vegas week

Vegas Week is proving a brutal environment for the acts competing to be a part of the 'America's Got Talent' (Tue., 8PM ET on NBC) live shows. But even the danger category couldn't compete with the dance category for injuries.

Two dance groups suffered them before their performances. In one case, a dancer twisted her ankle, but went on to perform. At Howie Mandel's behest, she went off to the hospital afterward. The situation was reversed for the group Fatally Unique.

One of their tricks is a collapsing pyramid, and one of the girls involved missed her mark with her hands and wound up bloodied and stunned. She headed to the hospital right away, only to return with a busted lip and fractured nose tip. But she wasn't going to let that stop her from competing.

(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.

Nigel Lythgoe really was serious about wanting to work with Paula Abdul again. Lythgoe used to be executive producer on American Idol, before he left to devote his full attention to So YouThink You Can Dance. This upcoming week, they'll be filming "Vegas Week" for the upcoming fall season six of the hit summer series.

But before that starts, Lythgoe has invited Paula Abdul to fly down to Vegas this weekend so they can talk about her possibly becoming a part of the show. He'd love to have her, of course, "If I can afford her," he says. The question becomes: was it the money over at Idol, or the fact that she felt disrespected?

As to what capacity Abdul could be involved in the show as it takes Idol's time slots in the fall, she could be very involved. Hell, if they agree to things quickly, she could be a part of the judging panel for "Vegas Week," meaning she'd only have missed the initial auditions, and she could certainly join the choreographer pool immediately.