Monday, July 15, 2019

So You Think You Can Dance S16E05: Judges Auditions #5

© FOX
It’s not the heat it’s the humanity
by Stephen Mosher

If Episode 4 of SYTYCD was about meeting interesting characters, Episode 5 is about that box of Kleenex you’re going to need!  Have Mercy, with the heartstrings and the tears. But the truth is that I loved every minute of it.

Andrew Avila (25) and Melany Mercedes (24), salsa. This twosome from the Bronx returned after last season, clearly having noted and listened to the critiques they were given! The judges were super excited by them and their street brand of Latin ballroom, loaded with sharp hits and fluid hips - so excited they ovated them after their number to ‘Sal A Bailar’.  The height difference between the two is so pronounced that Andrew barely had to exert himself to do a high kick over Melany’s head! Mary called their style authentic, and when it was remarked upon that they took the old critiques well, Andrew laughed and said, 'I smiled my ass off!' It will be a real pleasure to see what the duo brings to The Academy.

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Dancer number two was Michael Sales, hip hop. Michael, 25, hails from Matawan, New Jersey and spends a few minutes sharing that he was bullied as a youth, wishing to be an athlete but unable to because people ostracized the young Filipino - so he found a Breaking Club in his school and it lead him to a life where he was named one of the Top 100 Best B-Boys of 2017. The personality-laden dancer delivered a dance to ‘Perm’ that lead Laurieann to thank him for 'paying honor to the groove', Nigel to use the word 'stunning' and Dominic to tell his fan 'I am inspired by YOU.'  After comments like that, it was a given he would be at The Academy.

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Mariah Russell, contemporary, is a completely irresistible 19-year-old from Nashville who shared with everyone that her father has been in jail since she was 6 or 7 and that her Mother did all she could to provide for the family, including dance lessons. This young dancer is petite, but not when she is in motion - then she becomes a Titan, performing breathtaking feats of strong athleticism and lyrical fluidity, never once forgetting that the face is a part of the dance. Mariah gives good face. This was a true story she told us, leaving Laurieann in tears: 'I see myself in you … Don’t worry about what other people think … You got to fight,' and then she offers her would-be protege some great advice: 'You’ve got one dance … get there quicker.'  Nigel expressed, 'When the choreography hits the impact of the music it just exhilarates us.'  Mariah walked on the stage a girl and left a woman with a golden ticket to The Academy.

A montage showed contemporary dancers Shamus Moriarty(18), Olivia  Alboher (18), and Luke Phillips (19) delivering what appear to be dances good enough to send them to The Academy.

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Phoebe Kochis, jazz. The adorable 19-year-old from Denver was born with Down Syndrome, and her Mother was told the girl would never do anything they expected. At an early age, though, the child showed a proficiency for dance and the parents enrolled her in class. Now it is her time to 'reach for the stars' and try for that which has been her dream since she was six. The winner of the Colorado Miss Amazing Pageant (for young women with disabilities) told Laurieann, 'I am overcoming to be a star on So You Think You Can Dance!' and, with that, won everyone’s hearts. Her number to ‘Tore My Heart’ showcased her limber abilities and her limitations, but the judges loved her. 'You’re my hero,' said Laurieann, while Mary told her, 'You’re a ham out there!' Dominic lovingly flirted with the Sass Master, and the wonderful, gorgeous, loving, gentle Nigel told her honestly that she would not be right for the competition but that he would love for her to be his guest at The Academy. There was no dry eye anywhere as the elated young woman left the stage with her Golden Ticket.

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James Cody, hip hop. The 26-year-old Grand Prairie native has tried out for the show in Seasons 10, 11, and 12, making it to Vegas in season 12. He confesses that he has a diagnosis of Type 2 Bi-Polar, an illness that troubled his father, who took his life at the exact age James is now. 'Dance is absolutely something that helps -- it’s a mood stabilizer, a natural one.' His hip hop/robotics number to ‘Take/Give’ reminded me of the great clowns of the silver screen, and my husband called him a 20th Century Scarecrow from Oz. Mary 'Loved every second of it,' Nigel said, 'You annoy me because you are brilliant at what you do ... I don’t believe you have done your homework.'  Ever the poetess, Laurieanne offered, 'Your future self deserves for you to humble yourself and strategize for a bigger win' and though it was touch and go for a moment, they put him through to The Academy. Like they ever weren’t. The young man impressed by telling the offstage camera, 'I am going to work TO NIGHT.' Git ‘er done.

