So I Think I'm In Love

It's finally happened: I've fallen for "So You Think You Can Dance." It was a long, slow courtship, through some turgid auditions and a melodramatic Vegas week, through some mediocre couples dances and some Mary Murphy rants about hot tamales that made me turn down the volume on my TV. But my appreciation has grown and grown, and I'm almost ready to say that in some ways (triple gasp) I'm enjoying this more than "Idol." I think it has to do with my general lack of knowledge about dance; nearly everything looks impressive, and, as someone with a phD in klutz, I can see how incredibly difficult these moves must be. Among my other points of admiration:

1) Cat Deeley's dresses. I want every single one of them. She's pretty likable, too - all of the bubbly encouragement of Ryan Seacrest without the obnoxious self-love.

2) Nigel Lythgoe. Who knew? The "American Idol" executive producer demonstrates that you can be the tough and knowledgable British judge without being cartoonishly nasty. Plus, now that I know that he's danced with Cyd Charisse, I implicitly trust his dance cred. (Mary, on the other hand. Humph. She knows whereof she speaks, but DOES SHE HAVE TO SHOUT EVERY WORD SHE UTTERS? I'd rather listen to Paula Abdul spewing gibberish for three minutes.)

3) The choreography. It's amazing to see a mainstream series that showcases such wild, avant garde stuff. Mia Michaels deserves some sort of trophy for whacked-out-itude, and I love the hip-hop duo, Napoleon and Tabitha. The dance-as-storytelling numbers are my favorites, though the sambas have generally been great, too.

4) Chelsie and Mark. They're my favorite couple, mesmerizing to watch. I adored their crazy wedding routine the first week, and tonight's hip hop tale of a working-man's wife was can't-take-your-eyes-off-it good -- so good that for the first time, it made me kind of like that Leona Lewis song. My runners-up: Katie and Joshua, who dance every week like underdogs on fire. Particularly Joshua - he shakes it like he knows what to do with it. I loved when Nigel called on his father, and did a rear-end comparison.

5) The fact that we see the rehearsals. What makes "Project Runway" so great is the peek it gives us into the creative process -- and the refining process -- and I wish "Idol" did more of this on a weekly basis. I could use more dance-practice scenes, too; I'd rather hear about how choreography is born than know that so-and-so likes junk food and so-and-so buys shoes.

So I suppose this is the point where I predict who's most likely to go this week. I'll side with the judges and say that the bottom two couples were Comfort and Chris, who looked less like angry Marilyn Manson warrior types and more like people auditioning for "Cats," and Chelsea and Thayne, who seemed to be dancing on their tiptoes the whole time. Which maybe is the point of the quickstep, but still. It looked uncomfortable.