem to run together in my mind.

    Twitch
    Danced to “Go to Work” by Kay :L
Twitch lived in South Korea? Cool!
Other than the “4-real” shoulder thing at the end, I must say Twitch’s solo was

Random thoughts

I wonder the circumstances that Katee and Twitch knew each-other, a relationship revealed in their early couples video package, don’t you?

Was it me or are were the solos a bit lack-luster this week? Probably because the choreography is taking up all their time, but still…

* For a hip-hop girl.

** My only explanation for the wild change in Nigel between last season’s relatively staid commentary and this season’s unrestrained bawdyness.

*** Thank you, IMDB. You provided me with useless trivia in exactly the right time yet again.