Hyphen TV: Down to the Wire on 'ABDC', Maggie Q Does Yoga with Conan

May 17, 2011

The very pretty Maggie Q yuks it up with Andy Richter on Conan.

First of all, where my ladies at on The Voice? We have our eyes on three contestants, and none of them were in last week's battles? You best correct yourself, Carson Daly.

No such letdown on America's Best Dance Crew. IaMmE was voted into safety and pleased the judges with their Usher glide in this week's Justin Bieber challenge. Lil' Mama called them "very daring" but warned them that they need to continue to expand. D-trix called them "brilliant entertainers" and specifically called out our man Moon, a "funny cat" who sold his comedic moment with his facial expression. JC noted that there was some routine stuff in the middle of their performance, but they started with a bang. Way to go you guys!

IaMmE rockin' partially-gold pants.

Unfortunately, it came down to Instant Noodles and Street Kingdom in the bottom two this week. Instant Noodles had to dance with chairs, a tough challenge for down-to-the-ground b-boys. They didn't let that get them down, donning Bieber-style wigs and claiming to hope to become an Asian boy band. Their lightheartedness was especially impressive given that Chuck revealed that his mother was diagnosed with breast cancer just two weeks before the start of the show. Since she's back in Taiwan, he's had to rely on the brotherhood of his crew to pull him through. So sorry to hear Chuck's news, and we wish good health to Mama Maa.

Instant Noodles shares a subliminal message.

Street Kingdom had to incorporate the broad term of "martial arts" into their dance routine, though I kept my eye-rolling to a minimum after remembering that ABDC dedicated an entire show to martial arts in a past season. At least back then they differentiated between different styles of martial arts; here it all blended into the kicks and hii-yas we're all too familiar with. Not to take away anything from Street Kingdom, who performed to the best of their abilities under the circumstances.

Street Kingdom makes standing in a line look cool.

What did the judges think? D-trix saw Instant Noodles as more Bruce Lees than Justin Biebers (to be fair ... kinda true, they were more "bowl cut" than "side bangs"). Lil' Mama admired Street Kingdom's growth and said that they took their dance to the next level, as she had requested last week. JC said that the Noodles owned their prop and presented really good theater, while Street Kingdom seemed to truly feel the lyrics of "Never Say Never" (kind of hilarious to see those guys dancing to the Bieb, I must admit). In the end, Instant Noodles went home. I don't think that they were the most talented crew, but I'll miss their energy and again, best wishes to Chuck's family.

Traci won this week's Quickfire on Top Chef Masters, and it's telling that she picked neither Celina nor Floyd, our two horses in the race, for her elimination challenge team. Instead they worked with Alex to make a crazy tour bus meal for Maroon 5. Adorably, Floyd was excited about the band, saying that he was going to be cool with his wife and kids, who he claims are all fans. I feel like Floyd is a really fun dad, don't you? Discussion of his son's weight aside.

Unfortunately, things did not go well for the team. Floyd knew that his own steak was bland before he put it out, and Adam Levine claimed that he could have made Floyd's salad himself. Celina's spanakopita was called "indistinctive and forgettable" by the judges. In the end, teammate Alex went home for taking on too much and not making anything truly noteworthy. I'm getting nervous for both Celina and Floyd, but I'm hoping that this dance near the bottom will scare them back into some good cooking.

Celina, before being crammed into a tiny tour bus.

Glee one-liner of note: Jesse St. James returning from college and explaining to Rachel, "I just assumed [college] would be like at Carmel [Jesse's high school] and the school would get some Asian kid to take math and English and scientific for me." First of all, what is "scientific?" Secondly, these oddly frequent, Asian-related zings are entertaining, but ... weird, right? Between this and Puck's occasional earnest discussions of Judaism, I'm wondering if the show is really gunning for some sort of multicultural script award or something.

Maggie Q of Nikita was on Conan this week to promote the movie Priest. She was looking very svelte and was extremely giggly with Conan, seeming a bit embarrassed by her racy PETA ads (she broadly alluded to her less-than-enormous chest and told of the burning sensation she got from lying naked on top of hot chilis). She also talked about yoga, which is apparently the only type of workout she does to stay in shape for her show and movies. She showed Conan a somewhat difficult-looking arm balance yoga move, performing it with grace while Conan, in Andy's words, "looked like [he] was trying to hump [his] own arm." Check out her interview right here.

Not your typical talk show publicity still.

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Dianne Choie

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Dianne Choie's TV is in Brooklyn, NY. She has a cat, several reusable shopping bags, and other mildly annoying stereotypes of youngish people who live in Brooklyn.

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