‘So You Think You Can Dance’: America Votes for Someone Competent, Makes History

The couch potatoes of America continually eat the wrong foods, buy the wrong cars, and elect the wrong politicians. Which makes it really nothing short of a miracle that after 16 million votes, they picked the right winner for So You Think You Can Dance. Sabra, darling of the judges and devoted novice to the form, snagged the $250,000 prize. She looked shocked. We were thrilled. The opening of that final envelope turned Mia Michael’s prediction that Danny would go down in the history books into an ironic truth: He’s now on record as the runner-up.

But Sabra wasn’t the only winner. As choreographer after choreographer picked favorite routines from the third season, resident genius Wade Robson and hip-hop’s high priest Shane Sparks found their names repeatedly mentioned which led to welcome reprisals of the former’s hummingbird piece and his trippy tramp number and the latter’s transforming skeletal act complemented by his Matrix homage. Michaels, our beloved artiste, was represented by her funereal fantasia and her Vegas spectacular. No one picked Tyce D’Orio. Perhaps there is a God. A queeny clogger. A pop-and-locking midget. Paula Abdul in the audience. Dance has never looked so populist. Channel 13 this was not. But art, well, who knew it could be so frigging fun. —Drew Pisarra