I think they are ‘mindless’  not because they disagreed with him, but because they tried to shout him down when he’d barely begun to speak.

Re-watch the video, they were merely booing in disagreement that the solos weren’t decent enough to stay in the competition – hardly mindless catawauling” or trying to shout him down. This is only the Top 16. Why would anyone expect these early stage B3 people to perform at the level of last season’s Top 6? Especially when he based the cast on personality rather than the best dancing.

And actually it really shows how hypocritical he is – he doesn’t put the best dancers through to the Top 20 and yet he’s upset that the voters don’t keep the best performing couples safe?

And what about him sticking Russell and Brandon in the bottom for the Top 20? Really? Did anyone else agree with that based solely on the performances of that night?

Sunshinegirl ‘“ ITA with you about this. Maybe this group of dancers are exceptional in their own styles, but in terms of versatility, I haven’t seen it yet. In fact, I don’t think this group of dancers matches S4 either in terms of dancing ability ‘“ at least not yet. Besides Nathan and Molly I haven’t seen any booming personalities yet, either. Maybe the personalities are being edited out.

I agree with you too on this! S4 also was fantastic..that’s when I began watching the show acutually. Season 5 definitely had some great personality as well as amazing and versatile dancers. This season just isn’t delivering on any of those fronts.

Nigel never did know how to apologize, did he? Bad boy.

Now the viewers are ‘mindless’  because they disagreed with him.

to be fair, he labeled their catawauling mindless, not the audience itself. which is a true assessment…much like a poster pointed out above, AI and SYTYCD has encouraged audience members to engage with the judges/host but sometimes, it is to a point of annoyance.

bottom line: . nathan has been one of his favorites, but the boy is not living up to the hype. the explanation he gave E! makes sense…he wanted N&M to be in the bottom 3 just to give them a good kick in the butt. maybe that will spark a fire. ( i hope it does, as he and billy bell were my faves going into the top 20. he’s been replaced by jakob and legacy. russ is up there too)

Nothing like apologizing with another insult. Now the viewers are ‘mindless’  because they disagreed with him.

I think they are “mindless” not because they disagreed with him, but because they tried to shout him down when he’d barely begun to speak.

Thanks for all your wonderful support. I’m glad so many realize that we are a professional competition and need to maintain credible results

Was anyone really questioning the results other than Nigel?

I don’t think anyone’s questioning whether the votes were counted accurately. I think Nigel was referring to the show’s credibility as a showcase for dancing talent and skill. If dancers who deliver the worst performance of the night don’t even end up in the bottom third, the show’s reputation suffers.

This gets into the conflict between popularity and talent/skill/performance, which the show struggles with to some extent every year. Every year, there’s at least one superb dancer who gets cut before a lesser but more popular dancer. As the show is set up, that’s just the way it is. (It happened last year with Evan. It drove Nigel nuts when Evan kept cruising on to the next round. I was and am a huge Evan fan, but even I saw the shortcomings in many of his performances.)

I think Nigel has a couple of concerns here. One is, as producer of the show, he wants the show to be known for encouraging excellence in dance–something he clearly is passionate about. The other is, I think he truly believes in Nathan’s abilities; trouble is, so far Nathan has not lived up to his potential. If Nathan goes far in the competition without performing up to the standard he COULD, that’s not good for the show, but it’s also not good for Nathan. What I heard was Nigel telling Nathan to shape up, get down to business, and stop taking success (and his talent) for granted.

If Nathan is smart, he’ll take it to heart and bust his butt from here on out.

I should not have told the audience to “shut up” tonight. Unfortunately their mindless catawauling got the better of me on that ocassion.

Nothing like apologizing with another insult. Now the viewers are “mindless” because they disagreed with him.

Thanks for all your wonderful support. I’m glad so many realize that we are a professional competition and need to maintain credible results

Was anyone really questioning the results other than Nigel?

ETA: E! backstage link

Just to clarify my earlier comments: Nathan’s “I felt hot” remark was not a big part of them. What struck me, on Tuesday already (even before his results show rant) were Nigel’s comments that now maybe Nathan would realize he’s not great at everything, and maybe now he’d keep his feet on the ground. That hinted at something behind the scenes, along the lines of “he’s not working very hard or taking the work seriously.”

I don’t know if it’s true, but this explanation makes sense to me, because it fits Nigel’s prior strong support of Nathan and his disappointment in Nathan’s less-than-stellar performances to date (particularly this week’s dreadful salsa, which can’t be blamed entirely on Mollee–although heaven knows she didn’t help).

And I DO think the audience was rude. Nigel didn’t want to muzzle them completely; he just wanted to be able to make his comments without interruption. Audience members were welcome to boo or cheer after that.

FWIW, I think AI has encouraged this incredibly rude behavior by audiences–how many times have we seen Randy urge the crowd to boo while Simon is talking? I’m no fan of Simon’s, but really–how childish can you get? Let him spout whatever phooey he wants to, and THEN boo the *** out of him.

Then again, if you’ve ever watched BBC coverage of the goings-on in Parliament, you’ve seen that catcalls during a speech are standard procedure in the stuffy, proper, ever-so-polite UK. Go figure.

Also, big YES to the group number. I LOVE Dave Scott & his choreo. He & Shane Sparks are both fantastic. Sadly, I don’t think Shane will be doing any choreo this season as I think he’s in NY in Dreamgirls. But the should CERTAINLY make as much use of Dave Scott this season as they can.

Second. I don’t know why I feel I have to justify what I am about to say by saying that I don’t care for either Nathan or Molee, but I do so there it is. I did not get that Nathan was being disrespectful or that he “didn’t get it”. On the contrary – I think he really got it. He just got done listening to all of the judges completely tear apart his work and throughout their critiques you could see it in his face that he knew they were right. Throughout all this, he never said a word or made a disrespectful face. When Kat asked her question, I think he felt the answer was so obvious that he tried to give a sarcastic response. Granted, it didn’t work but I think that’s where he was going with it.

Third. IMO Nigel came out of it all looking worse than Nathan did.

ITA! Why do people excuse Nathan’s childish outburst because “he’s just a kid”? Jeanine was 18 when she won and she never acted with such a lack of humility. Channing, Noelle and Ariana are 18, Jakob, Ellenore, Kathryn and Pauline are 19. None are acting so immaturely, even though some of them are really gifted and being told so each week. Mollee (18) is certainly immature, but at least she seemed humbled by her poor performance. Nathan looked like he just didn’t care, probably b/c he knows he has a large fan base to save him.

How insulting to the other dancers who obviously take this competition seriously and have to DANCE WELL to get votes, especially since six of them ended up in danger when his performance was ridiculously bad.

I’ll bet many of the other dancers would love to slap a bit more color into those rosy little cheeks of his.