One of my favorite magazines, Entertainment Weekly wrote this article online and pushed it through Twitter today. Great article, though I don't agree with it 100%. But here are a few of the ones I do agree with...
If you haven't noticed, SYTYCD is one of my all time favorite shows. This season I have missed Mary Murphy a great deal - especially the Hot Tamale Train. While I love Mia Michaels, I love her more as a choreographer. As a judge, she can come across way too harsh - a problem she had almost once a week for a while this year. We're in our second season without Mia choreography regularly and I really miss it - although Travis Wall is quickly outdoing her, in my opinion.
The judges have been talking a lot this season. They critique longer than some of the dances many times - one of the reasons I think I have a hard time remembering the dances at the end of the show. I understand 2 hours is a long time to fill, like EW says, but they haven't had this issue in the past I don't think.
With the bad dancing, maybe find the worst of the stop and make a montage out of the rest? Don't go Idol on us and make an entire show (I don't know if they ever did this, I stopped watching after Fantasia, but I remember thinking there was way too much bad one audition episode). Honestly, they could do the individual cities quicker and spend more time in Vegas if you ask me. I'd love to see more of what they do in Vegas, and probably meet who will be in the Top 10/11 while they're showing off their work ethic and personality and interacting with other Vegas-goers.
Keep the All-Stars. I'll admit, I was not a fan when this was announced. Not a fan at all, but I have LOVED seeing some of my favorites (Neil, Mark, Twitch, Courtney, Comfort, etc...) week after week. I've also met Alison from season 2 because I started watching season 3. At first it was hard NOT to watch the All-Star, especially when it was one of my favorites, but I also think that's because I wasn't used to it. I wasn't used to having to differentiate between contestant and all-star. Now that I know, I think it'd be ok if they kept them.
The stage issues... I think they've fixed my issues with it. I do miss the old stage, but I love that SYTYCD is grand-scale enough to be in Kodak. Last year, season 6, that is, the camera angles sucked, they hadn't quite figured out how to pan around and use the space, but this year there are a ton more camera angles, bring me the feel of the old stage on a grander scale. I also am very glad they got rid of that awful screen. Although well used in dances like Mollee and Jakob's Viennese Waltz to "Ordinary Day," the lights this season are SO much better.
Less dances? Not so much... The reason for the less than memorable dances this season is also the reason season 6 in the fall flopped - not enough down time. The SYTYCD choreographers are used to a year off, working on other projects, before having to deal with the dance-heavy format of SYTYCD. The choreo this season hasn't been as amazing as past summer seasons but it definitely MUCH better than season 6 choreo.
Recreating dances is a fabulous idea, although I'd save it for the finale or the week before the finale and let everyone dancing do it instead of their suggested one dancer per week. They could spend the season hyping up their favorite old dances from movies or broadway shows and finally announce - surprise (at least for the first season they do it), you're learning a Fred Astaire/Gene Kelley/Ginger Rogers dance! Come to think of it Robert, Kent, and Lauren are totally Fred, Gene, and Ginger! Maybe they'll surprise us tonight?
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