It's tempting to start at the end this week, what with the ending being what it was, but with this being the first week, let's take a moment to learn a couple of names.

In the "Group Who We've Been Following Since The Audition Episodes", we have Sasha, the black girl with the fat sister that was kept in the competition long enough to create the moment of manufactured non-tension when only one of them would be put into the top 20. Hmm, which is it going to be, the 105-pound cutie or the 160-pound girl who was diagnosed with diabetes during Vegas week? At least these girls seemed smart enough to know the score, and be happy that the only one who actually had a chance at the big show got in. We have Jess, whose skills as a Broadway dancer are surpassed only by the degree to which he is an insufferably smug little shit. We have Jordan, who seems to think that dancing like stripper will distract us from butterface (it works about half the time). And we have Robert, the hip-hop dancer who celebrates each breath taken by constantly shouting "Wooooo!" like a G-rated Tourette's patient.

Jess, Jordan, and Robert all found themselves in the bottom 7 this week - 7 instead of 6 because we had the three most unpopular couples and Mitchell, who kept alive a distressing trend of dancers being unable to perform due to injury and thus leaving themselves eligible for elimination. Jess, along his partner Clarice (or "Claariiiiiiice" as the Suze must repeat it, Lecter-style, every time), performed a Tyce Diorio Broadway number. That's right: Jess, the Broadway-style dancer, did a Broadway-style number, and was put into the bottom 3 anyway. It's not because of his dancing, which is excellent (he is, in fact, the best Broadway dancer the show has ever had). It is because America can tell what an insufferable little prick he is.

In fact, the entire bottom three was inexplicable. The Suze and I like to guess who will be in the bottom three each week. We had picked Ashley/Chris and Ryan/Ricky, who both performed "lyrical hip-hop" numbers. (Lyrical hip-hop, so far as I can tell, is an effort to give Tabitha & Napoleon style hip-hop a name other than "hip-hop for white people".) I had suspected that Iveta/Nick would be put in the bottom for their quickstep, which, despite being marvelous, was still a quickstep.

The inexplicability of the dancers put in danger led to the unprecedented ending. The dancers came out and performed their solos, each of which was more spectacular than the last, each of which led to shots of Nigel furrowing his brow and rubbing his temples. After coming back from break, Nigel asked two of the men, the suddenly healed-Mitchell and Robert to re-perform their solos. And after all of that, nobody was sent home.

It came down to the girls, or the "beasts" as Nigel keeps calling them. The panel was unable, or unwilling, to send one of these girl dancers home. The panel was probably completely willing to send Robert home, but since that would have led to a boy/girl imbalance, he skated by. Basically, the panel told America, "You got this wrong. We're giving you another chance to vote properly and think about what you've done." The will of the people was thwarted. This week, instead of eliminating a dancer, Nigel and his judging panel eliminated democracy.