Dance-Off: News on ‘SYTYCD’ and ‘DWTS’

At the start of the new year, we got word that Fox had axed the Results show portion of So You Think You Can Dance US. While that angered many fans, including this one here at the Yak, it now appears that this may be a blessing in disguise. While it doesn’t appear official yet by any stretch of the imagination, and while this still might eliminate some of the greatest and more artistic and inspiring group performances on television, it looks like SYTYCD might get an oversized season this summer!

The previous Dance format, after the initial audition and Vegas episodes, included a 2 hours performance show on Wednesday with a one hour Results show on Thursday. Now that the results show has been axed, which we have options for fans to counter it if they so choose, it appears that SYTYCD will air more 2 hour episodes during the summer, carrying the show through to the start of the fall season. Previously, Dance had been known to end sometime in August, about a month before Fall TV, leaving Fox with some “dead weeks.”

At the Television Critics Association press event, President Kevin Reilly added “We wanted to get a few more shows on over the summer. We also wanted to smooth out our summer so we don’t stop early and then have these dead weeks leading up to the season.”

Initially, fans were concerned that the axing of the results shows meant Fox wanted to air more programming over the summer. While that might be true, this may not spell doom for the under-appreciated, highly-talented dance show. “The total number of hours that we committed to Dance, it’s a couple hours less. It wasn’t really like we wanted to reduce the total number of hours. In fact, we wanted to figure out how to spread it out over the summer, which is now what we’re doing,” Reilly said. It appears that the results show might very well be built into the new format, possibly a la The Voice or The Sing-Off?

In other dance news, the developer and producer of Strictly Come Dancing, which came to be known as Dancing With the Stars in the United States, has died. Richard Hopkins, 47, died from a brain tumor. He initially pitched the idea to BBC in the UK before working on the current US hit. Our thoughts and prayers go to the Hopkins family and friends.