Tonight’s first course is Top Chef Masters.
This week on we had top chefs Graham Elliot Bowles from Chicago, Elizabeth Falkner from San Francisco, Suzanne Tracht from Los Angeles, and Wylie Dufresne from New York.
The chefs’ Quick Fire challenge was to create an amuse bouche from items in vending machines! And the judges of this challenge? Three contestants who competed in the original quick fire challenge of Season 2. Ouch, they are sure to be tough critics.
With only 30 minutes, the chefs definitely created some interesting dishes. The dishes ranged from shallot rings to tuna salad to braised beef jerky. On a scoring system of 1-5 stars, the winner of the challenge was Suzanne with 5 stars! And not far behind was Graham with 4.5 stars.
Then it was time for the elimination challenge. The chefs needed to create a dish for the writers and creators of ABC’s Lost. The chefs won’t be able to use a pantry and would only be able to shop for additional canned food ingredients. It was funny that Wylie and Graham were working together and having fun shopping together.
During “The Lost Supper,” it seemed as if all the chefs received good comments. And in general, the diners seemed very pleased with all of the dishes. I have no idea who will win since it seems so close. However, I think that Graham and Suzanne did the best. So who won this episode? Suzanne pulled away with the win with 22.5 stars, narrowly edging out Graham, who had 20.5 stars.
And now for the main course, the performance show of So You Think You Can Dance!
This week’s guest judge was Lil C and he joined Mary and Nigel on the judging panel. Ooh, I bet Brandon was shaking in his boots! Hehe ;)
One of my faves, Evan, was up first with his partner Randi. I love, love, love, this guy! Apparently, Evan is very into cars (surprising!) and Randi loves her dog like a child (not surprising!). The couple was given Jive this week and I hope they do well! Louis Van Amstel was there choreographer, and I’m glad that he is getting some good screen time since he is always paired with crappy dancers on DWTS. Oh, I love these two! They looked so good together and it was apparent how much fun they were having together. Plus, it looked good, too, so how can you complain?! It was fabulous! I was bummed that Mary didn’t like it so much but I really don’t think they have anything to worry about at all.
Melissa & Ade, my other favorite couple from last week behind Evan & Randi, were up next. The two of them were given Jazz and they were working with Sonya! I love her! I’m very excited for this. This couple has amazing synchronicity! It’s amazing how they move together. Lil C loved it and thought it was “buck!” Yay! I predict that this couple will be one my favorites this week, too! Both Nigel and Mary loved it as well.Next to dance were Caitlin & Jason, who rocked last week with a Bollywood routine. They were fortunate enough to do a Shane Sparks Hip Hop routine. I love Shane and I so miss not having him on the show. That is probably the one thing I hate about ABDC – why can’t they let Shane appear on both shows?! Oh, but to my surprise, they did! Hooray for the return of Shane! Now, back to the performance. The couple did surprisingly well and I think Caitlin really shined in the solo that she had. I was glad that Nigel liked it and stood up for the routine and the performance. Thought it wasn’t the hard hitting hip hop routine you would want, it was good for a softer hip hop which Tabitha and Napolean have proved time and time again is viable and it works. Hopefully these two won’t be in the bottom tomorrow.
Then it was time for Janette & Brandon. Honestly, I don’t like either of these dancers and they are probably my least favorite couple of the show. They were doing the dreaded Disco and I was secretly hoping that they would fail! Oops, that was mean of me (but true!). Unfortunately for me, they did a decent job. Except for the end, when Janette messed up a bit and she seemed to lose it a bit after that happened. Lil C even complimented Brandon. Ugh. I guess I will just have to deal with them for another week. Or hope that America hates them as much as me!
Asuka & Vitolio were next and, blah. They are boring. I really liked Asuka up until now but I just find both her and her partner so boring and dull! Hopefully their Waltz, choreographed by Louis Van Amstel, will bring them to life a bit. And I think it did! I was beautiful! And Asuka looked like Kristi Yamaguchi skating. They had a lot of emotion in their dancing this week and that was so different from last week. They completely turned themselves around. I don’t find them that boring anymore and I hope that they continue to grow and do better.
The next couple, Max & Kayla, is another of my non-favorites. I don’t think Max is nearly as good as the past season’s ballroom dancers and I don’t find Kayla to be that much more special than most of the other female dancers. Brian Friedman, a choreographer that we haven’t seen on the show in a long while, gave the couple a Pop/Jazz routine. Ok, I’m still not extremely excited about either of these dancers, but the routine was fabulous! I am so happy that Brian has come back because it was so good!
Another blah factory is Karla & Jonathan. I don’t think that Jonathan is nearly as good as the other male dancers and Karla doesn’t seem to have a lot of personality. I was way surprised to find out that Karla is part of the Boogie Bots, who appeared on ABDC. Weird! The couple was given a contemporary routine by a new choreographer, Stacey Tookey. OK, they danced to "Falling Slowly" but they didn’t use the version from the movie! They just took the version from The Frames, which is lacking the beauty of Marketa’s voice. The dance was very beautiful and really displayed Karla’s beauty as a dancer. Jonathan looked a little bit like a young boy in love, which was so perfect for the dance. And he completely proved me wrong because he did so good! This is like an episode where I am constantly being proven wrong! Some for the good, like here where I loved them and some bad, like with Janette & Brandon, where they did better than I wanted them to.Philip & Janine, one of last week’s breakout couples, was up next doing the Tango. It was definitely a rough routine which is sad because I loved this couple so much last week. I thought Janine did better than Philip did. She did really well. Luckily for them, I think that the audience already knows and loves Philip and Janine is slowly growing a fanbase from last week that they will hopefully be safe tomorrow. Surprisingly, the judges were clearly fighting for them and basically asking America to vote for them and save them. I agree with the judges!
The second Shane Sparks Hip Hop routine went to Ashley & Kūpono. I fell in love with them last week after their Wade Robson routine last week. Now this was the Shane Sparks that I’m used to! The routine was great and the choreographer was great, but the dancing…not so great. I thought Ashley was a lot better than I expected her to be. I agree with the judges that it was a little underwhelming and I hate that Shane’s work wasn’t represented the best as it could be because he is a genius. I am worried for them and hope that they have some good solos worked out!
This week on SYTYCD was a bit backwards and so many of my favorites did poorly and people I didn’t like did well! Sigh.
Next up on Get Real, an episode of The Fashion Show and the results of So You Think You Can Dance. Stay tuned :)
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