I seem to be the gushiest of Evan's fans. I have been thinking a lot about this because he was criticized about it on one of Johnny's threads. It is regarding his Carmen and Tosca programs looking alike, and I would like to address this issue.
I have Evan's Carmen program memorized because I love it and never tire of it and have watched it more times than I can count. I have watch the two Tosca's he has performed so far this season, and although they are far from the finished product, Tosca is definitely not recycled Carmen. They are totally different if you look at both and compare them. The only thing that is similar is the order in which he executes the jumps. I don't know why that is. Lori Nichol choreoed both programs. Perhaps keeping the jumps in the same sequence makes them easier to remember and easier then to focus on all the other difficult stuff in between, because there is a lot of it in Tosca. Something is happening every minute.
In Carmen, Evan was portraying the character Don Jose and was skating only to the male parts of the opera. Most skaters, except for Katarina Witt, just skate to the music Carmen with no effort to actually interpreting the story. Lori Nichol makes her skaters learn the characters. So that is what Evan had to do with Tosca. His Tosca is different from others for that reason. He is skating the male tenor part from the second act and portraying Mario, the painter, hence the ivory shirt which is supposed to look like a painter's shirt. Tosca is a tragedy about unrequited love. Mario is put into jail. Scarpio, the mayor, promises Tosca that if she chooses him over Mario that he will set Mario free. However, after Tosca agrees, Scarpio renigs on his promise and Mario is sent to his death. That is what Evan's ending pose represents.....his reaching out to the love that he can never have. Extremely dramatic and passionate and Evan skates the whole program in that way.
Now as to the differences between the two programs, Carmen starts out very simply while Tosca starts out with a bang and goes from 0-60 in 6 seconds and never stops except for a softer interlude in the middle. There is much more difficult footwork and spin elements in Tosca. Evan uses more of his upper body in his footwork. He does lunges, high leg kicks, more dramatic arm movement, and spread eagles in circles. So if you really know the two programs, you will see that they are totally different with no comparison at all.
His debut of the program at Skate America, which was skated cleanly with a 4T, was so full of energy, it grabbed your attention and took you along with it from the very beginning. You could never say it was lackluster and the crowd went nuts. And that was the first time out. I can't wait to see it at GPF, and at Nationals I will be there to see it live. I think I will need a sedative for Nationals.
Zorro is a very powerful program too and does not look like Espana Cani.
Those statements are generalizations. Watch the programs and compare. You will see what I mean. Maybe you aren't crazy like me, but I watch something of Evan everyday.
The top men are all so inconsistent now. Lambiel at the moment is unfortunately the worst in this regard, but they all are to some degree. Joubert, the most consistent one with quads, is now a question mark after his health problems earlier this year. We will have to see how he looks at Europeans to say if he is still clear frontrunner or not. Weir is the most consistent this season but that is without any quad attempts. Verner continues to show how hot and cold he is, skating close to clean at NHK and coming close to Takahashi, and bombing at his other event, and not even making the final. Takahashi and Lysacek have been consistent to a point, but not all the way. Lambiel has been crash-and-burn as mentioned. Chan has been consistent to a point, but not all the way, similar to Takahashi and Lysacek, but he is still fairly new and doesnt have a quad. We havent even seen Oda yet, but I would suspect his suspension is another setback for him after his dissapointing Worlds at home last year.
The way it looks now is that any contender who skates clean and ends up doing the quad will end up winning, since there quite likely nobody else at that same event will end up doing it as well, and everyone else will probably have enough mistakes to ensure that contender who achieves this, whoever it is, winning.
Son of a gun! Never thought I would wind up agreeing with you, but that is a pretty spot on analysis of the lay of the land.
have a new photo server so who knows if I'm using it right lol)
I also met Tanith there and got her autograph, and boy, if they ever procreate, it will be one good-lookin' kid. 
