After what seems like months of auditions, tonight we will finally learn the Top 20 dancers of season 6 of So You Think You Can Dance. Considering the level of talent among this season’s crop of hopefuls, choosing a Top 20 seems it could be a nearly impossible task. And whoever does make the Top 20, it sounds like there will be a huge surprise to go with it. At least if we’re to believe So You Think You Can Dance head judge and Executive Producer Nigel Lythgoe.

According Nigel and his twitter fingers tonight’s top 20 reveal has “possibly the biggest surprise EVER on SYTYCD!!!”

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What about choosing the Top 20 could be so shocking? I have a few theories, which I’ll list in order of least to most shocking.


Someone Insanely Talented Is Cut Instead Of Legacy Perez

Actually, if you’ve been watching the auditions, this shouldn’t surprise you at all. I’d bet on it happening.

Someone Who Could Not Complete Vegas Week Makes It In The Top 20

By the end of Vegas week at least two Top 20 hopefuls were sidelined by ankle injuries. Pauline Mata’s injury was so bad she wasn’t able to dance her final solo for the judges, while Mollee Gray was relegated to a chair for most of her group routine. However, both girls are made for a show like So You Think You Can Dance and Pauline, with her hip hop background is especially needed in a field full of contemporary specialists. Despite their injuries, I’d be more surprised if there weren’t Top 20 spots waiting for both of them.

Someone Turns Down Their Top 20 Offer

Word on the web is that this does happen. Paula Van Oppen, she of gorgeous contemporary solos and a made for TV face, is apparently offered a spot in the Top 20 and turns it down for a film role in the upcoming Christina Aguilera movie, Burlesque. I would bet money on Paula’s refusal of her spot is what has Nigel saying, “It breaks my heart to not have you” for the commercials we’ve seen for tonight’s episode. I’d also bet this is the biggest surprise ever that Nigel is referring to, which is a shame, because the last two on my list would way out shock me.

Mia Michaels Quits On Camera

Even though we know thanks to Twitter that Mia Michaels won’t be coming back for season 6 of So  You Think You Can Dance, we still don’t know how or why that decision came to be. Perhaps something about the Top 20 choices were so abominable that Mia quit. Maybe Mary Murphy screamed in her ear just one times too many or she could no longer stand Nigel’s creepy uncle comments. Or perhaps the realization that Adam Shankman would be a permanent judge and she’d be relegated to trying to recreate The Bench became too much to bear. Whatever the case, it would be truly shocking to see Miss Michaels walk away from So You Think You Can Dance on camera. And if it happens, definitely worth of Nigel’s proclamation of biggest surprise ever.

It’s not a Top 20, After All

With so many talented dancers, it seems completely conceivable that the judges just simply could not whittle it down to a Top 20. In what would be a sincere surprise, perhaps season 6 will start with the Top 22 or 24 dancers.

Watch along with me tonight as we learn the Top 20 dancers and what constitutes the biggest So You Think You Can Dance surprise ever, I’ll be covering the announcements live right here and on BuddyTV’s SYTYCD Twitter.

–Abbey Simmons, BuddyTV Staff Writer
(Image Courtesy of FOX)

Abbey Simmons

Contributing Writer, BuddyTV