‘So You Think You Can Dance’: Viva Las Vegas!

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Vegas baby, Vegas! I hope you’ll forgive me for such a trite phrase -- things got real tonight on ‘So You Think You Can Dance.’

I love when this show demonstrates just how hard the contestants work compared with, say, ‘American Idol’ or ‘America’s Next Top Model.’ So you made it through to Vegas? So you made it through your second audition? Now try hip-hop with Tabitha and Napoleon D’umo! Now Latin with Louis Van Amstel! And you’re still not done after that!

I’m already picking out my favorites for the top 20: I loved Ellenore Scott’s funky, awkward, adorable genius dance -- you never see women giving humorous performances on this show, and she got a standing ovation. And something about krumper Russell Ferguson was very appealing when he first auditioned and I like him even more after he demonstrated how proficient he was at Latin especially with Lithuanian bombshell and ballroom champ Iveta Lukosiute.

I was surprised that Tintin lookalike Teddy Tedholm got eliminated so early: The judges loved his shy-guy dance and harlequin dance, and I was surprised at how well he did at hip-hop, but he fell apart in Latin. I was less surprised to see Ryan Kasprzak -- we all love the Kasprzak boys but I don’t think he would have been nearly as successful as his brother Evan, and he was obviously struggling, both technically and in summoning command during the Latin part of the tryout.
I’m not mad, though: If Ryan and Teddy weren’t good enough for this round, that just proves Mia Michaels’ point: Season 6 is going to blow Season 5 out of the water.

-- Claire Zulkey