SYTYCD: 12 Moments Where Season 5 Went Wrong

So You Think You Can Dance:

During Top 8 week when Janette was voted out (instead of Melissa), I thought to myself, "This will go down as the night Season 5 of SYTYCD went way off track." But as I thought about it, I realized that the fifth season of SYTYCD had already gone off track a long time ago. Furthermore, I couldn't pinpoint just one moment were it all went awry. Instead, there were multiple moments that combined to turn Season 5 into, at best, a lackluster snoozefest and, at worst, a prostitution of the awesome show we loved.

I didn't compile this list of season five lowlights just to be mean spirited or vindictive; I love this show too much to be mean to it for no reason. My hope is that by documenting the problems of Season 5, I can help the powers that be at SYTYCD to learn from the mistakes and avoid making the same ones during Season 6 in the fall. In the low-competition environment of summer television, SYTYCD can get away with these mishaps, but I don't think they're going to fly in this fall.

The 12 Moments Where Season 5 Went Wrong:

1. During Vegas callbacks, it became increasingly clear that the contestants weren't operating under the same set of rules. After flubbing choreographed dances, Gabi and Caitlin got to dance for their lives, while Tony got to practice some more and retry the choreographed routine later in the day. Meanwhile, after allegedly flubbing Sonya's jazz choreo, Natalie was unceremoniously kicked out. Fans were left not only outraged but also confused: why wasn't there an established procedure to determine what the next step was once the judges deemed that a dancer had inadequately performed a choreographed dance? How are viewers supposed to take a competition show seriously if the rules are obviously being adjusted on a case-by-case basis to accommodate the agenda of the producers?


2. Natalie Reid was unceremoniously cut. It was bad enough for fans of quirky Natalie to watch her get pitted against her roommate, Katee, for the final birth in last season's Top 20 and then get cut. This season, though, we should have gotten to see Natalie's redemption, but for some reason we didn't. And that reason was not that she messed up Sonya's jazz routine, because she didn't--at least not enough to warrant her abrupt dismissal. Why did the judges kick her to the curb just moments after Sonya had her show the other dancers how the routine should be performed? I still don't have an answer for that one, and the whole thing still really sucks. Additionally, Natalie wasn't the only familiar face who got the shaft, as tapper Bianca was also mysteriously denied a stop in the Top 20.


3. The judges assembled a Top 20 full of people we didn't know. After watching six hours of audition footage and three hours of footage from Vegas callbacks, how viewers could have not been at least summarily introduced to more than half of the Top 20 is somewhat astounding. After all, we had enough time to watch "Sex" in a dance battle with that other dude. We spent a lot of time hanging out with two of the Kasprzak brothers. We devoted plenty of time to Gabi Rojas and Alex Wong and several others who didn't make the cut for various reasons. But eventual front-runners such as Ade, Jason and (eventual winner) Jeanine, as well as some Top 20-ers who got the boot before we ever really got to know them (Amanda, Jonathan, and to a lesser extent Karla and Vitolio), had flown completely under the radar. It took weeks for viewers to establish connections with the unknown dancers (Ade was darn near in the Top 8 before we really got a chance to see him as more than just the dude with the hair pick who carries Melissa around) and I'd say that we never really got to know them as well as those whom the producers pimped from the beginning (Brandon, Evan, Kayla, etc.).


4. Somebody decided it was a good idea to manufacture some drama between Mia and Brandon. Because seriously it didn't make any sense at all that Mia, who admitted that she likes powerful male dancers best, wouldn't see the talent in Brandon, one of the most powerful male dancers the show has ever had. Clearly, someone thought the Vegas callbacks needed some more spice, but this was not the way to add it. They ploy managed to seem completely fake, while making Mia come off like a flaming jerk, traumatizing one of the show's best dancers and damaging the integrity of the show.


5. The judges acknowledged that Tony wasn't up to the level of the other dancers and put him in the Top 20 anyway. Sure, SYTYCD has always been at least partially a popularity contest. But at least the judges usually assemble a Top 20 full of great dancers before the popularity contest really kicks in. The advancement of Tony showed that the producers were placing more importance on personality than on dance ability, which was a difficult thing to handle for those of us who love the show because it showcases great dancers (who often turn out to be cool, interesting people).


