(S03E13) Cat opened up the show looking absolutely lovely with her hair up and her blue dress. She said that after last night's performances this might be the hardest elimination yet. I didn't really think it was that tough a decision, but considering that my picks for elimination didn't pan out, maybe it was more difficult than I thought.

That led right into the big group performance, choreographed by Adam Shankman, which I'll call a modern take on the sock hop. It had a very Happy Days feel to it, if Ralph Malph had occasionally paused to do a little break dancing before telling someone to sit on it. It was a very fun performance all around.

(S03E12) After a week off for the 4th of July holiday, Nigel, Mary, and Cat are back with the top 14. Along for the ride is guest judge Adam Shankman. He is the director and choreographer of the upcoming Hairspray. The show started off by sending a small percentage of the audience into epileptic seizures as they got a look at Cat's dress, and then moved on to Nigel defending the decision to cut Jessi.

Really, I think they should have just let it go. He's not going to change any minds no matter how well thought out he thinks his explanation was. All this served to do was remind the people that didn't agree with the decision that the last results show was, as they saw it, a travesty. It's not changing, so to be fair to the other dancers, get on with it. As we should do now. Rundowns of all the performances after the jump.

(S03E11) After a crazy performance show it was only natural to expect that anything could happen on elimination night. Things started out normally enough with a group performance to "The Lion's Hunt" from the Lion King soundtrack, choreographed by Tyce Diorio.

It was not my favorite of the group performances, but it was fun. The thing I found interesting was that, like last week, this one also ended with the focus on Sabra. I'm taking that as a subliminal message for people to vote for her. She's quickly becoming my favorite in the competition.

(S03E10) So You Think You Can Dance, come for the dancing, stay for the drama... One of the things I really like about the show is that they stay pretty heavily focused on the competition. Sure, we get the sometimes useless backstage bits, but they have to fill out the two hours of their summer hit somehow. For the most part though, they do steer clear of the theatrics and keep the actual dancing in the spotlight. That broke down a little tonight, though maybe not as much as it could have. More on that later.

First, look over there, it's dance legend (we can call her a legend, right?) Debbie Allen sitting in as guest judge. I had heard that she was going to be making an appearance and have been looking forward to it. She didn't disappoint either. Throughout the show she was a lot of fun. Nigel and Mary were, of course, along for the ride. So, with the introduction out of the way, on to the performances... and the drama.

(S01E05) I have to say, I'm glad to be done with the qualification episodes. The show is always best when it gets into the competition round anyway, but these last couple episodes have just been very poorly produced. It's hard to argue for or against any of the judges decisions about who is in, and who is out, because we have seen so little of the actual performances.

Getting the final fifty contestants down to the top twenty followed along those same lines. It was an hour spent trying to create suspense that mostly fell flat. It's a little difficult being concerned whether or not someone is moving on when we haven't even been introduced to them. And since they refuse to put names on the screen, we aren't even sure who some of them are anyway.