This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
There will not be a "So You Think You Can Dance" from Utah this season. Witney Carson, the sole remaining local on the show, was eliminated on Wednesday night.
Not that she wasn't hugely talented, but it wasn't exactly unexpected. Carson had been among the lowest vote-getters several times this season, and she had been saved repeatedly by the judges. Under this year's format, there were no saves on Wednesday, and the Utah teenager was out.
Carson and fellow Utahn Lindsay Arnold finished third and fourth, respectively, among the female contestants this season, the first in which "SYTYCD" will have two winners - one female and one male. Considering the thousands of dancers who auditioned and the tough competition once they got on the show, that's a huge achievement.
And this has been an odd season for the show. Cutting back from two episodes per week to one worked pretty well, for the most part. Until this week, that is, when it became a two-hour results show. All the performances last night were for nothing other than exhibition; we eventually learned the results of last week's voting, but there was no voting heading into next week's episode (Tuesday, 7 p.m., Fox/Ch. 13).
Eliana Girard, Tiffany Maher, Cyrus Spencer and Chehon Wespi-Tschopp will perform next week; the results of the final voting will be announced on Tuesday, Sept. 18.
And taking two weeks off in the middle of the season to avoid competing with NBC's coverage of the Olympics made sense, but it also cost "SYTYCD" considerable momentum.
None of which reflects in any way on Carson and Arnold, who did a great job on the show. Remember, "So You Think You Can Dance" doesn't declare its winners the best dancer,s it declares them the favorite dancers.