"So You Think You Can Dance": Raise a glass of Gatorade -- we have a new winner!

Well, I was satisfied with the outcome of Thursday’s“SYTYCD” finale: were you?  Of course, there was a lot of stuff enjoy (orfast-forward through) before we actually got to the results.

The show opened with a Christopher Scott group number featuring the Top 11 andAll-Stars, which showcased Melinda and even still-infirm Alex hand-dancing.

Before the judges got to their seasonal review of their favorite dances, we sawsome silly but cute montages of the judges, including one of Nigel’s varioushairstyles, one of Mia’s made-up words and one of Adam’s varioussexy-n’-serious facial expressions.

The encores began, as Kenny Ortega selected Kent and Neil’s “Shoeless Joe”routine, which was not one of my favorites. But I was happy to then see, aspicked out by Nigel, Billy and Ade’s “Mad World.”

Then we broke for a funky, bouncy guest performance by Hok’s Quest crew, beforeMia chose Adechike and Comfort to reprise “Fallin’.”  Once again we sawKent and Anya’s “My First Kiss,” and then, another one of my favorites of theseason, Dominic and Robert’s creepy clown routine “Scars.”

I still get a warm and fuzzy feeling from all the footage of people celebratingNational Dance Day, which is an example of why I admire Nigel Lythgoe.  Hecould sit back and count his millions as a TV producer and personality but he’sout there making things like that happen. And he’s not too big to get uponstage and ham around. I was kind of bummed that we didn’t actually see himdance, but it was fun to watch him share the stage with 7-year-old tappingprodigy Luke.

Next the Manzari brothers showed us some grown-up tap-dancing. While I waswatching them I started thinking about the Hines brothers, so it’s funny thatwhen I Googled the brothers I found this footage of Maurice Hines introducing them.

Back to the contestants. Nigel introduced Lauren and Pasha’s Argentinean tango,and Adam selected Robert and Allison’s “Fix You,” which I think was actuallybetter this time around, thanks to Robert’s improvement throughout the season.

Last season’s winner, Russell, returned to do a krump routine with Li’l C.I can’t believe we only had one krump routine all season...and it featuredBilly Bell.

Speaking of returns, Mary Murphy came back to introduce her favorite dance,Dominic and Jose’s “Battle for the Beat.” It was nice to see Mary again butpersonally I think this was the perfect amount of Mary for the season. Thescreaming: I can only take so much.

Before our first round of results, “SYTYCD” UK winner Charlie Bruce performed aMandy Moore jazz dance with Neil.  It was a lovely dance with some amazingcatches, and she seems to deserve the exposure. I have friends who watchinternational versions of the show when the U.S. version isn’t on the air, so thisis an example of what I’ve been missing.

Then we learned who came in third in the competition and I’m sad to say it wasRobert. I would have liked to see him place better than that, but I didn’tvote so I guess I got what I deserved.

No time to mourn, though! On to Lauren and Twitch reprising “My Chick Bad,”which served as a good visual reminder of Lauren’s strength in differentgenres.

Alex got to live once again in the competition as we watched video of himperforming “Hallelujah” with Allison, and then we moved on to Billy andRobert’s Bollywood dance and then Neil and Kent’s wonderful Travis Wall danceabout a broken friendship.

Before we got to the show’s VERY SPECIAL SURPRISE SPECIAL GUEST (can you tell Igot a little sick of the hyping?), the band Black Gold came on to perform thesong “Shine,” the song to which the contestants’ “You lose! Go home!” packagesare set.

Are you ready to learn who the VERY SPECIAL SURPRISE SPECIAL GUEST was? I’llgive you a hint: It’s someone who used to be on a show that Nigel Lythgoe now(again) produces: Ellen DeGeneres! I have to admit that since I got the newsabout her appearance early on Wednesday, I was a little burnt out on thebuildup. But I came around. She reprised Alex’s role in his famous Nappytabship-hop routine with Twitch. The dance was edited a bit so Ellen could clown itup but I’ve got to admit, she did the work and it was clear that she practicedand took it seriously, so all sarcasm aside: Go Ellen! After the dance she putin a plug for National Dance Day.

After this bit of fun came some good news: We have a new winner of “SYTYCD” andit’s Lauren!  Cue an explosion of star-shaped confetti. Lauren lookedthrilled although Russell presenting her with a bottle of Gatorade was maybenot as triumphant as if she’d be handed a huge bouquet of flowers. I loved thefun the contestants had with her at the end of the show, carrying her on theirshoulders and throwing streamers at her.

So, yes, it was a strange season.  I’ve seen other blogs dissect what wentwrong with it, and while it won’t go down as the best season of the show, assomeone who’s watched a lot of longstanding reality TV shows, I’m happy thatNigel Lythgoe and the other producers took some risks.  A lot of othershows (“Idol,” “Project Runway,” “Top Chef,” “ANTM”) could use similarshakeups, in my opinion, just because it shows more creativity andthoughtfulness than churning out the same thing season after season.  Thebiggest problem with the season, obviously, was the injuries, and I think threehours a week throughout the entire season is a bit much. But while I missed thecontestants pairing with each other at the beginning of the show, there’s no doubtthat dancing with the All-Stars did help the contestants improve at anexponential rate. Not all the changes worked, but overall, in my opinion,change is good.