Okay, for those of you who don't know, we'll set the stage by bringing out a zebra-patterned prop couch with Kurt the Clown "asleep" on it. He sleeps very restlessly, turning and tossing and making very cute and amusing noises...

Luv Me Luv Me, Shaggy (featuring Janet) - Tara Lipinski, Brian Orser, Shae-Lynn Bourne, Lloyd Eisler, Lu Chen, Steven Cousins, Todd Sand

...then, as he flips onto the far side of the coach, along come Steven Cousins and Lulu, dressed in club wear - Steven in a loose purple shirt with psychadelic patterns, and Lulu in a blue-green sequined halter top and a blue and green sequined swirly pattern miniskirt. They start "making out" on the coach while Kurt makes "naughty naughty" gestures behind their backs, and then in waltzes Shae, ready to continue her new singles career ;-) in a copy of Lulu's outfit, only her top is purple-blue and the skirt is purple, blue and green. She also brings along an enormous purple feather boa and tosses it around relentlessly. ;-) She is escorted by Brian Orser, which I found highly amusing, because a) Brian was Shae's childhood hero, and b) Um, guess. ;-)

They all sit on the couch, Shae chatting with Brian and Lulu and Steve necking, and then along come the homeboys - Todd Sand and Lloyd Eisler, dressed in highly amusing coloured hooded sweatshirts and black pants. Okay, I have to say it - dignified Todd Sand trying to be a homeboy just cracked me up. So they dispose of Kurt in a very macho way and then set about trying to get kisses from Lulu and Shae. All very amusing.

Then, guess who enters? Little Ms. Tara in a fuzzy pinkish-red cropped sweater and a teeny-tiny green and blue miniskirt. So all the guys immediately start falling all over her, which I will not expand on, because it made me slightly ill to see men more than twice this child's age falling all over her. :-P So the point is, Lulu sees her "boyfriend" Steven falling over Tara, and gets real pissed off and leaves. Meanwhile...

It's About That Walk, Prince - Steven Cousins

...Steven shows off while Shae sits on the coach with her boa, looking alternately amused and impressed, and flounced the boa around incessantly. ;-) Steven had a good night. All his jumps were on and the setups weren't as atrocious as they normally are. It was okay. I liked Invisible from last year better, I think.

It's Not Right (But It's Okay), Whitney Houston - Lu Chen

Lulu comes back with attitude, and skates to this horrendous Whitney Houston song to show Steven that she's not taking any of his cheatin', lyin' ways. ;-) She fell on her first triple... don't remember what it was meant to be, a toe or a salchow, I think. Lulu, oh, Lulu... you are so much better than this drivel you've been skating to! My dear girl, what happened to the lyrical, elegant skater we used to know?? The most amusing part of this was watching Steven go over to all sides of the audience and make "What did I do??" gestures. He tried to do it to Shae, too, but she just turned away and gave him a "talk to the hand, boy!" gesture. I almost died laughing. ;-)

Jazzin', Kristine W - Lu Chen, Shae-Lynn Bourne, Steven Cousins

This is the lovely bit where Shae decides to get some attitude, too, and tells Lulu that if Steven is a cheatin, lyin' stinker, she should get even. ;-) For those of you who don't know, Shae and Lulu flirt with Steven (and make him fall all over the place) to get him over to the couch, and then they tie him up with Shae's boa and leave him high and dry. That was my favourite part. ;-) Also, I must say, it was rather amusing watching Steven get physically abused by Lulu and Shae. ;-)

Club AC is now over, and we're back to normal solos. *sigh of relief*

She, Charles Aznavour - Josee Chouinard

Josee wore a gorgeous pale pink dress for this - sequined strapless top, layered chiffon floaty skirt. The song is really, really cheesy - romantic lyrics in French and English - but it worked. Her spins were gorgeous, although she doubled one jump and I think two-footed one other. She has so much charisma, though, that she could fall all over the place and still light up an arena. Her smile extends past the very last row of seats.

Baby Did a Bad, Bad Thing, Chris Isaak - Jenni Meno & Todd Sand

I am so glad they found more to do with these two in this year's show than they did last year, where, IMHO, they looked rather out of place. And I really like this program. They don't really have the edge for it, but I guess I'm just so relieved to see them not skating to a sappy love song that this seems like a masterpiece in comparison. The throw 2A was a little forward on the landing, but landed nonetheless. Also, Jenni has fabulous position in all the lifts. If we had to have a skating Nicole Kidman, I guess Jenni is the closest we could get. ;-)

LA VALTZ

This is the pairs number, choreographed by Torvill and Dean, that Kurt and Tara did. Kurt is dressed in his clown outfit, and Tara is wearing a lavendar sailor dress with her hair in pigtails. I have to say, I wasn't really looking forward to this, because while Kurt is my absolute fave, Tara, um, isn't. Plus, the age difference between the two kinda made me queasy about the idea of them skating pairs. But... read on to see what I thought.

