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Of all the great things about television, the greatest is that it’s on every single day. TV history is being made, day in and day out, in ways big and small. In an effort to better appreciate this history, we’re taking a look back, every day, at one particular TV milestone.
IMPORTANT DATE IN TV HISTORY: August 16, 2006
PROGRAM ORIGINALLY AIRED ON THIS DATE: So You Think You Can Dance, “Finale” (Season 2, Episode 23).
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT: The second season of So You Think You Can Dance was make-or-break for the show. After a first season that was intriguing but didn’t move the needle, the format of the show was retooled a bit, host Lauren Sanchez was replaced by Cat Deeley, and both FOX and executive producer Nigel Lythgoe crossed their fingers that it would all come together. The good news was that it did come together, giving us the first great season of So You Think You Can Dance, featuring a few of the show’s most memorable routine, and in particular a top 2 who have yet to be bested in terms of competition and intrigue.
Every great season of a reality competition has to have a great pair of rivals. SYTYCD season 2 found the perfect ones in Benji Schwimmer and Travis Wall. From everything we saw on TV, there was no actual enmity between the two dancers, but you couldn’t find two more diametrically opposed contestants. Benji was a “West Coast swing” specialist, a ballroom dancer injected with all the enthusiasm and nonstop smiling of a theme park employee. Benji was a freshly scrubbed Mormon from a big dancing family who was just recently dumped by his girlfriend, giving him a perfect storyline. He was also an early target for judges/choreographers who wanted to break him of his Up With People smile-time training. But the thing about Benji was that he was up for every challenge, and while he was never a natural at, say, hip-hop or contemporary styles (a huge stumbling block considering those are by far the show’s two most popular genres of dance), he put enough effort and energy into every dance set before him that he and his partner Donyelle sailed through the competition.
If Benji was the smilier, sweatier finalist, Travis Wall was the smooth natural. The son of a prominent dance instructor, Travis was elite from his very first audition.
The body control, the range of motion, the confidence in his own stillness, his immediate rapport with the camera … it’s a clinic. Travis provided season 2 with some of its biggest highlights and by season’s end was probably the most purely talented dancer the show had seen to date (it could be argued they still haven’t found his equal). And while he was a sweet and loveable personality, his on-point precision in all of his routines was less of an overt play for the audience’s affection that was Benji was putting down.
So when it came down to Travis and Benji in the finale, it was a true toss-up. Would prodigious technical perfection combined with lyrical beauty best hard work and aggressive personality? It’s a dichotomy that’s come up again and again on this show, but this was its apex. The two had already performed together once in a way that managed to show off their personalities incredibly well, in a style that was natural for neither of them:
But in the final moments, it was Benji who turned out to be the true fan favorite.
Don’t feel bad for Travis, of course, who would go on to become on of So You Think You Can Dance‘s most prolific choreographers and most celebrated alumni. Benji hasn’t showed up as much, though he’s had a fascinating post-show life as well, officially coming out as gay and an ex-Mormon in a series of fascinating videos that are well worth watching for fans of the show (or anyone really).