Maia Bliudnika, contemporary. From the moment her performance to ‘Rain Dance Marian Hill Remix’ started, it was clear that this 19-year-old from Leominster, Mass. is a diva. It’s immediate. You can see it. The precision leaves you awestruck, indeed Laurieann was slack-jawed with awe. Nigel: 'It never stopped being entertaining.' Dominic: 'Absolutely loved it.' Laurieanne: 'The lines went on forever' and Mary: '..played everything right … one of the most perfect auditions of the season.' They did not lie. She was a revelation - one headed to The Academy.

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Last season we all met Eddie Hoyt, a tap dancer from Boscawen, NH.  Now 19 and living in Utah, teaching dance at a prestigious dance school, Eddie shares how much his life was changed when, last season, he came out on television. There were growing pains for him and his parents, but all is good now, evidenced by teary-eyed mom and dad sitting in the audience. Eddie shared his story with the audience through words and then did it again with a completely magnetic tap dance that left the entire panel of judges at a loss.Tears streaming down her face, Mary commended Eddie because he 'put so much into it' before declaring, 'I don’t think I’ve ever cried over a dap routine!' Laurieanne told the virtuoso performer that 'greatness needs no explanation', and it was clear he was going to The Academy. That is when the daring kid without boundaries shared the most amazing secret of all: the routine he had just done to ‘If You Want Love’ was not choreography - it was him freestyling. Laurieann threw her hands up and Dominic said: 'You’re gonna make me cry again, man!' And with Mary saying, 'It’s always been a yes for me,', he had his Golden Ticket to The Academy.

And that is it for the auditions. All the beautiful people who left it on the floor are on their way to The Academy, otherwise known as Hell Week. And, kids, we are all ready for it, when it happens Monday, July 15 at 9 PM.

What did you think of this episode? Give us your thoughts in the comments section below.

Read more by Stephen at Hotchka.com!

Friday, July 12, 2019

Agents of SHIELD S06E08: Collision Course (Part I)

SHIELD is on a Collision Course!

© ABC
Snowbunny?!
by Brandon Coulson

So our storylines merged, quite suddenly, into one this week. As 'Collision Course (Part I)' wasted no time in getting everyone back into the same orbit, literally as we start with FitzSimmons, Izel, and crew arguing over the safety of making a jump back to Earth with wonky equipment. Though they barely have time to argue how bad the odds are before the jump is made and goes off without a hitch, like with zero bad side effects.

The space side of things got the short end of the stick in general this week, as they spend the episode slowly floating towards Earth and complaining that communications are not working which, let's be frank, is just lazy writing so their arrival is a surprise. It would have been easy to show Izel sabotage the comms or something, anything to make it seem reasonable. Instead it’s just bad equipment and Fitz can’t fix it.

Throughout the episode we get little visits back to the ship peppered in to show us Izel is actually the monster Sarge has been hunting. Which confuses me a great deal as to how everything ties together this year. Like was he just from another planet entirely, not another Earth? Also we seem to find out she destroyed the Chronicoms' world so I assume they will be involved soon too but apparently she’s been searching the universe for the monoliths for awhile and only now decided to check Earth. Umm, later on we get told she shows up in ancient Incan legends so she lived on this planet for a while yet never thought about checking it until now … I just found there to be one too many coincidences and the logic seemed thin at best.

Luckily on other areas we saw much more reason than before as Mack had some damn sense this week and while he let Sarge lead the way going forward, he only gave him one of his crew, Snow, and kept the other two as insurance that Sarge would come back. Also choosing to follow behind was wise as we found out Sarge is a big fat liar.

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Sarge’s scenes with May and Daisy worked pretty well. Watching Daisy play coy and not let on about her powers was smart and Sarge wisely sensed something was up and tested her, well actually baited her into outing herself. There were still many more questions raised about Sarge’s origins. Izel ominously says she knows his secrets while Sarge shows he’s never heard of DNA before, very odd details like this and his animosity when anyone questions his past give a very Tahiti type feel to things. On top of this, Izel paints Sarge as the monster and herself as an innocent, which of course we know is not true. The real question is whether Sarge is misguided or truly evil.

As part one of two, this episode was mainly setting up the pieces for next week to pay things off. Sarge’s cool teleportation through Jaco’s coat was a highlight and got his team minus Snow together and on the loose, though having them escape only for Yoyo to immediately recapture them, to getting broken out again was a bit much, but it was still fun. Meanwhile Deke finds a bomb in Sarge’s rig set to ram a Shrike tower and explode, taking out two hundred square miles or so. Oh and this comes after we find Snow and Deke’s gross hook up so I guess between that and Sarge leaving her she will be on SHIELD’s side now. You take that along with Izel speeding towards them and possibly the Chronicoms coming too and you would think next week was the finale.

