'So You Think You Can Dance' recap: Stupid Good

Lukewarm:
Sasha Mallory: The judges sent the dancer — who had auditioned before — straight through to Vegas. Which led me thinking...huh? Her movements were sharp, but not quite in the refined way. Instead, she reminded me of the freaky girl in The Ring. (Maybe I've just got Halloween on the mind.) Regardless, her audition felt gimmicky. A chair? Really, Sasha? A dancer who incorporates a chair into his/her routine is as cliché as a slow clap in a sports flick. Of course, I would be more forgiving of this choice had Sasha's pirouettes been far less clumsy.

Katie Muth: Honestly, I can't say too much about Muth's audition, except that I was just not impressed. Nigel, on the other hand, felt the girl had ''two things I've been searching for today.'' And, surprisingly, those two things weren't T&A. (Although, she had those too).

Ellie Soto: More like Ellie So-So. This dancer wasn't entirely notable. I do remember, however, thinking the girl had great extensions. So we'll have to see how Sin City makes her over.

The Cold. So Very, Very Cold.
Kelsey White: Crazy much? After her audition, this dancer told the judges she was kidnapped by aliens, an admission that inexplicably caused Nigel to walk off-stage. (Perhaps he just felt like phoning it in while White phoned home?) It was a story that would have served her well on a reality show akin to, say, Cops, but not quite fitting for the oh-so-classy. So they let her go. Too bad — I love me a little crazy, even if White couldn't stick a pirouette landing if her life — or the fate of planet Xypetrl — depended on it.

Demetrio ''Biggie'' Bargas and Brandon ''Shorty'' Smallwood: Okay, Biggie was, well, big. But it didn't seem to me that Shorty was all that short. Deceptive names aside, the pair was passed through to the choreography round, if only because their sheer size difference made the panel giggle. (As Nigel said to Biggie, ''I don't know if you popped as much as wobbled.'') The pair wasn't that bad, true, but did they even deserve to get put through to choreography? What's next? Will Nigel & Co., put through this couple next season?

Jonathan Noronha: Jai-No! The guy seemed like he was trying to rock some Bollywood moves. But thanks to that awful baton work, dude was better off directing traffic at LaGuardia.

Jarvis Johnson: Sigh. My ears would like five years back, thankyouverymuch. As if SYTYCD was trying to prove that Mary Murphy did not have the most annoying scream on the planet, the show brought in Jarvis, an entirely untalented dancer with the penchant for yelling loud enough to chase the dogs away. The guy did pull one awesome move — literally dancing his shoes off — but to me, he was the dancing equivalent of Steve Urkel: funny for the first 1/50th of a second, but, in the end, you wish he would stay at his own damn house. And Jarvis would have been smart to save his lung capacity — the asthmatic couldn't even make it through the choreography round without medical help.

Your turn, fellow SYTYCD fans: Am I just being cranky, or were there just no signs of intelligent life in Phoenix? Do you wish there were more dancers to board the hot tamale train? Or more Pasha, for that matter? (There should always be more Pasha.) Who do you think is primed for the top 20? Until next week!

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