As far as I’m concerned, there are two important milestones on So You Think You Can Dance: the Top 10 (when you get to tour) and the Top 4 (when you get in the finale). Who actually wins seems to me to be arbitrary and impossible to predict, and doesn’t necessarily denote anything. After all, Travis Wall was the runner-up, and look where he is now, right?
I think, as far as the girls go, Ashleigh and Ellenore have a pretty solid lock on those top two spots. Noelle and Kathryn are, as far as I can tell, interchangeable, and I’m not even sure which one of the Bobbesy twins went home this week, which is a bad sign. Mollee could maybe provide an upset, but her personality is so damn annoying I highly doubt it. Congrats, Ellenore and Ashleigh, unless you screw up majorly, you’ve already won!
The boys, on the other hand, are still slightly up in the air.
Before I get pelted with things, I’m of course not talking about Jakob. That boy’s been in the top four for weeks now. But who’s going to join him? Certainly not Ryan. For all his impeccable partnering, he’s still mostly stiff, and can’t do anything remotely hip-hop related to save his life. It’s pretty safe to say unless he and Clone #2 pull something ridiculous out, they’re going home.
Now here’s where it gets tricky — Russell or Legacy? Both of them are hip-hop dancers surprisingly good outside of their element. In Legacy’s favor, he seems more proficient technically and can perform a variety of characters, where Russell is either earnest or adorable. Russell on the other hand, is fabulous at contemporary, which seems to be the show’s backbone, and he’s at least passed at more difficult ballroom, and we’ve never seen Legacy do kiss-of-death styles like Jive and live to see another week. Plus, Russell’s been much more emotionally memorable, where Legacy has just been consistently good.
I’m personally pulling for Russell out of hometown pride (Boston, holla!), but it’s really up to their routines in the next two weeks and if either can pull something amazing and memorable. And considering that we’ve only had one amazing routine like that this season that came with Ellenore and Jakob’s Sonya routine this week — good luck, boys. You’ll need it.
Clacked by Julia Hass 
on Dec 06, 2009 @ 17:16 EST5EDT
I think this horrible mess of a season will actually have a top 6 instead of a top 4.
Horrible mess?! Yes, the whole thing seemed rushed going from summer to fall without a break, then the World Series screwed thins up – why Fox wanted to make this a fall show, I’ll never understand – but horrible mess is hardly a way to describe the season, if only for Jakob’s stellar showing week in and week out. If he doesn’t win, I don’t think I’ll be able to watch the show any more because choosing a favorite over a best demeans the whole competition – even though they keep drilling it into the dancers’ (and our) heads that it is voting for the favorite. I can see Jakob losing to Russell simply because Russell can be more of a “puppy dog” than Jakob and that’s what gets votes. Shame.
Unfortunately it’s been a few seasons now since “the best” dancer won this show. Last season was disappointing with Jeannine winning over Brandon. He was clearly superior to her. But then again, her parents are excessively wealthy and made a donation to the show…so you do the math.
And it was an absolute disgrace the year before when Joshua won over Katee. It was so bad that SYTYCD, for the only time ever, gave Katee a prize for coming in 3rd because they knew she was far and away the most talented competitor on the show.
I’d say you have to go back to Season 3 with Sabre winning before you’re back to “the best” dancer winning SYTYCD.
The finale is the 15th and 16th that means it is the top 6. When I said “horrible mess” I was being nice. They wasted several weeks on “Hell Week”, much more than in the past. If they planned this better we should have had a top 4 instead of a top 6. That means this season we got to vote like 5 times? Ick, what a waste of a season.
True. I didn’t watch most of the tryout episodes. It was a huge waste, but it may have been a necessity due to the World Series…which is another reason they should have never put the show on in the fall.