Instead of voting off one of the dancers this week, can we vote off the director instead?

Competent direction of dancing should be the easiest thing in the world. Here's what you do: you point a goddamn camera at the dancing and let us watch. Instead, the new director for the show this year is all swoops and cuts and closeups and weird angles that do everything except highlight the dancing. Is the director paid by the cut? And maybe next time you do rehearsals you should have some people in the audience so you could realize that the way you've blocked out the low angles, the audience members heads are in the way. It looks like an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Also lost are the seemingly telepathic use of replay. One of the remarkable things about the show in years past was the ability to splice together little clips from the dance, so that when the judges say something about that incredible lift, or footwork, or whatever, right on cue a clip of the relevant dance section would replay. Not this year. Instead, there is an almost tangible feeling of emptiness every time the director fails to have any clips from the dance we watched on cue. I hope they got this shit straightened out for this week. On to the rankings.

11. Alexie Agdeppa (previous rank: 7)

First off the show is cute little Alexie, who I thought was sexy and fun during her hip-hop routine with Twitch. But, like I said last week, there's probably a reason she tried out for the show half a dozen times without making it before this year, and I was right. Besides, at this point in the year, as long as one of the top 3 or 4 dancers doesn't get voted out, I don't get too worked up: she wasn't winning anyway.

10. Cristina Santana (last week: 11)

Cristina moves up by virtue of not getting voted off. I've seen her dance three times. Once it was a contemporary piece with Mark (who remains freaky awesome), and twice it was in her own style. The contemporary performance was best: probably because it didn't demand too much movement from her lazy, lazy feet. She should be gone this week.

Speaking of Mark, and the other All-Stars, sister Rose asks: does anyone else feel bad for the All-Stars after the dance is done, and they have to do the awkward walk of shame off stage while the actual competitor gets critiqued? That's the best they could come up with?

She also asks: if they wanted to do an All-Star season, why not just do a season with 20 All-Stars competing for an All-Star prize, instead of mixing them in with the new competitors? Who wouldn't want to watch that instead of this?

Rose has good ideas!

9. Adechike Torbert (last week: 10)

Adechike was asked to pretend, for three minutes, that he thought All-Star Kathryn was sexually attractive. And he couldn't do it. I mean, dude, I know you are gay, but is anybody THAT gay? I'm not saying I'd leave the Suze for a chance to be with Kathryn...

I'm saying I would murder her*.

8. Melinda Sullivan (last week: 6)

All performance, no dancing. The voting public saw right through her. I have her this high based on talent (CHRISTINA MOVE YOUR FEET YOU LAZY BITCH), but I would not be surprised to see her out the door next.

7. Jose Ruiz (last week: 8)

This is definitely a case of falling up, as I was not impressed with Jose, dancing in his own style. Which reminds me: I am tired of the judges pointing out that this wasn't technically his own style, because he's a b-boy, not a hip-hop dancer. Let's stop slicing the onion quite so thin, shall we? It's not like you were asking him to do fucking ballet.

6. Lauren Froderman (last week: 2)

Ugh. Lauren. What happened? Not everything is a cheer routine, honey. And the petulant back and forth with the judges, where they call you out for your petulance, and then you petulantly try to explain that you aren't being petulant, its not doing you any favors either.

5. Billy Bell (last week: 4)

Billy would have had the week's biggest drop if not for Lauren's cheer-tastrophe. He mailed in Vegas week, and he put a big ole stamp on this week too. When is he going to wake up?

4. Ashley Galvan (last week: 9)

Definitely an eye-opener. Ashley went from "who?" to my favorite girl on the show.

3. Robert Roldan (last week: 5)

Robert, you're a fantastic dancer. Now do us all a favor and stop reacting like the SYTYCD judges are the first people to ever say you are good at it. You are humble. We get it.

2. Kent Boyd (last week: 3)

I'm not even sure you could call him a dark horse at this point. I'd call him adorable again, but I've been informed that if I do then Kent and I will officially be gay married, so let's just say that... fuck it! He's adorable! I LOVE YOU KENT!

He's all shtick, except he isn't self-aware enough to actually be doing shtick. It's just his genuine personality, and I can't get enough.

1. Alex Wong (last week: 1)

Nigel said he was head and shoulders above the other contestants, and he was correct.

Actually, Nigel was eerily correct last week, predicting not only Alex's dominance, but also the LA Lakers Game 7 victory AND the demotion of the English soccer team's goalie. He also learned how to pronounce Wapakaneta, probably after hours of intensive speech therapy.

*Hi honey!