The best dancer the US has to offer?

I'm taking my lunch break today to give my review thus far of "Superstars of Dance", NBC's new big show because every network needs a dance contest.

I was busy with doing other things and watching other programs both Sunday and Monday night, so I started watch "Superstars of Dance" which I had tivo-ed both nights. For those of you not aware of the premise, in a nutshell, it's a dancing contest with a soloist, duo and group (maybe two soloists?) from eight different countries competing against each other to see which country has the bragging rights to the best dancers in the world.

Of course, I'm not sure that the US, Ireland, Argentina, China, Russia, India, South Africa and Australia is a total composite of the whole world, but that's beside the point.

I have only watched about the first 1 1/2 of the 2 hour Sunday night program and I don't know that I'm overly impressed. Of course, all I know about dance I learned from watching "So You Think You Can Dance" and "Dancing with the Stars" on TV. This new program is the brain child of Nigel Lythgoe from SYTYCD. I like Nigel, but so far, he's brought along too many of his dancing friends.

I think what really set the wrong tone for me is that 3 dances into the program comes the soloist from the United States. It was the weird popper guy (for the life of me, I can't find his name right now) from last season of SYTYCD. If you watched last season, you know who I'm talking about. He took himself out of the competition during Vegas week because he basically admitted he didn't have any dancing talent except this weird contortion stuff he does (he proudly states he works for his flexibility and is not double jointed). Nigel loved him on SYTYCD so much, and then brought him on to this show, that I wondering if Nigel just might be this guy's daddy.

This is just my opinion of course, but I'm more than a little embarrassed that this is who the powers that be chose to represent the United States. I am not impressed. At all. Seriously.

I was really beginning to wonder the show was going when like 2 dancers after Mr. Snap Crackle Pop came Pasha and Anya of Russia who were on SYTYCD two seasons ago. Uh, Nigel... did you have a hand in picking the dancers or something?

Honest to goodness, I have to say that I was in total shock that the United States duo team did not consist of members from the Schwimmer family. Love Lacey, but if Benji and Heidi walked on the stage, it might have done me in.

Now, a comment about the judges. The guy from South Africa kind of freaks me out. He kind of reminds me of the Artist-Formerly-Known-as-the-Artist-Formerly-Known-as-Prince. And is "eight" the only word in the English language that the Chinese judge knows? The Chinese judge is soooo serious. It throws me off every time the judge from India says nine in his native language because I'm like, "why are you saying no? Just because you disagree with Ms. Argentina..."

Any comments?

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