SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE: Nigel Lythgoe on the Format Changes to Season 9 — Including 2 Winners!

With all the rumors and speculation going around about how the heck SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE’s ninth season will work now that Fox has trimmed the show’s airtime to one night a week, judge/executive producer Nigel Lythgoe cleared up how the new season will work during a conference call on Friday.

“The first week of [the live shows], nobody will be going home from the top 18 or 20, whatever we’re doing — we still haven’t decided yet to be honest with you,” Lythgoe told reporters. “And that will include a group number and all of their solos, the first week of the live shows and then America will vote.”

And yes, the rumors are true, there will be two winners of SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE this season, which will add a whole new layer to voting this season.

“There will be telephone numbers for each one of the dancers,” Lythgoe said. “And this year, for the first time — and I don’t know why we haven’t done this before, and I only thought about it because of literally changing the format around gave us a little bit more of a freedom to be creative — we’re going to have a male winner and a female winner. And each dancer will have their own telephone number, so it’ll be much easier to say who your top boy is, vote for them. Who your top girl is? Vote for them. We’ll be splitting couples up as well, because the following week, after they dance, I’ll say to them — or Cat will say to them — ‘You are in the bottom three from last week’ or it might just be, ‘Hey, Michael, you’re in the bottom three. Your partner Bonnie, isn’t, so you might have to dance for your life again.’ And we might say, ‘We’re going to take into account the dance you did last week, the dance you’ve just done for us and America’s vote before we make our decision of who’s going home.’ And then at the end of the show, the judges will cut one male and one female of who America has voted in their bottom three. So in other words, America voting for its favorite dancers will always keep them away from the judges.”

Despite all the massive show-altering changed, Lythgoe sounded rather excited about the prospect of shaking things up this drastically.

“There’s no question it’s going to re-energize the show because I still want to get group numbers in there [and] dancing stars who are brilliant at what they do,” he said. “And we still have all the competition to do. And if it’s necessary — if we’re still not sure which boy or girl to send home — we’ll get them to dance for their lives, too. It’s really going to be, hold on to your breath and hang on tight because it’s going to be a very fast ride. Pretty bumpy, too, I’d have thought. So it is, without question, made us pull our socks up. And I totally understand it from Fox’s point of view, because they want to free up the night to experiment with new shows. It all makes sense.”

So now that we have the format changes out of the way, it’s time to discuss the important aspect of the show — the dancers!

“I think we have some good ballroom people this year,” Lythgoe shared. “But the biggest thing that is standing out to me are the creative hip-hop kids. There is something about formally trained dancers that beats them around the bucket and turns them out and the thing they concentrate on is pointing those toes, straightening those legs and looking at those arms and forget a little bit of the heart and passion. When they come to freestyle a dance…and it’ll just be the steps we know and love. Creative hip-hop kids come out there and do the most ridiculous things; they have no fear. They don’t know, I believe, what’s going to hurt them, or what’s wrong. ‘No you can’t do that with your knee, it doesn’t bend that way…oh, it just did.’ And it’s ridiculous. They do some of the most exciting things this year that I’ve seen. One kid called The Exorcist removed my soul, took it into his body, cleansed it, and thank God gave it back afterwards. And I felt a little better, I must be honest. And they do these things and you’re like, ‘Where are these coming from?’But it’s entertaining. And I loved it this year. I think the hip-hop kids stole it for me. And there’s quite a few of them on the show this year that hopefully will do well in other areas, too.”

As for the guest judges they’ll have this year, Lythgoe said, “I’d love a lot of the ones who did it last year to come back.” (MODERN FAMILY’s Jesse Tyler Ferguson already filmed a bit for the auditions.) And, yes, there is the potential for new faces to show up.

“I spoke to Zooey Deschanel [at the Fox Upfronts], who’s an ardent fan and hopefully we’ll get her on,” Lythgoe said.

–

Are you intrigued by the SYTYCD format changes?

Follow @GiveMeMyRemote and @marisaroffman on Twitter for the latest TV news. Connect with other TV fans on GIVE ME MY REMOTE’s official Facebook page.

And to be the first to see our exclusive videos by subscribing to our YouTube channel at youtube.com/givememyremotetv