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Of all the great things about television, the greatest is that it’s on every single day. TV history is being made, day in and day out, in ways big and small. In an effort to better appreciate this history, we’re taking a look back, every day, at one particular TV milestone.
IMPORTANT DATE IN TV HISTORY: August 1, 2007
PROGRAM ORIGINALLY AIRED ON THIS DATE: So You Think You Can Dance, “Top 8 Perform” (Season 3, Episode 18).
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT: That So You Think You Can Dance featured talent at a higher level than most of its reality competition contemporaries — American Idol, Project Runway, even the Top Chef chefs weren’t whipping up sous-vide at a higher level than the SYTYCD dancers — was part of the reason for its success. But it wasn’t the whole reason. Taking a lesson from American Idol, SYTYCD realized that emotional, “storyline” type dances were what could push top-level ability over the top.
This kind of story-before-substance routine was put on most blatant display in season 3, when elite choreographer Mia Michaels was tasked with devising a routine for contestants Neil Haskell and Lacey Schwimmer. While the other dancers were struggling to learn the quickstep and the Argentine tango, Neil and Lacey were asked to go to some deep emotional places.
Michaels had proved throughout the run of SYTYCD to be unparalleled when it came to telling stories in her routines, and the fact that she was a tough and exacting teacher made her work all the more impressive. Mia’s vision for the “Time” routine as a tribute to her father showed a softer side of her, and it imbued what was a fairly unexceptional routine, steps-wise, into something deeply moving. Lacey and Neil were acting as much (if not more) than they were dancing, and the judges could not have cared less. Not only did the routine help define season 3 (still the best season of SYTYCD ever), but it launched Neil and Lacey’s vote totals way up, sending them all the way into the finals. The routine also set the precedent for subsequent seasons, which all seemed to feature one or two routines meant to wallop the judges (and the audience) with emotion.
[You can stream the current season of So You Think You Can Dance on Hulu.]
