You can't rock a snugly fitted glen plaid two piece anymore, no matter who you are. Because an suit like that always makes you look like Pee Wee Herman.



I'm not saying tap dancing is boring (and if you've ever seen a clip of The Nicholas Brothers, you know it does not have to be), but the three tappers were a snoozefest. I was verrrry close to skipping over it, but I fell asleep before I could grab the remote. Putting all three on the same season was a big mistake and watered down the talent greatly.

Channing still didn't look like she wanted to be there. Poor thing -- it seems like she didn't quite know what she had gotten herself into, and she was in way over her head. In many ways, that's what happened to Nathan as well.

Russell is easily the worst winner on the show:

1) He was not in any of the top ten dances of the season. In fact, they had to pretend that the African Jazz piece and the Nappy Tabs hip hop with Kathryn were highlights of the season. The Nappy Tabs piece was just okay and lacked the synchronicity and precision to be considered great, and the Frog Dance was a big who cares unless, I suppose, you're a huge fan of anilingus.



In fact, they ignored a ton of much better dances to stick this into the show in order to justify Russell's victory. I mean, if they kept showing nothing but Jakob and Kathryn dances, it would look odd if Russell won out of nowhere, right? And BTW, the Legacy/Kathryn hip hop >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Russell/Kathryn hip hop.

2) He kept injuring his partners and then eventually himself. And by getting hurt in the middle of the performance show, he ended up screwing over all those dancers who were waiting to perform again. I'm not saying he did it mailiciously, but he definitely let everyone down. He seemed surprisingly spry after he won, didn't he?

3) His entire backstory is a lie. "Unpolished diamond" my ass -- he's been dancing professionally since 6 and was training at the Boston Arts Academy before going on the show. But because he's a black and specialized in a hip hop style, Nigel took the ball and ran with it, making every moment to trumpet how Russell was "untrained" and "grew on the show". Keeping these compliments exclusively to Russell ignores the fact that Kathryn pulled off Broadway and Latin styles like an expert despite not having trained in those styles and acquit herself better in hip hop than Russell did in any of his ballroom dances. But since she's a white girl, Nigel can't pretend she's from da hood. In fact, many of the dancers did better in styles outisde their specialty than Russell did, but Russell gets bonus points for being "untrained", right? Suuure.

But Russell's big advantage was that he fit into Nigel's formula. The Nigel formula is a David vs Goliath storyline where the "favorite dancer" wins over the most talented dancer. In season 1, Blake was the odds on favorite to win going in, and his antics also layered a good vs evil storyline on top of the David vs Goliath story. But Blake was was so OTT bitchy he got the boot before the finals. Since then, Nigel has picked technically brilliant dancers with less than magnetic personalities to be the Goliath -- Travis, Danny, Will, Brendan, and this season it was Jakob (note that with the exception of Will, the rest are also fey, so the little girls don't develop crushes on them). The Davids always have the "growth"/"untrained" storyline -- Sabra was presented as having only been dancing a couple of years (ignoring she was a gymnast), Russell is supposedly untrained and both Twitch and Joshua were presented as "street" dancers (even though Joshua obviously had formal training and Twitch was a freaking dance teacher). In the case of Russell, Twitch, and Joshua, Nigel makes it seem like they auditioned right after a Bloods vs Crips gang fight. You know... 'cause they're black. Niiiice. Nice and racist.

Sorry if I repeated points from previous posts here and there.

The Alice dance was from the top 12 results show, and, believe it or not, it was a Nappy Tabs routine that was Wade Robson pastiche and not their typical hip hop. It was easily the best thing they did all season.

ETA: littletimmy beat me to it. Nappy Tabs twittered that they wished it was on the finale. But then again, Russell's injury would have fucked that up too.