Popular Reality TV

The cancellation of So You Think You Can Dance ’s results show was a creative decision that will result in the show running longer during the summer and usually airing two-hour episodes, Fox’s entertainment president told me. At the Television Critics’ Press Tour Sunday, Kevin Reilly suggested in an answer to critics that cancelling the results show was a creative decision that would make room for other programs. “We wanted to get a few more shows on over the summer. We also wanted to smooth out our summer so we don’t stop early and then have these dead weeks leading up to the season,” he said, calling the Nigel Lythgoe-produced series “kind of a big tentpole of the summer.” I asked him about that later, and he said airing other shows wasn’t the reason why the results show was killed. “It wasn’t about more hours,” he said. “I actually think that by compacting the two shows together, it’s going to actually juice up the format a little bit.” In fact, we’ll get additional weeks of So Yo...

This season, So You Think You Can Dance brought back judge Mary Murphy to sit on the panel along with executive producer Nigel Lythgoe and one or two guest judges every week. With reality shows sometimes bringing on celebrities to promote themselves or their projects, they are rarely worthy of much more than a fast-forward button, but the opposite has been true on the Fox dance competition series this summer. The celebrities who’ve been on the panel include Megan Mullally, Debbie Reynolds, Kristin Chenoweth, Carmen Electra, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Neil Patrick Harris, and Lady Gaga. With the notable exception of Carmen Electra, whose awfulness was mitigated because choreographer Travis Wall judged the same week and did exceptionally well (he’d be a fantastic permanent addition to the panel instead of, say, Adam Shankman), they have all been strong judges. They haven’t just been acceptable, either, reaching the low bar people would understandably set for a guest celebrity judge. But eac...