6. Brothers Evan and Ryan are pitted against each other for the final Top 20 berth (and Evan wins out). Everybody and his brother (get it?) saw it coming that the producers would arrange it so the Kasprzak brothers would have to "fight it out" for the last spot, but since both brothers were clearly more deserving than others already through to the Top 20 (especially Tony), this ploy was unnecessary, cheap and just plan mean to Evan and Ryan. Factor in the fact that Ryan seemed to be doing a better job in auditions and callbacks than his little brother, and the judges decision to put Evan through seemed to confirm once and for all that SYTYCD likes good dancers, but preferably those who are young, good-looking, not tap dancers and have a full head of hair.


7. The judges eliminate Max in Top 18 week. Granted, they were put between a rock and a hard place when three legitimate male dancers--Max, Jason and Kupono--landed in the bottom three together so early in the competition, but it wasn't fair for them to send Max home during a week where he performed his partner routine well and Kupono and Jason's respective routines were both not good. It sets a bad precedent to kick out dancers who shouldn't have even been in the bottom three in the first place (Chbeeb and Jeanine's tango was just begging for that bottom slot). And, as we learned in Season 4, when they kick out the good ballroom boys early and don't have a Benji or a Pasha to serve as an anchor, the chances go way down of having any really well-performed ballroom routines during the rest of the season.


8. The producers played favorites. Whether it was when Phillip got to do hip hop two of the first four weeks or when Melissa never had to do a hip hop partner routine or when Kayla and Kupono got to do contemporary routines two weeks in a row, sooner or later it became pretty obvious that the producers were stacking the deck to favor certain contestants while throwing some others under the bus. Certainly this kind of thing happened in other seasons too, but this time around it seemed especially blatant.


9. There were too many dances. On the surface, it would seem like the more dances we get to see the better, but I think they ended up presenting too many dances, and the quality of the individual performances suffered as a result. (Doubling up on partner dances, introducing gender-based group numbers during performance shows, etc.) My thinking is that if dancers have to dance two or more numbers a week plus solos, they won't have as much time to focus on each piece and really work it to perfection. The same holds true for the choreographers--if they have to choreograph two routines for a show, they obviously have to split their attention. And, as an audience, once we see more than 10 or so routines, it becomes fairly difficult to keep them all straight in our collective head. Maybe the routines don't seem as special as they used to because we're all operating on overload.


10. The partner routines were not as iconic as they've been in the past. There is not really one particular moment that exemplifies this phenomenon, but as the season drew to a close, it just seemed like we hadn't seen as many awesome routines as we have grown accustomed to seeing on this show. It became all the more obvious when the judges had to pick their favorite routines from the season to be performed in the finale and we had to watch a nondescript NappyTabs hip hop by Phillip and Jeanine, a forgettable Latin number by Kayla and Max, a not especially thrilling waltz from Asuka and Vitolio, and probably some more boring routines that I've already forgotten. I mean, seriously? That was the best we could do?


11. Tyce's cancer dance bolsters Melissa, leaving Janette out of the competition too early. It seemed like a foregone conclusion during Top 8 week that Melissa had gone as far as she could go in the face of the stiff competition of Kayla, Jeanine and Janette. But Tyce's ideal-for-sympathy-votes cancer dance and the judges' subsequent theatrics insured that Melissa and Ade would get tons of support, artificially keeping them (especially Melissa) in the competition for another week at the expense of Janette, who had provided some of the season's best performances and was one of the show's most versatile dancers.


12. They reminded us of what we were missing by bringing back Season 4 contestants to perform last season's Emmy-nominated routines. It became painfully obvious how lacking Season 5 was in terms of memorable routines and lovable dancers when some standouts from Season 4 re-took the stage during a results show. The fact that I never really connected with any of the dancers from Season 5 made me forget what it was like to be excited about a performance before it even started, but I was reminded of that when the far more charismatic Season 4 contestants Joshua, Katee, Twitch, Mark, Chelsie Hightower, Will and Jessica took that stage. Given a choice, I'd pick any one of Joshua, Katee, Twitch, Mark, Chelsie, Courtney G., and Will over all of the Season 5 contestants, none of whom ever seemed to me to have the spark that each of these Season 4 kids displayed. (And, frankly, I don't think I was that blown away by the Season 4-ers at the time, but boy do I miss them now.)

There you have it, folks. Let's see if we can't learn from the faults of Season 5 and recapture the glory days of SYTYCD with Season 6. I really hope so!

(photo: fox.com/dance)