Bryce's was the worst of the bunch. Even if the hem had been well made, it still would've been ugly.

The hem looked like a very inexperienced sewer did it. It was all thick and hung horribly. The collar on Julie's dress was just ugh but at least you could see what she was going for. I agree that the winning outfit was a LOT of shiny gold for daytime, and I'm not a big fan of the asymmetrical portion of the top, but Nina did wear it pretty well.

I liked the winning outfit this week so much more than last week, but I still haven't found a designer yet this season that makes me think, "Wow he/she is amazingly talented!" They've mostly been boring.

I really just want more variety. There was an awful lot of contemporary (and things called other styles that still looked an awful lot like contemporary) this season. My favorite moments are when a ballroom dancer crushes hip hop or the like

Yeah, no kidding. And I was expecting more of that with the All-Stars, because then at least ONE of the kids would be good at the kind of dance, so you could have some more ballroom or hiphop or whatever. But NSM. And the problem for me was, it was SO overwhelmingly contemporary/jazz/lyrical/it all looks the same, that the few times they gave something else it felt like they were punishing the person who had to do the "bad" dance ("OMG, they got quickstep? Someone must REALLY want him gone")

S6 I had forgotten about the Ellenore/Jakob tore my heart/Stuck dance. This is AWESOME

Oh my gosh, the S6 choreography was so many light years better than this year. It's unbelievable. Spencer Liff's Broadway piece to Choreography for Nathan and Kathryn made me smile all over my body (and I hated Nathan by that time). And yes, the Jakob/Ellenore/Sonya piece was ridiculous! So many good routines every week. And kids dancing out of their style and still tearing it down! Watching S6 is kind of making me sad. And today they started showing ads for the S7 repeats and Alex Wong came on my TV with Twitch doing Outta Your Mind. Best. Thing. Ever. In. Life. Sigh. I loved me some Alex Wong. Not that I didn't love these S8 kids. I did. I loved the S8 kids. Just that they didn't get anything near as good to dance and that's a shame because they could really bring it.

I thought for sure Cecila was going home - that dress was FUGLY. And Bryce's hem was simply embarrassing. I think Julie went home more for a history of being on the bottom than for this specific challenge.

Because I’m me, and it was bugging me, I did some calculations for a blog post on this season of SYTYCD and it’s worse than I thought.

I looked at seasons 2-4 versus Season 8. I didn’t consider Season 1 because it started with only 8 couples, and they also used very different terms for the styles (contemporary and jazz didn’t exist but they had “lyrical” and “pop” and even “pop jazz”). Hilariously, Season 2 made a distinction between 70s and 80s disco. Also, I hadn’t realized there was 1 krump in all three of those early seasons.

I looked at the first 4 or 5 episodes for consistency (that’s when it starts to break down because of when they start doubling up dances). Seasons 2 and 3 went down evenly from 10 to 6 couples in five episodes, Season 4 started double dancing at 7 couples, and Season 8 at 6 couples (but season 8 also had the non-elimination so the number of dances doesn’t match as well).

Full breakdowns to follow, but check out the difference in the seasons when you look at broad categories.* Seasons 2-4 are pretty consistent, with 17 total ballroom dances, 10-14 contemporary, 8-10 hip hop, and 2-3 disco numbers. But, by season 8, while hip hop remains pretty consistent, there are only half as many ballroom dances as contemporary, and one could argue that most of the ballroom is pretty watered down.

Season 2 (5 Episodes, 40 dances)
Formal Ballroom (12)
Contemporary/Pop/Jazz/Broadway (10)
Hip Hop/Krump (10)
Other Ballroom (5)
Disco (3)

Season 3 (5 Episodes, 40 dances)
Formal Ballroom (13)
Contemporary/Pop/Jazz/Broadway (13)
Hip Hop/Krump (8)
Other Ballroom (4)
Disco (2)

Season 4 (4 Episodes, 41 dances)
Formal Ballroom (14)
Contemporary/Jazz/Broadway (13)
Hip Hop/Lyrical Hip Hop/Krump (8)
Other Ballroom (4)
Disco (2)

Season 8 (5 Episodes, 47 dances)
Contemporary/Jazz/Broadway (24)
Hip Hop/Lyrical Hip Hop (9)
Formal Ballroom (11)
Other Ballroom (1)
African Jazz (1)
Bollywood (1)

*For this purpose, I made a distinction between formal ballroom (the five Standard dances of foxtrot, quickstep, tango, Viennese waltz, and waltz as well as the five Latin dances of cha-cha, jive, paso doble, rumba, and samba) and other ballroom dances (which on SYTYCD includes Argentine tango, mambo, salsa, and West Coast swing). I counted disco and the hustle as a separate disco category.

Full Breakdown

Season 2 (5 Episodes = 40 dances)
Hip Hop 9
Contemporary 5
Disco 3
Pop 2
Broadway 2
Salsa 2
Cha-cha 2
Foxtrot 2
Viennese waltz 2
Waltz 1
Jive 1
Paso doble 1
Quickstep 1
Rumba 1
Samba 1
Argentine tango 1
Mambo 1
W.C. swing 1
Pop jazz 1
Krump 1

Season 3 (5 Episodes, 40 dances)
Hip Hop 7
Contemporary 5
Jazz 4
Broadway 3
Foxtrot 2
Jive 2
Smooth waltz 1
Viennese waltz 1
Waltz 1
Cha-cha 1
Paso doble 1
Quickstep 1
Rumba 1
Samba 1
Tango 1
Argentine tango 1
Mambo 1
Salsa 1
W.C. swing 1
Disco 1
Hustle 1
Krump 1
Pop jazz 1

Season 4 (4 Episodes, 41 dances)
Hip Hop 5
Contemporary 5
Jazz 5
Broadway 4
Lyrical hip hop 2
Foxtrot 2
Jive 2
Disco 2
Waltz 2
Viennese Waltz 1
Cha-cha 1
Paso Doble 1
Quickstep 1
Rumba 1
Samba 1
Tango 1
Argentine tango 1
Mambo 1
Salsa 1
W.C. swing 1
Krump 1

Season 8 (4 Episodes, 35 dances)
Contemporary 8
Jazz 7
Hip Hop 5
Broadway 3
Lyrical hip hop 2
Cha-cha 1
Foxtrot 1
Jive 1
Quickstep 1
Samba 1
Smooth waltz 1
Viennese waltz 1
Salsa 1
African jazz 1
Bollywood 1

Season 8 (5 Episodes, 47 dances)
Contemporary 10
Jazz 9
Hip Hop 6
Broadway 5
Lyrical hip hop 3
Cha-cha 2
Jive 2
Foxtrot 1
Quickstep 1
Samba 1
Smooth waltz 1
Viennese waltz 1
Salsa 1
African jazz 1
Bollywood 1
Paso doble 1
Tango 1

It just really makes me wish we could have seen Sasha and Melanie more challenged by dancing out of their style early on.

Wow, that is telling, isn't it?

I'm confused, because you have Season 8 listed twice.