Coming from a point of view of just a "regular person" I watched So You Think You Can Dance and fell in love. It does have a lot of the same tricks as American Idol, but there's one big and important thing that it does not share, and that is when they eliminate the contestants for the purpose that America does not pick the best dancer based on just personality. What actually happens is that America picks the bottom three couples, and then they each have 90 seconds to prove themselves(it is obvious who has practiced or not) and then the judges eliminate two of them. And I think majority of the time, the judges give very good reasons, they are not biased, they are fair. But afterwards, when it comes to the top 5 couples, they are separated and then randomly chosen for one another to see the chemistry they can have with other partners. In that voting process, America chooses who stays and who leaves, until the final four where one is chosen as America's favorite dancer. (not America's best dancer) Another thing I liked about the judging process is that they switch judges to prevent a bias, but they are usually judges of different styles just as the contestants are. The contestants are obviously chosen because of their strength in their own style, but in the process of trying out, they are tested if they can follow different sorts of choreography well to test their versatility and if they can, the judges tell if they are voted into competition or not. But throughout the competition, they do beautiful and fun pieces, which makes the show very addicting to watch because no one knows what type of dance will be chosen for them or how they will do.