While there are four more episodes to come, I do think next week should shed a lot of light on just who or what everyone is and give us a clear path for the last string of episodes. While not the highs of earlier this season, overall it was still a fun time to be had.

What did you think of this episode? Tell us in the comments section below!

Read more from Brandon on Hotchka.com!

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Friday, July 5, 2019

Agents of SHIELD S06E07: Toldja

Sarge gets to say Toldja! On SHIELD

© ABC
Holy Shrike!
by Brandon Coulson

Following last week’s incredible episode was going to be hard but 'Toldja' did a pretty good job of it. Picking up from the end of last week, FitzSimmons and Enoch found themselves transported back to Kitson and of course immediately lost their teleportation disc. While this beat was very funny, it also should be pointed out that by setting their story there, and the Earth side mostly on base, this was a very cost efficient episode as well.

The space side of things was definitely much lighter than last week. With Gemma reminiscing about her high times on Kitson to a cameo from Anthony Michael Hall as Mister Kitson himself. This whole visit to Kitson, while not quite as fun as the first go round, still managed to hold some charm and surprises. Little things like sending Enoch away to the brothels and having a guillotine test of strength, all made for a great entertainment.

They also managed to nicely tie up all the loose ends and send our team home finally as a mysterious woman named Izel wants them to help her find artifacts buried on Earth. These turn out to be the troublesome Monoliths and perhaps we’ll finally get an answer as to what they are and where they came from!

I can’t say I was sad to see Enoch go. His role had become superfluous and mostly he just screwed things up. I hope the pager he gives them is more to leave the door open in the future and not for the end of the season. If anything I’d like to see them streamline things by the season’s end and regain a bit more focus to the series.

Back on Earth it was the Sarge show as, even in captivity, Sarge seemed to be calling the shots. It was nice to flesh out Jaco’s character a bit. Hearing his story of a large family of Bakers humanized him some, which helped once he started hacking and coughing until he went full on dragonfire mode. I could see the whole escape from within coming so I was relieved when Quake easily put him down.

Some really good mind games here with Sarge and Mack too. Their whole god talk and the way they both tried to play each other worked very well. My only gripe would be when Mack sends his teams to capture the two Shrike and they put them both in the same containment cell. I know there was no way to know how crazy two together would get but you would think Mack is smart enough to keep any captives separate much less an interdimensional doomsday creature. The whole sequence of the creatures bonding and ripping through their cell and threatening to kill the entire plane of agents was well laid out. Though the series is starting to rival Star Trek for the number of 'red shirts' that get taken out. I swear every time one of our main cast says 'agent so and so, follow me,' I just start chuckling 'cause we all know what’s going to happen. Of course the same here as Agent, lets call him Rando, gets a spike to the head and another comes close if not for Yoyo’s quick hands.

We got an answer to whether Deke knew about Fitz (he didn’t) and he actually showed some genuine emotion for once. Of course this came after getting hilariously blown off by Daisy and acting like a hurt puppy dog as a result. I’m still not Team Deke but he was fairly entertaining here.


© ABC
By the episode’s end Sarge, as he predicted, has basically taken control. I know the affect they were going for by having the entire room turn to Sarge for answers but it did feel a bit too quick for this team to just say okay we’ll listen to this nut now. It was just a bit abrupt.

My biggest fear is that Sarge will end up staying on this Earth and taking over SHIELD, basically replacing Coulson. I hope against my instincts that he will leave at the end of the season and Coulson will finally and truly be gone. We got this sort of fake out multiple times with Ward and it wears very thin very fast. Otherwise still a very good time.

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So You Think You Can Dance S16E04: Judges Auditions #4

© FOX
A cast of characters show up for the show
by Stephen Mosher

Episode four of the new season of SYTYCD was sure full of interesting people! Really, what a cool and groovy bunch we got this week, each one of the contestants looks like someone you’d want to know in real life. And Laurieann wanted to know one of them in real life, too, till she found out his girlfriend was in the house!

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First up is Jalen Sands, 18, performing to ‘Desperado’ before the credits to the show even roll. We just jump in with the contemporary dancer who is extremely compelling, performing fascinating floor work and contortions. None of the flailing about we get from some contemporary dancers - it’s all controlled and calculated. But no judges’ remarks, so we don’t know what happens to her, except that she is going to The Academy, as the credits roll. Along with Jalen are these dancers moving forward:

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Trent and Colton Edwards, contemporary. The 18-year-old identical twins are ADORABLE and if they don’t go on the show and (one of them) win the show, some producer is going to snatch them up for some kind of reality show or talk show or something. They exude personality in the best way. These best friends have had three years of training, yet they turn in an electrifying performance to ‘Ten Miles High’ after which Nigel gives them a Standing O and all the judges pass them through, with Laurieann saying they were 'unique, awkward, fearless, not cut from the same cloth' which was a good set up for a joke from one of the twins. Dominic said he thought 'please don’t suck.' Well, they didn’t.

