Tonight’s show featured a pair of really cool performances by former Idols James Durbin and Jennifer Hudson. Is it just me, or do former Idols always sing way better than the other acts they bring on the show?
Oh, wait; there was another act to perform:
The most entertaining act of the night was a fictional results stage play that was about as convincing as a Manson Family defense lawyer asking for bail, and volunteering to let Charlie sleep in his bed with him. Ryan set it up properly, but his heart was obviously not in it. Randy tried to act surprised, and he went up to give that stupid speech, but it was obvious that he knew. JLo? Yeah, right. If that wasn’t scripted she would have been freaking out. Give her a script and she has to act. We all know what that means. Steven? He looked bored and disinterested in the whole thing, like he didn’t want to be a part of it. He just said; when they showed the bottom three, that they were using the save. He forgot to ask the other judges first (JLo elbowed him to remind him that they had to wait until Jessica was announced as the bottom votegetter for the dramatic impact, but it was too late). After he gave his line, he withdrew from the proceedings as if to distance himself.
The contestants obviously weren’t in on it, and they all looked confused and disoriented, like someone changed the script on them at the last second. Nobody got emotional, and even when they “rushed” to Jessica they just milled around and looked uncomfortable. There was no emotional outbreak from anyone.
If I’m going to get fiction, I’ll watch fiction that was scripted by real writers and performed by professional actors. Fiction with Randy Jackson as a lead character? No thanks. He’s hard enough to stomach as it is.
There is no way in hell that Jessica Sanchez was the bottom votegetter. There is no way in hell that Hollie wasn’t in the bottom three. The bottom three were also the judges’ three favorites; two singers (Joshua and Elise) who the judges stand up and give ovations for every week, and the standout singer of the season. The very best and most popular singer in the competition was the bottom votegetter? I looked at several polls, all of which are historically at least reasonably accurate, and Joshua and Jessica were both considered safe by all of them. It’s one thing to predict 4thor 5th and be 7th; that happens all the time. Joshua and Jessica were first and second in most of the polls, well above the rest.
Idol has had its shockers. Pia and Casey last year both landed at the bottom despite being popular contenders at the time. The polls, in each case, had them at the least fairly low or middle of the pack. Neither of them were predicted to be the top votegetter, and in both cases some polls warned that they might be in the bottom three. Not tonight. Jessica and Joshua were 1-2 in virtually every poll, and in the top 3 in every one that I took a look at.
Soooo…… why did they do it? My guess is that they knew the save was going to be wasted if they didn’t use it this week. Next week would be the last time they were allowed to use it, and there wouldn’t be any drama. If, as I expect, Hollie was the bottom votegetter, they figured “we have to use the save anyway, why not pretend that we had to save our most popular contestant?”
My first impulse was to delete Idol from my DVR and go watch Glee (at least they are real actors with real scriptwriters), but I’ll get over it. It’s a TV show, so they need to do crap like this once in awhile. It won’t affect the outcome of the show. If they ever affect the outcome with this crap, though, I’m done with them. What makes Idol special is that it’s real. Fix one result and they might as well be Pro Wrestling.
Power Rankings:
7- Hollie
6- Elise
5- Phil
4- Skylar
3-Colton
2- Joshua
1- Jessica
Bob Gregory's Gallery of Renown 