SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE Announces Major Changes For Season 7
March 30, 2010 by Kath Skerry
It killed me that GMMR was down yesterday when this news came out. Obviously I shared my concerns via Twitter, but let’s discuss now that we have a little more than 140 characters.
Are you ready for an all new SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE? Ready or not the changes are coming! Based on the short press release sent out by Fox yesteryday, it sounds like it’s going to be a mash-up of SYTYCD and DANCING WITH THE STARS. I’m not sure that’s a good thing.
Check out the changes….
This year, the competition is the toughest it has ever been as the judges will pick only 10 dancers (five guys and five girls) ? from the thousands that auditioned ? to compete for the title of America?s Favorite Dancer. During the performance rounds, one finalist will go home weekly. Additionally, the competitors will be partnered each week with a different SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE All-Star dancer ? former SYTYCD finalists who are skilled in various styles of dance, including ballroom, hip-hop, jazz and contemporary. The All-Star Partners will be announced shortly.
I don’t mean to be all alarmist, but what are they doing to my favorite reality show? I’m all for keeping this fresh, but so many changes all at once? I’m not happy. I may come around and maybe things will turn out for the best, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t weary of some of these changes.
- Less new talent to watch – One of the things that set SYTYCD apart was the focus on the new, emerging talent. I loved seeing two competitors, often from different spectrums of the dance world learn from each other each week. Now we’re only going to get a top 10? That’s half the talent to root for.
- The All Stars – Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for having Travis Wall and other favorite SYTYCD alums back on my TV, but NOT in this way. Too often when an alum did resurface to choreograph, the focus moved from the current contestant to the former.You can’t tell me that voting isn’t going to be affected by who the alumni partner is. And that can work both ways. I know plenty of people that would pick up the phone to support Travis’ partner, but may not pick up the phone to vote for anyone that’s paired with someone who wasn’t a fan favorite…maybe like Lacey Schwimmer.
Nigel tweeted yesterday that the “all stars” will be picked from a pool of favorite past SYTYCD finalists. What does that mean? Finalist? Top 4 only?
- No Tour? – I know they didn’t have a tour this year, but I figured it was due to the odd summer season. But what about moving forward? Are the SYTYCD tours a thing of the past? I can’t imagine that the All Stars will go on a summer tour…don’t they have other things going on?
Again, I don’t mean to be a Debbie Downer. Maybe this will all turn out to be great, but there are just too many elements that makes SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE feel like DANCING WITH THE STARS, and the former is a show I choose not to watch.
Tell me what you think about the new SYTYCD? Are you bummed we won’t see more new talent? Are you excited to see the SYTYCD all stars back on stage? Who do you think we’ll see dancing?
Be sure to tune in to the two-hour Season Seven premiere Thursday, May 27 (8:00-10:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX.
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I guess I’m just really excited to be able to see some of my favorite dancers again…here’s hoping they bring benji, ivan, josh, katee, twitch and jakob back!
I am really frustrated with all of these changes. If I wanted to watch Dancing with the Stars, that’s what I’d watch. I might not even watch anymore.
I don’t love these changes. Yes, the last season was a bit crap, but that was mostly because it was so RUSHED, I think – they shouldn’t have tried to jam two mediocre seasons into one year.
I really love seeing the new talent and seeing the partnerships gel. I will miss that. And I think the “all stars” would mostly be better served by being brought back to choreograph. Plus a lot of my favorites are probably unlikely to return. I would love to see Mark back and Dom, but both of them have had enough success from the show that they’ve got more than enough to do without this!
I feel the same as Valerie – pairing up with a ‘professional’ makes it feel way too much like DWTS. I like how the partners bring new skills to each other and build each other up. I like getting to know a top 20. I’m (so far) very disappointed with this new direction! :0(
Totally not excited about this. It skews the votes with past dancers and I like having all new dancers to feed off each other. the only good out of it might be some amazing dances. I expect nothing but Emmy worthy performances if it’s a “pro” and a noobie. I’ll give it a chance but honestly, with everything else on TV now, it’s not like summer is the barren wasteland it used to be. I am sure I can find something else to watch.
