Monsters of Television

I realized, based on my excitement for this episode, that I hate the majority of superstars out there right now. Most of the featured artists in this season have blown. Kanye is someone whose music I love so I was pumped to have the crews dance to songs I actually enjoy. The fun part about this week was the crews weren’t dancing to just one song, it was a medley of Kanye songs. That’s how deep and awesome homeboy’s discography is.

With only three crews left I was wondering how the show was going to fill an hour. One answer came in the form a group dance featuring the remaining crews. These don’t really do it for me. They try and feature the strengths of each crew while simultaneously have them dance as a single unit, but I find the performances to be rather lackluster. Even dancing to the amazing “All of the Lights” wasn’t enough. Is it the lack of challenges? Is it the lack of competition? I dunno, but I am underwhelmed. Another answer was longer dances. This I liked. The other answer is coming later in the review.

So read on.
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This week was the Nicki Minaj episode. While Nicki is generally amazing when on another artist’s track, her solo stuff is sub-par. “Super Bass” might be the only thing off of her largely lackluster discography that I really enjoy. See, you get music reviews here at Monsters of Television as well. We’re so comprehensive.

Nicki Minaj is such a unique person. Have you ever read up on her background? You should. As much as Gaga is beating us over the head showing people it’s ok to be weird and to be comfortable with who you are, Nicki does it just by unapologetically being her crazy and awesome self. This week, the crews had to incorporate aspects of Nicki’s different personalities into their dances.

The episode opened with a huge dance routine done by all of the four remaining crews: IaMmE, Street Kingdom, Phunk Phenomenon and Iconic Boyz. It was just meh, but it did make me wanna go find a DDR machine and bust out some Jane Jana. Major props if you know what the hell I’m talking about.

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Finally.

I have been bumpin’ Bieber tracks all week in preparation. Not that I don’t normally do that anyway. Interesting that the Bieber episode coincides with the release of his new DVD. Not as blatant as the product placement in Transformers, but come on, MTV. I can’t hate too much though, it’s Bieber. Whoever gets “Baby” is gonna have to bring it. That’s my jam. Hoping they do deep tracks too and pull out “One Time”. Ok, let’s just get to the review.

Now that there are only 5 crews left, it all comes down to one showdown. The top 3 teams are all safe. The bottom 2 must duke it out to move on. This week, Iconic Boyz was the first safe group. And they got “Baby”! Their challenge was to incorporate basketball moves into their routine cause Bieber plays basketball in the movie. That seems like they’re grasping at straws to promote connect stuff to the movie. “Hey guys, it’s Justin Bieber. I breathe a whole lot in my movie so I want ya’ll to incorporate some breathing into your dances this week.”

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“With their lives at stake…”

Really, Slater? Are you killing kicked off crews now?

I had been mentally preparing myself for the auditory assault I would have to endure while watching this episode. As was the case last week as well, I do not like the featured superstar from this week. Rihanna is obnoxious. Her songs are more repetitive melodic talking with way too many “Yeah”‘s and “Uh”‘s and “Na na”‘s. Sorry honey, that market was cornered by Will Smith a looooong time ago. Luckily the visual stimulation overrode the auditory.

This week’s challenge included incorporating some of Rihanna’s toughest moves into their routines. Dance Hall (Dancehall?) is her style, and they had Rihanna’s choreographer to help them blend it with their own unique techniques.

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Bet this is a show you never thought you’d see on this site. It’s kind of hard to “review” a dance competition like this because it is so heavily reliant on being able to actually see the dances. And I know close to zero terminology for dance moves and such. So this is going to be more of a rant, but a rant containing events that occurred in the episode. So it counts. It’s a rant and a recap of sorts. A rantcap, Patent pending.

This episode was specifically constructed by MTV to make me Matt-rage. And Matt-rage I did. Oh how I Matt-raged. (Matt-rage is also patent pending.)

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