"Dance 100" is lucky it's a streaming show because the fast forward option is built in. There's a good show in here, but it's buried in far too lengthy segments such as a couple full length dance numbers irrelevant to the competition, biography stories that slow the momentum, etc. Fluff, basically. I was only really interested in seeing the dance numbers of the contestants.
I say there's a good show, but what I mean is there's talented choreographers with some fire dance numbers. But some of the choreographers got axed too early because of the rudimentary voting mechanics. At a certain point it doesn't make sense any longer to have the 100 dancers decide who gets to stay, especially with frequent double eliminations upping the ante. It's not a business show, so why encourage choreographers to instill loyalty in the dancers to bias their votes. Some of the dancers certainly seemed like they could be petty. And the host kept shining the spotlight on the pot stirrers, or the hype people. Some of the feedback was helpful and analytical, but at a certain point I really wanted the feedback of other choreographers or judges who could offer more critical analysis.
I also think it's odd that the choreographers always had to dance in their dance numbers. This probably helped eliminate an overweight choreographer early. It just seems unusual to have a dance and choreographer challenge at the same time. Because then an attribute of winning dances became about featuring the choreographer in the dance, all the time. Why? Unnecessary.
One of the formats of the show was to ask the dancers for their critique of the dance, then ask the choreographers what they thought of that critique. And it just became tired and repetitive having the choreographers try to say all the right things in thanking the dancers. Because they had no choice-the dancers decided who stayed or went home. Sometimes the audience had different opinions, but their opinion literally never mattered, while the choreographers also sometimes deflected to them. Which was also just empty pandering.
Adding more dancers to each level of the competition was interesting and epic, until in my opinion the best choreographer was voted off and the finale was left to two choreographers who couldn't handle the large numbers. Bummer, but that's the foresight of the 100 dancers who voted, and the dumb criteria they had to vote on, completely disregarding who did the best in the entirety of the show, not just the last dual challenges. If there was a judge, maybe they could've corrected that.
Also a shame that some choreographers got obviously better songs, concepts, or styles that fit their own to work with. At some post there should've been more controls, such as giving the same theme or song or prop to work with.
Giving the same theme happened only once with a dance battle that I felt wasn't judged fairly either by the 100 dancers. At least the rule they used to judge the dance battle was inconsistent with the rule they used to judge who was going to be the finalists, as they seemed to take into account the entire body of work at that time. It certainly felt like the 100 dancers was making up their minds about the judging criteria as they went along.
New competition shows usually do have large inconsistencies in their formation seasons. I think my aggravation comes from seeing the choreographer who I felt had the most integrity, genuine people skills and maturity, lose out because the show hasn't figured out how it wants to be yet.
Going forward I wish for a different host as she kept setting the tone for the feedback and giving her feedback first. She should've been more neutral and allowed the dancers/judges to lead with their own natural responses.
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