TVSquad

(S01E04) After the three audition episodes that seemed to plod along, spending so much time on interviews and back stories, this episode just felt odd. It was as if they stuffed two hours of show in a one hour bag. Dancers just appeared on screen with no names or introduction, whether we had seen them before or not.

It was also hard to get any idea about the judges decisions. For so many of the contestants we were only shown small fractions of their performance. Between this and the 'new format every week!' On The Lot debacle, I'm left wondering if everyone in the Fox reality department has just closed up shop for the summer. It's all very strange. But there were auditions, so after the jump a look at a few of the stories that stood out in Vegas.

Nigel and Mary were once again joined by Shane Sparks, and this week they brought along Mia Michaels as well. Shane choreographed the routine for the first round of eliminations. Among the notable stories in that one were Katie Watts and Ashley Keegan. They are the student and teacher combo that we met at the New York auditions. I really didn't expect Katie to make it to the top twenty, but seeing Ashley eliminated in the first round came as a bit of a surprise.

Shane's round also brought back Michael and Eva, the lindy-hop duo from the Chicago auditions. They managed a lot of screen time for what was a pretty busy episode. With both of them only getting two of four votes in the first round, they had to come back and perform for the judges. There they made it through to round two. Following that round, Michael was out, and Eva once again had to perform for the judges. This time she didn't make it. It was a nice showing for the two of them.

Janet Bombard, the one armed dancer, was paired with Pasha Kovalev as they moved to round two. There, Mary took the stage to teach the remaining dancers the samba. The two of them did very well, both getting all four yes votes from the judges, with Nigel saying Janet was incredible. Not everyone was so lucky though. Round two saw an end to the run of Anthony Velez, one of Shane's favorites from the Atlanta auditions. Heather Zampier was also let go as they closed up day one.

Day two kicked off with Mia Michaels teaching a third routine to the dancers. Yesenia Gomez lost out at this point, getting four no votes and an insult from Nigel as he referred to her as a lump. Hok, Twitch, and Jamall all received two votes and were brought back to perform a solo for the judges. Hok and Twitch were up to the task and moved on. But the time ran out for getting by on personality and Jamall's goofy tap routine didn't pass muster. The highlight of Mia's round was one Ricky Palamino. The judges called his performance, tremendous, extraordinary, beautiful, and my favorite.

After two days the field had been narrowed to 63 dancers. They were then split into 15 groups and given until the morning to choreograph their own performance. The first group featured Faina Savich and Jaimie Goodwin. After some difficulties with Faina learning the routine it all came together and they both moved on to the next round.

Hanna Lee was in group two, and nursing an ankle injury. Her group, which also featured Olivia Usey and Lauren Gottleib, also struggled to come together creating their performance. It really highlighted just how high maintenance Olivia is. If she makes it to the top twenty, expect lots of drama. After all the heartache, Olivia and Lauren were through to the final round, but Hannah had to come back and perform a solo. She fell just short, only getting two of the three required votes to move on.

The final group of the night brought back Jessi Peralta, the baby-oil girl from Los Angeles. The rest of the team started without her and then she appeared from inside of a suitcase that was on the stage. It was at least different, but I didn't really get what they were going for. Neither did the judges as they thought the performance was terrible. Jessi was able to come back for one more shot with a solo routine though, and there she impressed the judges. Mia called her amazing.

It was just an ok episode. They really should have done away with the Atlanta repeat and made Las Vegas another two hour episode. It would have been much better to see more of the actual performances. And it might have answered some of those questions about what happened to some of the people that they spent so much time on in the audition episodes. Philip Chbeeb? He was in the preview of the episode, but nary a word after that. And Brandon Norris? I never expected him to get to the final twenty, but I was curious to see how he would do in Las Vegas.

And then there were 50. They will all return Thursday night as the field is trimmed to the final twenty dancers. Once that is accomplished, things will get serious as the competition really begins. At this point, we have seen so little of so many of the dancers that it's hard to make any solid predictions. Based on that limited knowledge, my early favorites are Jaimie Goodwin and Ricky Palamino.