The change that should have been made is removing insipid Alan Shankman as a judge and bringing back guest judges. Sadly this show became more about the choreography and less about the dancers several seasons ago. Season 7 will be the last gasp of breath for SYTYCD.
Sadly this show became more about the choreography and less about the dancers several seasons ago.
So true!
While I LOVE Adam Shankman and I think he brings more to the show than Mary, there will be guest judges coming back this season, including Mia Michaels.
Yay for Mia being back, but the other changes sound terrible. I agree with everything you said, as usual Kath!
I’m debating whether or not to continue watching. I have heard that no winners will be in the all-star pool and that viewers will vote for a bottom three and the judges will pick from those every week until the finale (so all the girls Nigel loves can make it to the end whether the viewers like them or not).
I also think having the all-stars will ruin some of the group dynamics. Obviously they will still live together and have group dances, but now everyone is out for themselves more or less. Also, in prior seasons the top 10 was exciting when two of my favorites would finally get paired together (Jason & Jeanene, Danny & Sara), which won’t happen anymore.
Season 6 wasn’t successful because of the scheduling, NOT because of the show’s formula. I could see making some changes for Season 8 if this upcoming season has bad ratings, but it seems like an overreaction to me.
I don’t like this either; one of the things I really like about the show was watching the partnerships grow, and some of the most memorable routines were about the amazing chemistry between the partners. I often root for couples more than individuals, at least until the partnerships are broken up. Now it sounds like the contestants will be with a new “pro” partner each week, so they won’t get the chance to really develop those exciting partnerships.
I am disappointed with this news. The format was already good and watching talent emerge from the pack is what makes this show exciting. Let the alum move on. This show has been so good for dance, why screw with it now?
Boo. I love SYTYCD, but I don’t think these changes will be good for the show at all. This will pretty much take away all of the components that I love about the show :(.
Couldn’t agree with everything you said more. I heard these changes on the radio last week while driving, and I almost drove off the road. It sounds like DWTS, minus the stars…and I am NOT a DWTS fan. The fact that they’re limiting the “new talent” pool to 10 vs 20, and bringing back all stars is taking exactly what I love about the show out of it- two new talents working together to overcome the challenges of not being experts in the genre of dance they pull every week. For a dancer, being able to overcome that challenge and still pull off an amazing performance…that’s what grabs me each week! Why can’t they just leave the format alone?! I look forward to this show every season, but I might pass this time…
This is so stupid! We as Americans put up with still ANOTHER rude British man coming over here and pulling one over on us by claiming this is a “fair” contest….everyone should know Nigel has a veritable “casting couch” and you’ll find out the top ten are all from New York City Dance Alliance and the top ten are already in dance magazines all over America advertising conventions, etc. This is a rigged contest and Nigel is a copycat trying to make it into Dancing with the Stars. The reason being he wants to pay these dancers who can’t make a career out of it so they come back to “Daddy” and get paid to dance with his chosen ten! WE ARE STUPID AMERICANS to watch this!!!! No one should watch this so Nigel L. doesn’t have any more power over young talented dancers!!!!!
They also should have advertised that they were only choosing 10 top dancers to compete on the show. I know for a fact there are thousands out there that spent their time, money, etc, traveling to the auditions thinking they’d have a chance at a top 20. This is all too political now and I hope that the producers think about this and read these forums to see how the majority feels about this.
Love the show but changing things may bring some new life into it. Keep Mia Michaels off! She was like a nut job two seasons ago. She added all this drama and actually hurt one of the contestant’s chances of winning. Also, keep talentless idiots like Katie Holmes off. What was that all about? It was like some bad dance number you would see in High School. If she was so into the cause she and her self absorbed husband should have written a nice fat check. I liked Mary, Alan Shankman, and the British guy as regular judges last season. However, change is good. Let’s see where it goes!