He's Got a Way, Bernadette Peters - Tara Lipinski

While Kurt the Clown did some antics with his bag of wonders (and plucked off his red nose, juggled it, and then "ate" it), Tara skated to this pretty but fluffy song. This was actually my favourite number of hers in the show - the other two pop-dance numbers did absolutely nothing for me. When she skates to something more simple like this, we can actually see that she does have some nice spins and good flow.

Oh, btw, costume genius moment - Kurt's pinstriped pants fall off to reveal purple pants underneath, and the pants turn into a jacket with tails. Then, the jacket disappears, being plucked off and removed with a line dropped from the "sky". Very cute. :)

La Valse Moderne / Dada Je Suis, L'Orchestre Moderne - Tara Lipinksi & Kurt Browning

Okay, I have to admit it - I thought it was adorable. They did the "kids in love" bit so sweetly. The side-by-side triple toes were dead on, too, and the few lifts they did were very nicely done. The second half was appropriately playful and childlike, and again, I have to admit, Tara is a pretty decent actor. Kurt, on the other hand, is a fantastic actor. He needs to join Mump and Smoot, my favourite clowning team. ;-)

Back to regular solos.

Mack the Knife, Dee Dee Bridgewater - Shae-Lynn Bourne & Victor Kraatz

Okay, whoa. Talk about Sandrafication to the extreme! I've always said if anyone could heat these two up, she could... I just didn't think she could do it so fast. Yow! Shae was wearing a red sequined dress with spaghetti straps (and her tights are done so it looks like she's wearing stockings and garters), and Victor was wearing pinstriped pants, white suspenders (which Shae snaps to start the number, and plays with a lot during it), and a black shirt with a red collar (they looked good - really good - hee! ;-)), and the program was done under red lighting. I don't think I've ever seen them this... er, close... before, ever. The words "all over each other" spring to mind. ;-) It's definitely not perky, to say the least. Sexy-playful would be more like it. Loved it.

After this number, I decided that not only was Sandra Bezic my new hero, but that I want to be Sandra Bezic. ;-) They got a partial standing ovation from the crowd.

Onwards...

Ebbtide, Righteous Brothers - Brian Orser

Fantastic number. Powerful skating, clean jumps, backflip into 3T, soaring music... Brian at his best. I have nothing else to say except that it gave me chills (Emily was the only other program in the show that did), and got a standing O from the crowd.

We Like to Party!, Vengaboys - Isabelle Brasseur & Lloyd Eisler

Okay, the girl is three... four?... months pregnant, and so you'd think maybe they'd be a little less high-flying than usual. Heck no! ;-) Izzy wore a black mirrored tube top and silver hiphuggers, Lloyd wore black cargos and a white shirt. And the tricks began. Fly high-say bye, headbanger, detroiter, everything. Not a single one left out. Yikes! I kept having this vague, "Is it really safe for her to be doing this stuff now??" feeling, but I'm sure she knows better than I do. And as much as the Vengaboys annoy me, the program really rocked. They got a huge standing O, the biggest one of the night, in fact.

American Woman, Lenny Kravitz - Tara Lipinski

I am not a fan of this number. Like I mentioned before, I don't really think Tara is the world's greatest dancer, and seeing her dressed in the American flag with teeny black leather shorts kinda disturbs me. Especially when she pulls out my country's flag at the end and salutes us with it. I wasn't too amused with that. But the jumps were bang on tonight, including the triple flutz. The crowd reaction was rather lukewarm, though.

Don Quixote, Minkus - Scott Hamilton

Hoo boy. Scotty's costume for this faux-classical number is priceless. He wears a pale blue shirt with puffy sleeves and a puckered collar, pale blue tights, a black vest emblazoned with gold, and a jewelled codpiece. OhmiGod, it's so hilarious. The program itself is also hilarious, with Scotty imitating overblown classical skating, including much fluttering of his wrists. I don't know why, but every time he did the wrist thing, I just about died laughing. Big standing ovation from the crowd.

