(S06E24) From six to one, it was a night of eliminations on the sixth season finale of So You Think You Can Dance. They even trotted out six judges to sit in on the festivities. Joining Nigel Lythgoe, Mary Murphy and Adam Shankman on the dais were Lil' C, Tyce Diorio and Debbie Allen.

This allowed the show to have the judges "pick" their favorite performances of the season and have them performed again. I'm always suspect as to just how many of these choices are truly the picks of each particular judge, or if the judges are just chosen to introduce the dances the producers want to showcase again.

We also got guest appearances by dance troupe The Groovaloos, and a quartet of singers: Mary J. Blige, Jennifer Lopez, Leona Lewis and Adam Lambert. They didn't all sing together, but could you imagine that performance if they had?

(S06E07) So many judges, so little time. Tyce DiOrio, Mia Michaels, Debbie Allen, Adam Shankman, Mary Murphy and Nigel Lythgoe all sat in judgment of the 152 dancers who survived the audition rounds. The pace of the show picks up dramatically when we get to Vegas, and somehow I had myself convinced they were going to cram the entire week into tonight's one-hour episode.

Thankfully, I'm an idiot. Vegas Week continues next week for you and me. In fact, we only got through the first two days. But in that time, we lost nearly half of the contestants including several early favorites, and certainly some favorites of mine.

The more I see of these dancers, though, the more excited I am for this season. I thought last season suffered from the blands through a lot of it, despite some amazing choreographed performances, but there are a lot of really dynamic personalities already shining through.

(S06E03) It still looks like we're in for a great season of So You Think You Can Dance. There have been some amazing talents already making their way to Vegas, and Boston delivered several more. They also delivered a middle-aged man in blue tights, so there's that. Yeah.

Tyce DiOrio joined Nigel and Mary on the panel to face the circus, and as usual, he came with plenty of sass and attitude. He's one of the better third judges they bring on board, and he was an effective critic for many of the dancers we saw, until he got crabby.

As has been the case this season, we've seen about 80% quality dancers to 20% terrible, which is a ratio I'm very pleased with. Especially as SYTYCD tries to build a fall-sized audience to compete with the best the networks have to offer. It's about a celebration of dance, and not a circus of freaks. Except for the one ... in the blue tights.

(S05E23) I think Cat Deeley looked fabulous tonight. The panel was chock-full of choreographers: Lil' C, Mia Michaels, Tyce Diorio, Debbie Allen, Adam Shankman, Mary Murphy and Nigel Lythgoe. They brought them all up on the dais so they could each choose their favorite dances from throughout the season. That means encore performances of the best of Season 5. That's not a bad way to fill two hours.

In the end, though, it comes down to Kayla, Brandon, Jeanine and Evan. Who did America love the most last night and throughout the summer? The recap actually gave me tingles. Despite a distinct lack of personalities, there were some stunning moments of dance. And I'm ever so thrilled that the new season is less than a month away. It's a long show, so hang in there.

(S05E18) While Mia Michaels was a little better during her last guest stint at the judge's table, it was Ellen DeGeneres that excited me the most. I'm a huge fan of DeGeneres, dating back to her stand-up work. And while I think she's hilarious and I love her comedic style, I'm not sure if her presence here made much sense.

GROUP

"Let It Rock," Kevin Rudolf f. Lil' Wayne (Contemporary, Travis Wall)
I'm not sure this offered each individual dancer the chance to shine that Travis indicated it would; either that or they were all shining in the same style. Nevertheless, it was a high energy performance. I actually found the lighting on the costumes a bit distracting from the performances, but as it's a group number, I'm not too worried about it.

(S05E14) Nigel was finally ready to announce their pending plans for a Michael Jackson tribute, but apparently the big plan hit an insurmountable impasse as they couldn't get the music cleared. It's a shame, because I think the diversity of styles broached on SYTYCD would have made a much better tribute to the King of Pop than that sub-par MJ episode of American Idol the network re-aired the past few weeks.

This is also the last chance that the judges will have to maintain at least a bit of control over who gets eliminated week after week. Next week is the Top Ten and the control shifts entirely to America to figure out who goes home. What isn't clear is if they'll start competing individually or if America will be voting out entire couples. That said, will they even be keeping the same partner from one dance to the next from here on? We already know current partnerships are breaking up. So many questions, so much unclear! But who's in that Top Ten?

(S05E13) Tyce DiOrio joined the judging panel this week, which saw a lot less filler (THANK GOD!) because each of our remaining six couples had two dances each to get through. We also were advised that this would be the last week that the current couples would remain intact.

It was a good showcase of the remaining talent on the stage, as well as confirming that this is one of the stronger top twelves we've seen. Once we get down to eight or so, thing are going to get really crazy. Of course, I say that while at the same time thinking that a front-runner has established him or herself already.

