Kourtni and Matt's fox trot: I'm not like some drooling dance nerd (not that there's ANYTHING wrong with that), but something about Matt's style reminded me of a young Tommy Tune - this gangly, gawky creature flailing about in such a way that everything looks absolutely intentional and beautiful. (Whoa — I just channeled Mia Michaels there for a second. In. Sane.)

Kherington and Twitch's Viennese waltz: Another B-boy who ably pulled off a very different style of dance this week, in service of a routine designed to pay tribute to the daughter of choreographer Jean Marc Genereux. Ephemeral.

I'll say this much for SYTYCD — for all the snark I attempt to summon each week, and all my hopes that it somehow trumps the snark of those paid professionally to snark on sites like EW.com and Television Without Pity, I'm really sitting through this silly slush for the occasional moment of transcendence. These sort of things do occasionally happen on Idol, but are more likely on SYTYCD; it's a more mysterious art form, and not something anyone with a karaoke machine can easily imitate.

When a young dancer with tons of possibility and little experience is able to take a national television stage and move an audience with a routine that until a few years ago would have been relegated to the annual ballroom dancing competition on PBS hosted by Juliet Prowse, I think it's pretty cool. It's reality TV reaching its full potential. It's television itself reaching its full potential.

And as long as it never involves Mary Murphy in a leopard print again, I'm a happy guy.