Does Fox actually program their “Idol” shows now with the knowledge that everyone is watching on Tivo?
How else to explain the hour-long Results Show? And the filler. Did I mention filler? Oh, sorry, they call them “recaps.”
First, there was a video montage RECAP of the hopefuls’ “Idol Journey,” which mainly featured our contenders flailing around and screeching with Golden Tickets in their hands and the judges saying unpredictable things, like “Congratulations.”
After a strange interlude with the contestants performing Neo’s “Closer” (is that really the best song you could come up with, “Idol?”), we were back on track with the theme of the night: redundancy. Yes, that means another video RECAP of last night’s performances and judge commentary, which happened, well — last night. Thank you, Fox …clearly my memory isn’t what it used to be!
As Seacrest called the contestants down in groups, he made sure to give us his own verbal RECAP of their performances and judges] comments, lest we had just missed the video recap that had aired a few minutes ago. Then all of the finalists obliged us with a RECAP performance of the very same song that they’d sung on Tuesday’s show. It felt like “Groundhog Day.” Why not do what they did last year – force the booted-off contestants to tearfully reprise the songs that had lost the competition for them and ruined their lives?
But let’s get to the good stuff. Here’s how the pairings went:
Allison Iraheta, Jesse Langseth, Matt Breitzke: Langseth had the “X-Factor” and Breitzke had blue-collar America rooting for him, but apparently that wasn’t enough. Iraheta, who — to RECAP (sorry, I had to) — blew all the other contestants out of the water on Tuesday’s show, earned a spot in the Top 12.
Jeanine Vailes, Matt Giraud, Megan Corkrey, Kris Allen: Vailes and Giraud were put out of their misery first. (Guess we’ll never get to see that piano duel.) That left Corkrey and Allen. With her marketability and uniqueness, Corkrey seemed to be the clear choice, but this week provided yet another Anoop-like shocker. Kris Allen progresses to the finals.
At this point in the show, producers were clearly worried about the redundancy of giving out all these actual “results” on the Results Show. To alleviate that problem, they gave us an encore airing of the “Idol Retrospective” instead! Said video was basically a giant — you guessed it — RECAP of all of Idol’s most important moments, from William Hung’s audition to Sanjaya’s hair. Oh, yeah, and they had stuff like people winning, too.
That was followed by last year’s Brooke White, whose new single, available on iTunes, is reminiscent of the Lite FM background music to which you may have played Barbies or Smurfs in the late early ‘80s. Fortunately, she didn’t start the song over again, as she infamously did last season.
Mishavonna Henson, Jasmine Murray, Kai Kalama, Adam Lambert, Nick Mitchell: Stranger things have happened, but with only one spot remaining it could only come down to Lambert and Mitchell, the two most polarizing contestants from this group. A visibly nervous Mitchell abandoned his Norman Gentle persona in favor of a more subdued personality. But the victor was Lambert, which should make goth kids and vampires alike happy. As “Glambert” rehashed his rabid version of “Satisfaction,” Mitchell, much like Tatiana last week, was visibly shaken. Was that a tear in his eye? It’s always saddest of all when the clown cries.
Next week, the Wild Card show (more on that later). The judges have hinted that we may see some of this week’s cast-offs again. If so, expect to see Matt Giraud, Jesse Langseth or Megan Corkrey get a second chance.
