We’re on Season 2, huzzah! Even if it is only the audition
shows. I’ve decided to write one post on all of the audition shows, because
let’s face it, who wants to read 3 posts about auditions? (And ok, who wants to
write that many posts about auditions? Even the best of these episodes is not
that interesting.)
But there is one thing about the Season 2 auditions that is
unreservedly awesome. Cat Deeley is hosting! I didn’t realize it until I
started doing this rewatch, but SYTYCD just isn’t SYTYCD without Cat. She gives
the show its soul – chipper, warm, a little acerbic, and prone to goosebumps.
The only Cat-related complaint I have is that sometimes her
voice overs are really mean. However, I choose to believe that she is only
saying these things because she is contractually obligated to read the voice
overs the producers tell her to read. Cat is supposed to be the good fairy of
SYTYCD. Listening to her be mean is sort of like listening to Glinda the Good
Witch from The Wizard of Oz put down Dorothy for being a dog lover. It just
feels wrong.
All three audition shows are like 95% bad auditions. We get
to witness our first appearance of David “Sex” Soller. It’s even worse than I
remembered, though it is far from being the worst audition (which tells you
something). There was one priceless moment, however – the look on Mia’s face
when he announced his stage name was “Sex.” She looks absolutely flabbergasted.
The blue bar where they show a contestant’s name and age at
the beginning of an audition (I’m sorry, I don’t know the technical term),
announces that David “Sex” Soller (I can’t bring myself to just call him Sex)
is 32 years old. That means he’s two years too old for the show the first time he auditions! That means
that the producers let him through just so we could laugh at him, and they did
this year after year. Not that this wasn’t obvious from the moment he started
dancing, but it’s still infuriating. The more times the producers pull a stunt
like this, the more it turns the audition shows into a joke. And it’s not a
funny joke, either. If I happened to flip on the TV back in 2006 when Season 2
aired and caught one of the audition shows, I would have turned the TV off and
never watched the show again.
There are some bright spots in these shows. We get to see
Natalie Fotopoulos and Donyelle Jones perform brilliant auditions. Both of
these girls – who make it into Season 2’s Top 20 – would still go straight to
Vegas. They have gorgeous technique and great performance quality. We also see
Benji Schwimmer do a great swing audition. He gets sent to choreography before
going to Vegas, which makes me wonder: how many ultimate winners have NOT gone
straight to Vegas? It seems possible that Benji may be the only one.
Last, but certainly not least, we have Travis’s audition. He
gets a whole interview, and it’s awesome. He’s this blond 18 year old kid with
a fauxhawk. His dancing is good, although not as good as I remember. When I
stop to think about it, that’s not surprising. I’ve seen him dance so many
times over the years. It is not surprising that he’s improved tremendously. I
will finish with a quote from Travis’s first SYTYCD interview:
“I believe that when you dance very aggressive you show reds
and like auras and stuff like that and then, you know, when you’re like slow
and like depressing music it’s like blue-greyish. I have different shades to
me. I can jazz, tap, ballet, lyrical, contemporary, I can flip, and I think
today I’m going to be doing, um, like definitely shades of blue.”
Now, who could disagree with a statement like that?
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