Sort of a casting spoiler, as Nigel is twittering new rules for the next season of SYTYCD:

This Season will not have a top 20.

The partners will change every single week.

Only one dancer will leave the competition each week and not two.

If only one dancer is leaving every week, we should get same-sex pairings and/or numbers other than 2 for each dance.

I wonder how this will work out.

man this is going to be a LONG season.

I don't understand the only one dancer per week change, but it could be interesting if we got trios or maybe a week with only whole cast group dances. I am extremely happy, however with the return to S1 partner swaps every week. I really didn't like how staying with the same partner until top 10 warped the competition - letting weaker dancers skate by on their partner's popularity, amazing dancers going out before their time because of crappy partners (I still miss Shauna!), and the shipping. Dear god, the shipping. I'll not be sad to see that go away at all.

One more from Nigel:

CHANGE-The competitors will no longer choose their genres of dance. I'll explain everything before the SYTYCD Press Conference on Monday!

I guess this means no more pulling them out of a hat? Otherwise I don't know.

They didn't in the first place! Maybe this time they'll fake the choreos choosing the dancers.

I'll be glad if they are more transparent about the selection of dance styles because it was always painfully obvious that there was nothing random about it.

More from Nigel:

We are forming a 'dance-pool' of your favorite dancers from previous Seasons to act as partners for this year's top 10.

Article: [link]

"There's going to be a Top 10 that will come out of Vegas. Each week they will only be leaving one at a time, so you should get to know them," Nigel tells us on the conference call.

"We obviously don't have to push them and their partners anymore, so like most shows of this nature you're going to get their back stories and understand who they are."

"They are changing partners every week. We are going to put together a pool of ex-"So You Think You Can Dance" all-stars, some of our favorite dancers form across all six seasons and they will act as a pool of dancers," continues Lythgoe.

"The competitors instead of drawing the genre of dance out of the hat, will draw a photograph of one of the all-stars and that will dictate the genre of dance that they're going to be dancing."

There is going to be a pool of all-stars because they won't know if there are men or women going home each week, so there will be more than 10 all-stars returning. Lythgoe says that in choosing the all-stars, "They had to be dominant in their genre of dance because they are the ones that are going to dictate what the competitors are going to dance ... It's going to make the show more exciting."

For the finale of the show, Nigel says they aren't sure if they are going to have 2 or 3 in the finale. "It depends on if I can do something very, very special, which I can't talk about at this moment in time, on where the finale is placed on FOX's schedule," teases Nigel."This is going to be another huge press release if I get my way on something."

Lythgoe also reveals that Mary Murphy will be both sitting on the panel and will be choreographing this year. Mia Michaels will also be back as well.

You can look for the all-stars to be revealed over the next few weeks on Nigel's twitter account. Exciting!

Ugh. I do not like the idea of an all stars dance pool at all, not least because I don't trust Nigel and Co. to choose the "all stars". And does that mean that the new kids never dance together? They dance with all stars every week for the entire season? Because that is also just a world of no!

I'd love to see a true all star season where past dancers come back to do the whole thing all over again, but this hybrid Dancing with the Semi-Stars scenario just feels wrong like a wrong thing. Sigh. Why is 19E determined to ruin my two favorite reality TV shows?

AMC is making a series (mini?) based on Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead.

It starts shooting in Atlanta in June.

Gina Torres has been added to "Huge" as a regular. Alexis Denisof has been replaced on "Pretty Little Liars" by Chad motherfucking Lowe. Torres will be playing a doctor at a weight loss camp.