Tatiana Del Toro singing in the Hollywood Round.
American Idol has simply become an exercise is feeding the viewers appetizer after appetizer of mediocre snippets of nothingness. This week proved that the editors of the seemingly hours of footage could yet again dip into that well and concoct the same 42 minutes of the musical talent contest slash soap opera that has grandpa and grade schoolers alike hooked.
The premise of this rendition was to captivate America during another Hollywood round that would see 75 contestants start and 38 go through to the next torture fest. The catch this time was that each contestant would sing a number with the able backing of musicians and back-up singers in front of the gruesome foursome, without any criticism or praise. This of course would help add to the suspense that was coming later in the show. To add thrills to the home viewing audience and to possibly fit an extra commercial or two in there was the fact that we only got to see 1 or 2 contestants actually sing a song in its entirety. Yeah. Let’s all pull for the person that the editor saw fit to deem good enough to get a whole 2 seconds on screen. Most didn’t even get a courtesy voice-over or lower third flashing their names. Holy shit. Think about the stories they’ll being telling their grandkids. ”Yup, I was on American Idol for one whole second and Seacrest even said my name.” The grandkids will be thrilled. All those singing lessons and practice finally paid off. What a load. It really isn’t much better for the viewer who would like to see a Scott McIntyre or Casey Carlson actually perform an entire song. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m all for giving “the hook” to some of the excruciatingly bad singers and sparing the viewers from those nasty side effects like daydreaming about making cheese or clipping your toe nails. I guess it’s a trade off and I’ll get off of my soap- box and get with complaining about other things that tick me off.
Some contestants really made me laugh. Some did it intentionally and others did it just being themselves. One that made me adjust the speakers was Jamar Rogers. He goes into “Hey there Delilah” and it sounds like his testicles are in a vice at the beginning of the song. He recovers later in the song but I really nearly choked when I heard him. Nick Mitchell a.k.a. Norman Gentle was one of the nights highlights. So much so that the Nazi editors even showed his entire performance. When he sat atop the piano like Michelle Pfeifer in the Fabulous Baker Boys and said tot the piano player that he was going to take it kind of slow, I knew we were all in for a treat. For a guy that doesn’t know which persona is going to show up he can really belt it out and has some pretty darned good chops, even when he’s fooling around. Simon even smiled, which I know that he’s been doing a lot more of lately, but still. He is definitely a stand out on this year’s show and one that I hope the editors keep showing in its entirety while he remains. I know it sounds cruel, but there’s no way they’re going to let him perform like this and let the public votes keep him on because it will appear like he’s mocking the competition when he’s playing his character, so you bet he’s going to never make it through Hollywood. Sad to think of it that way, but with big bucks involved the producers usually make decisions based on risk-reward evaluation. Norman makes us laugh but he can’t be seen as a serious threat or the American Idol bashers will have a field day and they have reason to think that numbers may even fall in their opinions. So enjoy one of my favorites while you can folks. He’s going to go the way of the Do Do soon.
Nick Mitchell a.k.a. Norman Gentle had one the more memorable and enjoyable performances, albeit less than 1 minute. It’s unfortunate that the American Idol money machine will most likely eliminate the entertainer before long for fear of his humor making a mockery of all that American Idol is and has become. We would all have been better off if they had a little more faith in us.
There were some excellent performances tonight as well. Anoop Desai, Scott McIntyre, Matt Giraud, Danny Gokey, Michael Sarver, and Lil Rounds all put in polished performances from what we could see. If there is a place to increase coverage for the home viewer, these performers would be the tickets. Hint, hint if any editors are reading this blog. I know we’ll b e seeing more of them in the future so I won’t bore you with that any further.
The category that has my attention tonight was the “Memory Challenged Disorder” group of performers. You know these. They’re the ones that mumbled their way through songs like we and the judges weren’t going to notice that they forgot the words. The offenders included Casey Carlson, Stephen Wright, and the ringer and always emotional Joanna Pacitti. A few seasons back they even made announcements to state the fact that if you forgot the words they’d pretty much kick your sorry butt out right then and there. The new friendlier, more politically correct American Idol shows pity on those performers stricken with MCD and actually put all three of the abovementioned sods through to the next round.
We cannot figure out why American Idol contestant Casey Carlson survived after forgetting the words during Hollywood week. Can you? Don’t even try to tell us that it’s all about ratings…
Actually, the worst trick that the editors and producers did tonight was to place the competitors in the 4 rooms without furniture and with the Jackson Pollock carpet that NASA uses to see if astronauts have the ability to go into space without blowing chunks inside their spacesuits. To make worse, the cameras showed nothing but that damned carpet with the faces of the soon-to-be-ralfing looking like they didn’t know which was worse; their performance or their decision to have the Grand Slam breakfast at Denny’s. Honestly, these poor people were getting tortured for our entertainment and I’m not sure anybody found it at all entertaining. Can you imagine the editors going through hours of footage from these rooms? I’d have to say that they must either be the best editors in the world or they need to burn one every five minutes and have a serious bottle of scotch hidden in their desk just to create one segment. I’m sure several have sued the producers for retinal damage and mental illness afterwards.
Shining stars were there but it was Tatiana Nicole Del Toro coming to the rescue once again. With her “It’s all about me” attitude and flare for drama, she offered up the perfect out for the dazed editors. Hey, if you had their job you’d be looking for an easy out and Tatiana is all that they needed. So they showed the production assistant pulling her from one room and putting her into another while the entire room full of contestants looked like she was the messenger of death. Surprisingly, she made it, everybody celebrated and the editors got to go home before daylight for once.
The best was the all-so-obvious “I have to catch a plane to London” story Simon gave so he could hightail his way out of delivering the news. Then of course Kara, Randy and Paula went from room to room telling everybody that they needed to keep hanging in there and that it was just one audition before they put them through or sent them home. Holy cow, I hope that they have security on hand when they send people home. What a stroke job. I know most would say that the contestants are just singers and that they couldn’t hurt a fly, but would you like to tell Jeremy Michael Sarver that he sucks and he has to go back to work in the oil fields because he can’t cut it? I certainly wouldn’t stroke him if I had to send him home.
My favorite nitpick of the evening comes from what Paula Abdul was wearing. It looked like a chrome Flavor Flav inspired necklace from the Martha Stewart Collection that doubles as plates for just in case the wearer got caught up in a spur of the moment picnic, silverware sold separately Either that or she was planning on going boating after the show and was worried that the ship wouldn’t have an anchor. It’s definitely for the practical-minded woman.
So 38 come back for the Judges Mansion episode on Wednesday. From the previews, it’s likely that we won’t have to endure much of the drama of dozens of people in different room waiting to see if they live to get judged another day. This time it looks like we’ll have them wait all in one big room. Does anybody really expect to see people singing Wednesday? I can hardly wait.
photo coutesy of AmericanIdol.com
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