By Mary Cavaliere

The most interesting scene of the night was watching Mia Michaels and Lil' C battle it out with Debbie Allen, Mary Murphy, and Nigel  Lythgoe over dancer Brandon Bryant.  I admire and respect Mia as a choreographer, and she has always been one of my favorites on this show.  But I honestly don't get what her problem is with Brandon.  As for Lil' C, he's impressed me about as much as Brandon has impressed him, so we'll leave it at that.  It was obvious by the end of the argument where the real power is on the show as not only did Nigel and Mary make it clear to both Mia and Lil C how they felt about Brandon, but they communicated to Brandon that they think he's a brilliant dancer and should not be discouraged by anything the other judges have to say.  Although I agree with Nigel's advice to Brandon, it might not have been in his best interest to treat a guest judge, especially one as popular as Mia, the way he did by negating her opinion on national TV.  So it will be interesting to see where this issue goes as the competition progresses.

There were two really big disappointments for me.  One was that Alex Wong did not make it to the Top 20, not because he wasn't good enough, but because he was under contract with the Miami Ballet company and his boss was unwilling to let him out of his contract for a short period of time to do the show.  I thought that was extremely unprofessional of his boss and very unfair to this talented dancer who wanted to stretch his wings and experience other types of dancing that was out of his comfort zone.  I do hope that Alex will be back next year!

The other disappointment was losing one of the Kasprzak brothers.  I truly was hoping they would both make the Top 20 but when that didn't happen I was rooting for the short bald guy (Ryan).   I'm sure it will be enjoyable watching Evan throughout the competition, but again, I hope we get to see Ryan back next year as well.

The Top 20 for Season 5 has been named and here they are:

GIRLS:

Karla

Janette

Kayla

Paris

Jeanine

Caitlin

Melissa

Ashley

Randi

Asuka

BOYS:

Vitolio

Kupono

Ade

Jonathan

Brandon

Tony

Max

Jason

Phillip

Evan

Good luck to all the contestants!!!!!!!!!!!!

For more So You Think You Can Dance Links visit Sirlinksalot.net