Play That Funky Music, Wild Cherry - Kurt Browning

Another priceless outfit. Everyone remember Kurt's vinyl Brick House pants? Well, they're back, only they've got an iridescent blue overcast. He wears a peach shirt with the same iridescent blue overcast to go with it. Funky, bay-bee, funky. ;-) So yeah, the program is basically Brick House II, and everyone had seen Brick House, right? Unfortunately, Kurt missed his opening jump - meant to be a triple axel - singled it, which caused many, many retakes later on, but more on that later. And the crowd was a little dead, considering. At the Canadian Open, he almost blew the roof of with this number. Here, he only managed a partial standing O. A partial standing O for Kurt, in Toronto??? Whazzup with that?

After he finishes the program, his clown bag appears at the end of the ice again... he opens it, and music pour out once again, and vocals come on, reciting, "What a Wonderful World" in various languages. Then the finale begins...

WWW.

What a Wonderful World, Wong and Dolgay - Cast

This is the closing, and I adore it. The cast all wears yellow painted with fiery red and orange patterns - painted shirts and red pants for the guys, painted strapless dresses for the gals. This is a techno/club version of What a Wonderful World, and it's very cool. Wendy Lands (Angels and Ordinary Men, for anyone who remembers the song) does the vocals, for anyone who cares. Dynamic and all-out skating, like the opening.

RETAKES

When they came to the closing line, Scotty grabbed a mic and goes, "Hello, Toronto!... blah blah blah... Did you enjoy what you saw? blah blah blah blah blah... and then goes, "Okay, I missed three steps over there [gestures to the far end of the rink], so we have to do the finale again. I've done the show 67 times, and they [gestures to the Canucks] have done it four times, and who misses the steps? Me! And you know what? Shae laughed at me!" At this point Shae laughs and Victor says something, and Scott goes, "What? Oh, she says she missed the steps too, because I threw her off," - and Shae nods guiltily - "so we'll definitely have to do it again." And so they do. The crowd was much more into it this time. What's up with Toronto this year? The crowd was a little dead, IMHO. Maybe ACC is just too damned big for it's own good, although the place was literally sold out. I'm talking seriously, not just "sold out" (fake, with empty seats).

Then we got ready for retakes. Scotty tells us there are only a few this year. He gets the crowd riled up with "Who here is a Toronto Maple Leafs fan?" Uh, duh. ;-) "Who here wants the Leafs to CRUSH those Ottawa Senators??" At this point, en route to the front row empty seats, I believe I yelled like a mad person to cheer on my Leafs. ;-)

First retake was Kurt's 3A. Oh, dear. It was bad. He did it about seven times and kept falling in the exact same way in the exact same spot and was getting extremely frustrated. He grabbed the mic and goes, "Something like this hasn't happened to me at SOI Toronto since... well, since never! Welcome to my nightmare." Poor guy. Finally, he just did a double and left. The crowd gave him a standing ovation. Kurt was like, "You guys are great. I don't think I've ever gotten a standing ovation for a double axel before!"

Then we had Josee to retake her triple lutz and double axel in My Drag, which she got in one take. Oh, before she did it, Kurt goes, "Isn't Josee Chouinard the cutest thing that's ever happened to skating? She says in Cecilia, she's not flirting with Scott, she's just being playful. Ha! Scotty probably hasn't slept since he got here." Then he stops and makes a face and goes, "He's not sleeping because he's thinking about her... not any other reason." Naughty boy. ;-) ROTFL!

So Josee tells us retakes are done, goodnight... but then out pops a very tired-looking Kurt again and goes, "Um, I have to do it again. I'm in trouble with the gang back there [gestures to TV gang], so you can go home if you want, if you do, Scotty won't hunt you down or anything. But if you want to stay, I'm gonna see if I can get something going here." A kid in the audience starts waving a stuffed animal frantically at Kurt, and Kurt goes, "Is that good luck? Then for God's sake, please throw it down here!" So the kid does, and Kurt kisses the stuffed dog, wipes the spot on the ice where he kept falling with it, sets it aside, and Play that Funky Music comes on for the 98908098098908902nd time. And he goes for the 3A for the gazillionth time, and voila! There it is. It was a little shaky, but Kurt goes, "For the sake of Kurt's safety, we're gonna take that one. Thank you all so much. Good night!"

And so ends the SOI saga, at 5:57 a.m, and the sun will be up in about half an hour. ;-) But s'okay, I had to get this down while I remembered it, and I can sleep 'til four tomorrow, if I wanted. No, I'm lying. I have to study. :-P

Hope you enjoyed the review, everyone. Please e-mail me if you want to reproduce it, or any parts of it, anywhere else. :)