It's good that "So You Think You Can Dance" is requiring everyone to do a solo on Wednesdays. For a while, it seemed like we'd never see some of them.
The show was only requiring solos (on Thursdays) for people in the bottom three. That meant no Alex Wong or Jose Ruiz or Billy Bell or such; it meant seeing a Melinda Sullivan solo every week.
Tonight, everyone had to do one. And we saw that those people -- plus Ashley Galvan, Adechike Torbert and Kent Boyd -- are rather magnificent soloists.
And the rest of tonight? Here are a few of my comments; please add yours:
1) I've really got to start paying attention. There was a lot of buzz that Lauren had a costume malfunction that was shown live in the Eastern time zone, where I live. Somehow, I didn't see it; I would have liked to.
2) Even the part I saw -- the fully clothed part -- was slinky and seductive and more, all done to Debbie Gibson's "Let Me Entertain You."
3) Who would have guessed, a while back, that one sentence would contain "slinky," "seductive" and "Debbie Gibson"?
4) Two other slower-paced pieces -- with Ashley and with Billy -- were also terrific. (I think the judges were too hard on Billy.) And Lauren seemd to put extra thought to her solo, finding just the right 30-second stretch of Cyndi Lauper singing "Unchanined Melody."
5) I have to agree with the judges -- and the crowd -- on Alex Wong's piece. This ballet dancer was sensational in a hip-hop number.
6) I also agreed with the two judges who said they should have voted Melinda off last week. That's what I had been telling them.
7) I don't think they were listening then, though. People hardly ever do, when I scream at my TV set.
8) Life is not fair, especially when the show asks each person to say whom they were inspired by. Robert Roldan had an emotional story about his mother, complete with divorce, two deaths and breast cancer; others just kind of said they liked their school counselor or someone.
9) Kent's inspiration story was a pretty good one -- about an older brother who was an athlete and a role model and is now becoming a youth minister. At the end, however, the brother needed to be hit by a bus.
10) My prediction for Thursday? Melinda goes into the bottom three, with Billy and Robert. Then she goes home.