Tuesday, February 16, 2010

BEFORE THE COOL DONE RUN OUT I'LL BE GIVING IT MY BESTEST: In an episode more padded than what an errant Southwest flight attendant imagined Kevin Smith's ass to be, Hollywood Night 3 was just a weird mess. Structurally, it reminded me of the first scene in the last season of The West Wing -- once you tell us who's in which room, you've sucked out a lot of the drama and suspense from what's to come. I much prefer the old way -- let 'em perform, then do the shtick with the rooms, then the March of Death.

What can be said about the Top 24 as it's shaping up is that, at least for now, it's an older, more mature group than we're used to seeing. One more hour tomorrow night (presumably capped by the Wacky Dancing Parade), and then the march from 24 to 20 to 16, 12 and beyond begins ...

10 comments:

  1. The West Wing analogy isn't entirely accurate, because remember that when originally written, Vinick was going to have won the election.  They changed the season's ending at the last minute because they didn't want to end on the double-downer of Leo/John Spencer's death and Santos/Josh losing the race.

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  2. slowlylu11:36 PM

    Whilst I am not interested in American Idol that's an interesting little tidbit about TWW. We're in the middle of a rewatch of season 2 at the moment and I am constantly surprised about how young and normal sized everyone looks.

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  3. Genevieve10:47 AM

    I've never watched at the rooms stage before so didn't know what was going on (they didn't explain for a long, long time what the significance of the rooms was - we were guessing that 8 people from each room would go forward).  But once they explained it, I knew that Room 2 was going down.  Goodbye and glad to see you go, Mary.
    Very pleased with some of the people going forward; very annoyed with the amount of padding, even with fast forwarding it was dreary.  Hoping John Park and Katie Stevens and Andrew Garcia move forward tonight

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  4. Agreed, Genevieve. Mary had already overstayed.

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  5. Anonymous1:40 PM

    When Simon muttered "That's run its course, don't you think?" under his breath during one of the sequences where the judges were shuffling pictures around, I think he was talking about Mary.  Thank goodness.  I was actually afraid she was going to go through.

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  6. Watts2:11 PM

    I'm in love with Bowersox.  When she started singing, I looked up from what I was working on and rewound it to listen again. And then when they finally got around to cutting rooms I wondered what room she'd been in, since I didn't hear her name mentioned when any of the rooms were dismissed.  So I rewound again to check which room she'd been in.  And that's when I realized I have an early favorite.  I will be crushed tonight if she doesn't make it into the top 24.

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  7. Scott2:15 PM

    If Neck Tattoo is the "shocking elimination" tonight, I'm done with Idol.

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  8. Jenn.3:08 PM

    There are at least two of the seven I'm affirmatively confused on:  the blond chick who couldn't connect with a song if her life depended on it and the scrawny kid who can't remember lyrics.

    I'm also a bit "huh" about two of the other guys.  Casey James seems to have a nice voice, but his face never, ever, ever matches the song that he's singing.  It never changes.  At all.  It's like watching the Casey-James-Bot perform, except that he seemed a bit nervous about his guitar playing during Bubbly.  And then the guy who mucked up You Found Me---I wasn't crazy about that performance, but for all we know, everything else that he did was Grade A+.

    Of the remaining five, the only ones that I think made sense were Dedi Benami (although I fear another Brooke White level mid-season meltdown and never, never, never want to hear about her dead friend again---the poor girl should be permitted to rest in peace), Todrick Hall (who may be annoying but seems genuinely talented), and Big Mike.

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  9. Genevieve5:44 PM

    I agree on all your points, Jenn., except that I like the kid (Aaron) and think he showed enough talent to move forward - I think the lyric problem happened once (as opposed to someone else who forgot them in a couple of different performances), though I agree better it shouldn't happen at all.

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  10. Anonymous6:31 PM

    I was shocked by Lee Dewyze and Katelyn Epperly making it through.  I guess the judges saw something I didn't.

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