What Cat's Watching

No minute-by-minute recap tonight.  Just a few thoughts:

• The opening number was really good.  I’m glad the producers decided to try something different by opening with a collaboration.
• What’s with all the groups tutting this season?  Did you also feel that by the fourth group, it was a lot of the same?  Other than Request and Steet Kingdom, the groups all pretty much had the same style.  (According to the preview, this will NOT be the same story for next week.  I saw a kiddie group, pole dancers, and Asian nerds.  So diverse!)
• It seems like JC has decided to do a sandwiching technique with his critique:  Start with what you liked abou them, point out some minuscule thing to work on, then end with something nice.  Is he trying to model Phil Jackson’s coaching?  Two positives for every negative?
• I aM mE is pretty enjoyable.  I like that they dance through transitions … surprised that JC didn’t mention anything about that since he absolutely abhors people walking through transitions.
• Instead of hearing Mario Lopez intro each performance with “mastermix,” we now get to hear “superstar mastermix” every night.
• I LOVE that D-Trix is the new judge.  Already waaaay better than Omarion.
• Street Kingdom .. man.  Those guys are so humble.  “We’re going to change ABDC … forever.”  Really, talk about modesty!  For reals though, Street Kingdom has a chip on their shoulders the size of Charlie Sheen’s cocaine supply. To make things worse, the judges kissed their butts, especially D-Trix.  When he decided to give them a standing ovation, I almost missed Omarion.  The thing is, I didn’t even like their number.  It was boring in the beginning, then chaotic at the end.  They were all just forming a crowd around a krumper and moving around frantically in the background for the last half of the routine.  I was just confused the whole time.
• What was more confusing than Street Kingdom’s perfomance?  Lil Mama’s comments on it.  She said the word “understand” about seventeen different times - twice in just the first sentence alone!  This is not new though.  Lil Mama always talks in circles and makes no sense.  She told almost every group in some way that they were good cause they could go from smooth to hard.  When it got to the dudes with bowties, she actually said that this skill is what set them apart.  How can that be?  You just praised all the other groups for doing the same thing!
• Apparently Lil Mama has a new favorite word: “thrust.”  Worse usage of it was when she told the brothers who lost their father a year ago to keep “thrusting forward.”
• I’m not a big fan of how unfair the beginning of the competition always is on this show.  Like, in the first season, they would separate the crews into regions and one per region would be up for elimination.  What if a region sucks?  It’s not fair for a crew to be in jeopardy if they gave one of the best performances, but are unfortunate enough to be the worst in the best region (i.e. the WEST!).  Now, they had five groups (arbitrarily picked, I bet) go against each other this week and one was eliminated.  Next week, they will repeat this process.  What if two groups next week suck and one gets to stay cause they were in a different heat?  Stupid! 

That’s all for this week, folks!  What are your thoughts?