(S05E09) Things were getting too exciting during the competition episodes, so the producers brought in Toni Basil to join Nigel and Mary on the panel. Even though it's a big deal to be receiving a prestigious award, I still found myself dozing off when she started talking about it.

This year, the competition is so tight that it's hard to figure out who's going to be in the bottom three from week to week. So many of the contestants are really impressive in picking up the different styles, and that continued tonight.

What also continued was couples who were great last week being not so great this week. And there are still so many couples that there are only a few favorites sprinkled throughout. In other words "What have you done for me lately?" is in full effect. So what did they do?

(S04E22) The two night season finale is here and there are only four dancers left. On the guys' side we have Joshua and Twitch, two hip-hop dancers with very different styles. The girls are representing contemporary and jazz this year, with both Katee and Courtney. I can't say I would have expected this top four at the beginning of the season, but with the range of talent we had this year, it was hard to guess who might make it here.

With Mandy Moore joining Nigel and Mary on the judging panel, we were treated to a two hour extravaganza of dance dance dance! Each of the four finalists danced no less than five separate times, sometimes with only a commercial break between them. Those whiners at American Idol talk about how exhausting that show can be, but can you imagine the physical strain these dancers go through? Especially as they ramp up to a show as demanding as this finale. Thankfully, it was packed from beginning to end with amazing numbers and amazing dancing!

(S04E15)It's time to find out which dancers will be going on tour after So You Think You Can Dance ends this August. I'm going to put it out there now (I think it's time): I want either Joshua or Katee to win this competition. I think it would be especially nice if the girl they almost didn't put on the show won the whole sha-bang!

Other thoughts before we begin... Nigel is a little cranky lately. I don't like him chiding Cat. All she did was remind everyone to tune in to the finale. By the way, there's going to be a sick popping battle during SYTYCD's live finale. Awesome. My review of tonight's show is after the jump.

(S04E14) Tonight's "jidges" included the return to the panel of Mia Michaels. In a reversal of Kristin's thinking last week, I'm actually disappointed to see Michaels joining Nigel and Mary on the dais this week for two reasons. First, I think she does some amazingly bizarre things with the dancers and I find myself always incredibly curious and mesmerized by her choreography, even if there are those times where I don't get it. But even more importantly, I hate hate HATE her as a judge. She's completely subjective and criticizes the most nonsensical things.

And then tonight she completely surprised me by being generally pretty solid before derailing again to the point I wanted to throttle. But still she can't help but get all ethereal and bizarre leaving confusion in their wake. How do you learn and grow from a comment like "I wanted more movement"? And how do you respond to what was said to Will (which I'll get to later)? Overall, the night wasn't as strong as prior episodes, but there were still some gems among all that rough.

A few days ago I put together some of my favorite routines from So You Think You Can Dance. I have to thank you readers for reminding me how many other great routines the show has had. They are even some I forgot about entirely. But I enjoyed watching them all over again.

After the jump are the reader picks and the videos. Don't forget to check out Jason's review of tonight's show and tell us what you thought of the performances.

So You Think You Can Dance airs on Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET and on Thursdays at 9 p.m.

(S04E10) Cat Deeley showed her catty side tonight by trying to knock Comfort down on hers after their introductions. Adam Shankman joined the judging panel for the festivities. He was there to promote Bedtime Stories, a Christmas movie featuring SYTYCD's Lacey and Travis, as well as some schlub named Adam Sandler. They should have strung up a few clips of the pair of them dancing, or at least on the set. We respond better to visuals, don't you know.

I'm going to agree with some comments I saw last week in that it's not necessary to spend so much time after each performance stroking the egos of the choreographers. Sometimes the choreography is great, sometimes not so much. But you don't need to praise them each time. They're big boys and girls and I just really don't think they're all that insecure ... except maybe for Mia Michaels.

TLC has a new competition series called Master of Dance (worst title ever). The show will test dancers' skills by changing the song mid-performance to measure the breadth of their repertoire and the level of their creativity. This sounds a little too much like Freezedance but for prize money. The grand prise is $50,000 to be exact.

Joey Lawrence will host and there will be three judges: Lucinda Dickey (Solid Gold, Breakin'), Tyce Diorio (choreographer on So You Think You Can Dance), and Loni Love (comedienne voted one of Comedy Central's Top 20 Comics to Watch in 2008).

(S03E18) Holy smokes. Episode 18 already? Our summer, and the SYTYCD competition, is flying by. As Cat pointed out in the intro, we're only two weeks away from crowning the season three champ. The everybody dances the same solo format from last week was out the window, which I think was for the best. You can have too much of a good thing. There was also a welcome absence of political commentary, as I think that really took away from what the show is about last week. That doesn't mean that there wasn't controversy though, but we'll get to that later. More about all of the performances, after the jump.