My thoughts on Season 8 of So You Think You Can Dance

I watched this Wednesday's 2 hour So You Think You Can Dance and was surprised to hear Executive Producer and Judge Nigel Lythgoe comment that people were claiming that Melanie, one of this year's Top 10 girls, was getting better dance numbers. I felt Nigel kind of dismissed those claims during the show. However, I began noticing a few weeks ago what Nigel was talking about last night about Melanie getting better dance numbers.

Is this a valid argument? Sadly it is.

Melanie has been getting a lot of breaks, along with her partner Marko. First of all, Melanie who is a contemporary dancer was paired for 5 weeks with Marko who is a jazz dancer which are more compatible than many other dance styles. Meanwhile you had other much less compatible pairings the first 5 weeks of the live shows such as a ballroom dancer paired with a tap dancer and a jazz dancer paired with a break dancer.

In those first 5 weeks of live competition shows with partner Marko, Melanie was able to early on become a favorite this season since she was dancing in her very own style in week one, Marko's style in week two, lyrical hip hop in week 3 (which is the kind of Hip Hop that Melanie would be most comfortable and believable doing), and then Marko's Style again in week 4, and her own style along with a tango number in week 5.

So by the time half of the Top 20 were sent home, the hardest dance Melanie had to do in the competition was lyrical hip hop which is considered "hip hop with emotion." This isn't the really fast hard hitting hip hop that would be much more out of her comfort zone.

From the Top 10 round up until now, Melanie continued to get lucky with dance numbers getting jazz and contemporary styles for a third time each. She did also get a Viennese Waltz number. And this week she had like a Broadway number and a hip hop number. However, even this week's hip hop number was like perfectly suited for her since she was playing the role of Little Red Riding Hood. And if you have seen Melanie standing next to host Cat Deeley, you can tell Melanie is like a full head shorter than Cat Deeley which means her height makes her a great person to play that kind of role.

Also helping Melanie out this season, and I am sure former Programming Insider Podcast co-host Michael Burgi would agree with me on this, is that she is often doing dance styles that are familiar to older people and she is being compared to actresses and dancers of the 40s and 50s era films by the judges. Meanwhile other contestants are doing these less familiar styles and are going home. For example, Sasha and Ricky got a new dance style on the show this week called Waacking. But if people are not familiar with these newer styles, they are less likely going to call up or log on and vote. Sorry Sasha and Ricky, but I think you two are in danger this week since hardly anyone can appreciate that style at this point in time. It takes time to appreciate newer styles of dance.

Nigel has made no secret that he thinks Melanie is one of the best dancers of So You Think You Can Dance's entire 6 year history. While that may be true, I honestly can't agree with him since Melanie was never really put to the same challenge of learning new dance styles as winners of past seasons were. So in my mind, we will never know if she is one of the best ever with only one week left for her to do all the many styles she never had to do this season such as Bollywood, Hard Hitting Hip Hop, Quickstep, Waacking, Disco, and so on.