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Bryan 'Clocks' Volozanin, hip hop. Bryan was on Season 12 but got cut at the Green Mile. Since then he has been a professional dancer in Las Vegas, which I kind of think isn’t fair. I mean, if you have a union card to perform professionally, you sort of have a leg up on the competition. Nevertheless, he turned in an amazing performance to ‘Printer Jam’ about which Laurieann said was ’your timing is everything' and Nigel called entertaining. The only thing is that this season there’s no suspense. They’re only showing us the dancers that are so good that they would have to be put through. We watch the show now and a dancer like this comes out and we’re like: ‘oh yeah… he’s going through.' Still, he’s good, and he’s cute, so he’ll be good for the show.

In a series of clips, we see hip hop dancers John John Tarrayo (24), Lorenzo Rangel-Santos (20), Gerald Taplin (28) and Anna Linstruth (19) all get put through to The Academy. See? No suspense.

In a longer montage with more footage, we see a fun little theme when three ballroom contestants compete with dance partners who have already competed on the show. Sofia Ghavami danced with Kiki Nyemcheck, while Vlad Kvartin danced with Magda Fialik, and Annie Lynn Sheketoff danced with Ryan Dilello. It was great seeing the old competitors again and, natch, all three new contestants will be going to The Academy.

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Sydney Burtis, tap. This 18-year-old was diagnosed with autism at an early age and began dance lessons to help her to connect with others, and it sure has paid off. She is currently studying dance at Pace University and she gives a brilliant performance to ‘Any Other World’ in lime green tap shoes. She has great musicality and is definitely a show woman. Nigel said he didn’t get her choice of music and that it didn’t work but I totally got what she was doing. Still, after critiquing her musical selection Nigel said: 'Ignore all that comment' and gave her a yes, as did the rest of the judges, sending the super cute dancer to The Academy. Sidney admitted to Dominic that she has posters of him on her wall at home. He thought it was flattering … and a little scary. And Mary said, 'There isn’t anybody in this room you didn’t connect with,' so yay for those dance lessons, mom!

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Jarrod Tyler Paulson, contemporary. The 26-year-old does auto repair and construction when he isn’t dancing but dancing is his life … as well as his girlfriend Madison Jordan, 21, who danced right after him. They met in dance class and fell in love, and while they chose to dance apart, not as a duo, it is palpable how much they are into each other, and each others’ dances. Jarrod goes first to ‘Stand By Me’ and wows the judges IN BLUE JEANS yet, causing Laurieann to say, 'I would stand by you any day of the week' - but Laurieann does seem to flirt with the mechanic quite cheekily, in a really charming manner. The dance is truly magnificent and emotional causing Dominic to say Jarrod is 'exactly what this show is about.'

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'I was not expecting that,' said Nigel before offering the Academy bound dancer his own seat so he could watch Madison, an alopecia-diagnosed young woman whose 'control was magnificent,' according to Laurieann. Madison is quirky and interesting, filled with drama and technique while performing to ‘Woman’, and Mary remarks on the juxtaposition of softness and strength in the powerful performer, while Nigel wants to audition their kids. In fact, even though their dance styles are wildly different, Nigel urges them to dance together, which they do, to the delight of everyone. It is a pleasure to see this young twosome advance.

The one rejection of the night was Antonio Frias who embarrassed himself by dancing salsa solo. With very little technique, the Floridian simply looked lost up there and, thank goodness, Mary gave it to him straight, rapidly putting him out of his misery. She’s so wonderfully gentle about it, but she doesn’t lie. She tells him he’s not good enough with very specific critiques, the kind a dancer needs in order to grow. Thank heaven she is so gracious because maybe now he will go train some more and get better. He could, as we saw when Nigel pulled a random woman up from the audience to dance with him and he did, indeed, improve.  Not by much, but there was a marked difference. Nigel totally saved face for the poor guy.

And thus ends the night of characters on SYTYCD. It will be fun to get to know them all better at The Academy, but we will have to wait an extra week, as it will NOT air the first week of July, but will return on July 8th for the final night of Judge’s auditions.

What did you think of this episode? Give us your thoughts in the comments section below.

Read more from Stephen on Hotchka.com!