8/15 Show Discussion Thread ***SPOILERS***

[RomanticHeart]

I agree that Lacey is far more technically talented as a dancer than her lame brother. Her biggest negatives are her trashy look, camera whoring and lack of connection with her partner and the mood of the dance. To a degree it IS gender bias. Our preconceptions of how a (potentially) pretty, talented girl and an unattractive, awkward boy should act is different. He is believable and acceptable as a goof; she is not.

Benji manufactured his popularity by fabricating a story to generate pity; playing the dweeb falling for the pretty, cool girl (Donyelle) and pretending that his over-the-top theatrics were spontaneous, genuine emotion. I'm sure he would have quickly lost his dubious appeal, if his fans had been forced to spend more time with him.

That's probably true about gender bias remark about Benji, if you were a fan of his. I was an Allison fan last year and think her and Travis were ripped off because of Benji's mugging. Sometimes he was funny and fun. I enjoyed his dances with Heidi, but I never saw him as the best dancer or even performer.

[luvclayseyes]

What did Nigel say about Danny when he was rating each dancer. He said that Sabra was perfect, etc. but I missed the Danny comments. (all three of the judges were rating them)

[Mellypea77]

My two cents…

Last night was a real disappointment for me. I’m not sure if it was because of the choreography or because the dancers were tired or a combination of both, but most of the performances left me wanting.

That hip-hop, my god, I’ve seen better routines at high school talent shows. The words that popped into my mind when I was watching it were “juvenile” and “unprepared”. It looked like something some tweener came up with in her mom’s basement.

The Viennese waltz was very lovely and beautifully danced but, like a lot of people have already said; been there, done that. I would have preferred to see another ballroom style…maybe a tango.

I did, however, really enjoy the fox routine. Like someone wrote a couple of pages ago (I’m paraphrasing here) : anything by Wade that doesn’t involve zombies, or zombie moves, is generally enjoyable. I really like the softness of the piece and the nurturing relationship between the two girls. Definitely my favorite routine of the night…and in my Top 5 for the season.

The idea and choreography of the two princes routine was very interesting but IMO it was poorly executed. Danny’s performance was quite good but Neil’s was just sloppy…sloppy, sloppy, sloppy! In fact, everything that Neil performed last night - with the exception of his solo which I agree he has been consistently improving on over the last weeks – was absolute crap as far as I’m concerned.

The Lindy Hop sounded like a lot of fun. Unfortunately, the end product was far from what I was expecting. I kept yelling at the telly to get them to speed the f*** up but…Actually, I think that with a better partner (Pasha anyone?), Lacey could have performed it very well.

As for the Cha cha….all I can say is boring!!! Both Sabra and Danny have performed latin ballroom much better in the previous shows so I’m going to put most of the blame on the choreography. Nevertheless, I think that if they’d had any sort of chemistry, the performance could have masked any issues with the steps and technique.

Before last nights show, I was totally gearing up for a Sabra win…the competition was pretty much her’s to lose. But I think her sub-par performances (I’m including her solo here which really wasn’t as good as the ones she performed on previous shows) might hurt her in the voting. If Sabra doesn’t win, I think it will be Danny… I’ll be happy with either. In fact, I’d be quite happy if Lacey won also. She’s really impressed me over the season (except for her solos which have been quite poor…even compared to other ballroom dancers like Heidi) at how well she adapts to the different styles of dance and how committed she is to her performances. Basically…anybody but Neil.

[dberk]

Next season I'm hoping that the top 20 are given routines that are true to the styles of dance. They say that they want to see versatility, but then dumb down the choreography.

What's the story with Dan? Is he trying to convince us that he isn't really a jerk? He had only good things to say about the dancers last night and didn't make any of his lecherous comments. It's going to take more than one nice guy act out of 3 seasons of being an ass to convince me.