Olympic Opening Ceremonies Review: London Calling

E: I’m such a sucker for the Olympics.  The pageantry gets me every time, making me cheer and sniffle and gasp in awe.

M: I love it too, and look forward not only to the competition and the athletes’ stories, but to the opening ceremonies, which have gotten more and more elaborate over the years.

C: Well, more elaborate on average for sure, but I don’t think anyone expected – or necessarily even wanted – London’s to rival Beijing’s rather, er, forceful tour de force opening ceremonies.

M: No, definitely not.

E: London is one of the greatest cities on earth, and I’ve spent most of my life reading about it and the people who live there.  I’m surprised, therefor, that the opening ceremony of the thirtieth Olympiad did not give me what I might have expected – King Arthur and the Roundtable, the Royal family, The Globe Theater, Dickens and Austen and Robin Hood and Monty Python and the Magna Carta, just to name the most obvious touchstones.  But that’s probably good, right?

So You Think You Can Dance: Top 16, Season 10

E: I hate results nights.  I hate that results nights are now combined with the performance shows so we don’t get a night that’s just fun and one that’s hard, it’s just all hard.  And I’m utterly baffled by the people who landed in the bottom and the ones who got sent home.  And no dancing for two weeks?  Argh.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m relieved not to have to choose between this show and the Olympics because I love me some Olympics, but that just feels like such a looooooong time without my favorite show.  And puh-leeze do not tell me we’re going to have mass eliminations to make up for the break, either!

But.  Like always, there was good dancing.  Some seriously good, even magically transporting dancing. Let me focus on that for now.

So You Think You Can Dance: Top Twenty, Part 2

E: Man, that sucked.  Not the dancing, of course, but ouch was that a difficult evening!  Losing 4 dancers in one night’s no fun, no fun at all.

But let me not get ahead of myself.  There was a lot of good dancing to start us off, and a few stumbles from some of last week’s stand outs.  In fact, there was so much I almost don’t know how they got all this – 10 pair performances, 1 group number, a guest routine and various plugs for side projects – into the two hours.  No wonder we didn’t get solos from the 6 dancers in the bottom!  Let’s take a look.

Emmy Nominations 2012: Reaction

E: Last night I actually wrote and then scraped a post on the Emmy nominations, and my guesses and wishes about who might be nominated this morning.  It won’t be any surprise to regular readers that the nominations themselves are as ever a mixed bag for me.  There’s a pleasantly surprising amount of nods that make me happy.  There are a few omissions that shock me, and some that I hoped would happen, but weren’t expecting.  Here’s the big stuff:

So You Think You Can Dance: Top Twenty Perform, Season 9

E: The first performance show of the season is usually a good one.  Most of dancers are performing in their own styles (well, usually one of the pair is, anyhow) and we get to meet the partnerships (eee!).  So I was expecting good things, especially after the two week break since the lovely “Meet the Top Twenty” episode. I don’t know about you, but I definitely feel like that was worth the wait.

We got a lot of talk from the judges (especially about National Dance Day and the new “two winner” concept, and how the judges will pick 2 guys and 2 girls to go home next week, putting into account two dances, the voting and even input from the choreographers) and a surprising lack of emphasis on the pairings, since we’re not going to be voting for pairs but for individuals. Interesting, interesting: I’m so curious how that’s going to turn out.  Will we just lose everyone who didn’t get screen time before?  Will it all be based on luck drawing exciting routines?   But mostly, we just got a lot of memorable dance routines.  Woot!