Reality TV fans, may I introduce...

So you think you can Dance? My wife and I love this show. We haven't bothered with Idol in years, but discovered this show last summer and thought it was excellent. It is the same format as Idol, but with dance as the talent. Right now they are in the regional shows, which showcase the trainwrecks and crazies. Then to 10 women and 10 men. Dancing starts in pairs, and then moves to soloists.

The show outdoes Idol for us in that it forces dancers to stretch - each week is a different choreographer, so a hip-hop dancer may need to do ballroom one week, contemporary the next and then hip hop. And his partner for all this could be a latin dancer. In order to advance, they need to do well across genres. Idol seems to be all about 'making the song your own' and universally the winner wins by belting out the highest,longest (and on-key) notes. It became very dull for us. SYTYCD provides variety regularly. And every once in a while, people literally fall on their head!

Check it out - it's currently on Thursday night, and since we have passed the weeks of finales, there isn't much else on.

Exiled

PS - SYTYCD is Waaaaay better than the celebrity dance show - everyone in the final 20 is actually a dancer, and noone looks awkward and clumsy after the third week.

That show is really a guilt pleasure. My fiancee is a dancer and loves it; it really is fun to watch:) Much much better than Idol and a lot of the other junk on TV.

My wife was a dancer for years, so she can really speak to the skill of the dancers as well. I find them pretty amazing, and not incidentally, the women are not that bad to look at, either (that's where the guilt in my guilty pleasure lies)

Exiled