I miss you, Mary Murphy: SYTYCD Season 7 Top 11 Performance Show

So You Think You Can Dance typically takes me a little while to get into and this season is no exception, especially since Mary Murphy isn’t drinking at the judges’ table this season. Like Cat Deeley’s fabulous frocks, Murphy’s drunken squeals are tantamount to the dancing on SYTYCD, so its a sadly sobering to know we must live without it this year.

Billy Bell, who I swear won the Tony for Billy Elliott a couple of years ago because well, didn’t that kid have the same name? Anyway, Billy kicked off the show purporting to be Ren with All-Star Lauren not really doing the Lori Singer thing to a throwaway routine to Footloose, choreographed by Tyce DiOrio. They’re not bad, they’re just not particularly memorable. Lauren just makes me want to do crunches for the next two hours.

Cristina, oh Cristina. She’s likely a very nice girl, but she makes stupid faces when dancing. They’re just distracting. I wonder if this would be different if she had Invisalign? In any case, she has nothing to worry about — Sonya Tayeh routine (to Santigold’s Dubstep-ish Starstruck!) with the adorable Lady Gaga fave, Mark Kanemura. The judges thought Cristina sizzled, yet she often looked somewhat awkward next to her much stronger partner. When Mark dragged Cristina around, she sometimes looked as if she was stuck to the floor.

Jose makes me want to believe I can become a breaker since I do yoga. I really should have gone to yoga tonight. And yesterday. Nigel says it is difficult to go from breaking to hip hop, yet this doesn’t seem the case — especially when you’re a breaker named Jose and partnered with Comfort Fedoke in a Nappy Tabs routine. Nappy Tabs seems to have gotten back a bit of their spark this season, no? I often wondered if they weren’t having marital problems given the low quality of much of their Season 6 choreography.

LaGuardia Performing Arts School (aka the Fame school) graduate Adechike is adorable. The judges don’t think he conveyed much steam in his Travis Wall-choreographed fantasy sex routine with Kathryn McCormick.  (Love Kathryn!) I’m not quite sure if the duo lacked chemistry, or if the dance served to showcase Kathryn more than Adechike — after all, he was getting pushed around in a chair and her legs flailed about [gracefully] in all different directions while slinking about the stage. It is also amazing to see how short Adechike is when standing next to The Goddess Cat Deeley! Did you have any idea?

Tapper Melinda Sullivan has been an early favorite of mine since her name is Melinda and she is brunette. However, her desire to be a “total entertainer” (She was even on As The World Turns) and over-emotive faces while dancing the jive with sex-on-Russian-legs Pasha may cause her to tumble down my list of favorites.

The judges went mad for Alex Wong and Allison Holker’s contemporary routine, set to the Jeff Buckley’s Hallelujah, which is THIS close to tying with Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing as the most overplayed song on television. Yes, it was outstanding but come on! Wasn’t anyone else disappointed to see the GREAT Sonya Tayeh use such a trite song? Sonya doing a routine to Hallelujah? It was quite lovely and emotionally powerful, but the song already puts people halfway to tears within the first two verses After all, its Hallelujah! It must me emotionally resonant. The best performance of all time on SYTYCD? Uh…it was good. It was great and yes, Alex Wong should and will likely win this damn thing, but best performance ever? As much as I love Sonya and Alex Wong, I’m not sure if it reaches beyond the beauty of say, Katee and Joshua’s Bollywood routine of Season 5 or even Mia Michael’s extraordinary homage to life, death and everything in between from last week’s showcase episode. (And pssst! Alex, I know you love to sing, but please don’t sing that stupid Alicia Keys song ever again. I like you and I want to keep it that way.)

Alexie doesn’t do much for me, but this routine makes me think impure thoughts about tWitch. I love tWitch, so tWitch can do anything and I will love him. That is all.

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