Do you think that after realizing that baseball is going to mess up their schedule so much that the producers of So You Think You Can Dance are regretting this whole fall season thing?

It sure messed me up. I was still out of town (but that vacation is over now, and I am back, readers!) and didn't even realize they were doing that special episode on Monday or that there wasn't a results show this week until I was catching up on the DVR yesterday. (Bad blogger, BAD!)

But now I am all caught up, and all I can say is: Wow. I loved the show introducing the Top 20 and giving them all a chance to dance in their style before the votes start coming in. The big group performance and all of the genre performances were fabulous and finally got me pumped about this season.

And the first competition show was pretty excellent, too. But again, what drama! I was so sad to hear that Billy Bell is out of the competition -- he was already one of my favorites, and I hope he's doing OK with whatever illness he is fighting. Noelle Marsh was also sidelined -- she injured her knee and was unable to compete, sitting on the sidelines with her leg in a giant brace.

I won't go one by one through the performances (though I will be back with that next week), but some of them were spectacular. I loved the goofy Dave Scott hip-hop routine with the caveman theme and the Sonya Tayeh fallen angel routine, in particular. I felt bad for Russell, who had to perform his foxtrot with the co-choreographyer, Melanie LaPlatin, instead of Noelle. Here's hoping she's well enough to return next week.

I'm hoping, too, that Nigel doesn't keep up with the whole "this empty chair is for Paula Abdul" thing for the rest of the season. I assume he's being so public about it because she really is coming to the show in one capacity or another, but who knows.

Besides Billy Bell, the person I felt the worst for was Brandon -- he doesn't make the Top 20, he watches the episode  in which he gets cut, he gets a phone call that he's in, rallies and learns a ballroom dance with a new partner in very little time, performs and then gets cut. What a roller coaster. Interesting that Nigel says they are going to try to change the rules to let him in the Top 20 in the future if he makes the cut since he kind of got screwed over by all this madness. Along with Brandon, dancer Ariana Dubose was also cut.

What did you think about this crazy week on SYTYCD?