Maureen Watches Too Much TV: The Dance, Dance, Dance edition

This week, my TV viewing was almost entirely dedicated to dancing, with a small foray into changing partners with the new CBS drama Swingtown.

So You Think You Can Dance: We had one episode dedicated to auditions, which were kind of boring, and then the Thursday night ep was the Vegas episode. This is when the top 200 dancers get put through the ringer. At the end of the episode, they introduced the top 20 dancers, which surprisingly did not include Kelli Baker or Brandon Bryant, both of whom I thought were locks for the show. The show gets much better once the top 20 are chosen, so I'm looking forward to this weeks episodes.

Step It Up And Dance: This week was the finale, and the final 4 dancers were to present their solos. Of course, first they had to participate in a choreography set to a terrible, terrible song by Fergie. As one of the contestants said "we thought we were going to the finale, but instead, we have finale purgatory." But the solos were impressive. Each one of the dancers presented their solo to notable choreographer Jerry Mitchell, who gave really useful critiques to each one of them. Based on what they presented to Mitchell, I was convinced that Mochi would win - her solo was powerful and beautiful. But when they presented their dances on stage, it was clear that the only possible choice to win the competition (and $100,000) was Cody Greene.

America's Best Dance Crew: I will watch anything dance related that doesn't have the word "star" in the title, I guess. This is an MTV show, produced by the mostly incoherent Randy Jackson. I recorded this one, which was a wise call, because in a TWO HOUR program, there was possibly 8 minutes of dancing. Since I don't care about all the chit chat, I fast-forwarded through everything except the routines. None of the finalists in this one grab me as much as the winners of the last season of this show, Jabberwockees. But it's early days yet.

Swingtown: I was as surprised as anyone when I heard CBS was going to do a show about swingers in the 70s. The premiere episode was okay - they opened the episode with a fake-out blow-job, and they had to make the nod to price differences (heavens forfend, ground beef for .88 cents a pound!), but this could be interesting summer viewing. Molly Parker (Susan) is dreamy (although she either got new boobs or the costumer can do miraculous things), Miriam Shor (Janet) is uptight and judgemental, Jack Davenport (Bruce) is so cute but he's too mumbly, and the swinging couple across the street (Grant Show and Lana Perilla as Tom & Trina Decker) are positively predatory. I'll keep watching this one, for the time being.