Bye, Bye Nigel

Well, So You Think you can Dance came to an end last night. It was with a touch of melancholy and a big appetite for cheese (mmm, cheese) that I indulged in the two-hour finale, which brought one more horrible Cat Deely outfit, lots more ego-tripping by Nigel Lithgow and a last scream from crazy Mary. In the end, the title of Ameriker's Favourite Dancer(TM) went to Benji. Benji, for those of you who sadly missed out, is the geektastic swing dancer propelled to 'stardom' by thousands upon thousands of ten-year-old girls who clearly found his winsome Clay-Aikenish appeal irresistible. To understand that appeal, suffice to say that he is exactly as sexually threatening as his name would suggest.

Cheerfully devoted Mormon (hey - I thought they weren't allowed to dance!) Benji beat out contemporary dancer Travis for the title, despite Travis' undeniably better skills (skillz?). It's not too sad for Travis, though. The Dance prize is indisputably the lamest in reality TV - Benji gets $100,000 (a bad night on a game show these days), a car and a one-year contract with Celine Dion's show in Vegas. The Rockstar contestants will be snorting Jagermeister with Tommy Lee and this kid'll be lucky to catch Celine's eye backstage. Just as well, I think an hour with Tommy Lee would actually kill him. I trust Celine'll take it easy on him.