The grandiose thing to do would be to claim that the producers of SYTYCD are avid readers of this blog, hanging on my every word for the scraps of wisdom I dispense like so much sweet sweet candy. The practical thing is that the flaws of this season were so glaringly obvious and so widely decried that the producers had no choice but to alter course in an effort to save this season.

Exhibit one: the judges realized that the girls just weren't as good as the guys this season, and rather than keep an inferior dancer around in some misguided nod to affirmative action (BOOM TAKE THAT BLACK PEOPLE YOU JUST GOT BURNED), horrible horrible Melinda was sent back to the vat from which she was grown. And! AND! We got the epic pairing of Alex and Twitch, despite Nigel's on-the-record aversion to guy-on-guy dancing.

The scuttlebutt is that more changes are in store for this week, with dancers dancing with all-stars, dancers dancing with dancers, and who knows what other signs of the apocalypse.

11. Christina Santana
10. Alexie Agdeppa
9. Melinda Sullivan (last week: 7)

Melinda, a word of advice, from somebody who obviously knows what it takes to be successful in showbiz: you are faker than Heather Mills' leg. I assume that all famous, beautiful starlets are absolute insufferable bitches in real life, but its like your bitch-itude is of such a magnitude that you can't even contain it for the 4 minutes of stage time you were awarded every week. You aren't fooling anybody.

8. Robert Roldan (last week: 6)

As high as third in these rankings only two weeks ago, back-to-back bottom three finishes have Robert hanging on to his spot by the skin of his teeth. His transparently fake aw-shucks routine (as opposed to Kent Boyd's endearingly authentic one) is barely better than Melinda's transparently fake "I'm not a horrible, life-sucking bitch" routine. It will take a miracle for him to make it to next week.

7. Jose Ruiz (last week: 8)

Part of the reason that the judges sent Melinda home last week (other than Mia's much-derided, but completely correct, on-stage lament that she hadn't gone home earlier) is that Billy and Robert, and not Jose Ruiz, were the other performers in the bottom 3. And its the judges fault for heaping on him completely unearned praise for a salsa that was both choreographed and filmed to hide his total ineptitude. A dancer has to be doing really well or godawful to make me care when Anya is on stage, and I couldn't take my eyes off Jose's wooden performance. That vacuum that danced with Fred Astaire had better footwork.

And yet, despite all that, he has cruised through the competition to date, so there's no reason to think that won't continue at least one more week.

6. Billy Bell (last week: 5)

Last week's "shocking" result of Billy landing in the bottom three should only be surprising to anybody that hasn't watched the show since he was a contender last season. While his performance this week was good, it didn't stop the judges from tearing into him like Mia at a buffet. Could it be that they actually have influence over the voters?

5. Adechike Torbert (last week: 9)

Boy, did I have this one wrong last week. Adechike turned in one of the best performances of the night (although it was, like all the performances, overshadowed by the show stopper at the end). The only question it left me with was why he was dancing hip-hop with Lauren, while Comfort sat on the sidelines. I love you Comfort!!

4. Lauren Froderman (last week: 4)

I had a realization last week, when the 18-year-old Lauren's dress broke, and her 18-year-old boob almost popped out: I'm old enough now that me getting excited about it was just a little bit gross. Not that that stopped me, of course.

3. Kent Boyd (last week: 1)

Not a great week for my boy Kent. I still dug his performance, but the judges are really starting to lay into him now about his performance. It remains to be seen if their negative comments can have the same affect on him as they have had on Billy.

2. Ashley Galvan (last week: 2)

The second best performance of the week. Which last week was kind of like saying she was the smartest kid in her special ed class, but that's only because...

1. Alex Wong (last week: 3)

...this happened.