But I think restraint was also there in his performance. Why is another question, really, and one on which we can only speculate. One thing that occurred to me last night, so obvious now: might he just have been nervous? After all, these folks ARE on national television with millions of viewers. That’s a little unnerving, to say the least! Perhaps that’s just another version – cause, really – of what you call focus. Nerves = increased focus. Makes sense to me.

Either way, he should win it all. His solo last night was in another universe…

I disagree with characterizing Danny in the early weeks as “restrained”. To me, what others may have seen as arrogance or reserve looked an awful lot like focus. He was concentrating on the task at hand. Then again, I can also be particularly suspicious about people’s reactions to the Non-Smiling Black Man. I wonder if his tendency to not grin like a fool was making people consider him vaguely threatening.

In terms of rigging the competition, I do doubt it. Getting caught doing that would ruin the show forever, and I’m not sure it is worth the risk for Fox. Though I could be wrong…

I agree and disagree about Danny. I found him restrained early on, as a dancer, but that was as much because he was technically untouchable as anything else. So, I disagree in that sense. But I agree that revisiting the question this past week was bizarre. I guess it couldn’t change the results!

(I was shocked he stuck around, actually. I was convinced he was out!)

One of my disappointments this season has been the judges’s insistence on Danny having “walls” that need to be “broken”. Not only did I not see it – if there were a way to show Danny’s purported arrogance, I can’t imagine the production staff would hesitate to put it on display rather than leave it to the judges’s assessments – but also, I could do with a little less Oprah-type conjecture. I hope he wins, but I fear he won’t for all the wrong reasons.