Is it just me, or are the American Idol results shows increasingly long on padding and short on actual, you know, results? This week we had the usual group medley, a painful video diary of the top six gatecrashing a party at the British Consulate to tie in with the royal wedding, and a recap of pretty much all the performances and judges’ comments from the previous night for those of us who have memories shorter than that of the average goldfish.
And at the end of it all, Casey Abrams was eliminated from the finals and finished in sixth place overall.
Three things we didn’t know before this show (and didn’t really want to know)
S-Ty shows up looking for all the world like he was heading to a fancy dress party afterwards as a pirate. In addition to his forthcoming new single and autobiography, has he also been cast as Jack Sparrow‘s father in the next Pirates of the Caribbean movie or something?
While at the British Consulate, Jacob declares that he has never been to the UK before, as if stepping into the grounds meant he had been magically transported across the Atlantic. Here’ s a newsflash, Jacob: there is a difference between technically being on British territory and actually being in the UK. About 5,500 miles, as it happens.
In Ryan Seacrest‘s little viewer Q&A session with the final six, we discover that Scotty once worked in a grocery store and also helped out his mother at a local tanning salon. So there you go.
What, no Stools of Doom™?
In departing with tradition, Seacrest does not dispatch this week’s bottom three over to the Stools of Doom™. Instead we are subjected to the most convoluted process ever, all of which seems to be designed to do nothing more than eat up a few additional minutes of airtime. He calls the contestants over one at a time in random order. First he tells Haley she is safe. Then Scotty, Lauren and Casey are informed that they must wait to discover their fate. James, however, is secure for at least another week, whereas Jacob is not.
It’s a bit like one of those puzzles where you spend hours shuffling all the pieces around just to get the last two bits into the right order. Only more difficult and less interesting.
With two contestants – Haley and James – through to next week and four unsure, Seacrest evens up the numbers by sending Lauren to safety. Jacob is then told to join her, leaving just Casey and Scotty. Despite a half-hearted attempt by the Master of the Overly-Dramatic Pause™ to ramp up the tension, there is never any real doubt that the contestant going home this week has to be Casey. And so it comes to pass.
In the earlier Q&A session, Casey had been asked which musician, living or dead, he would most like to have duetted with. His answer was the pianist Oscar Peterson, a jazz legend and multi-Grammy Award winner, but probably not a name familiar to many Idol viewers. And that one answer summed up exactly why he was never likely to progress any further than he did. There’s no doubt he is a talented musician who knows exactly what he wants to be and was determined to stick to his guns, but it was exactly that which made him incompatible with large sections of the show’s core audience. He was never able to bridge that gap. A shame. The finals will be a duller place without him.
Next week …
Next week our final five will tackle the theme of ‘Songs from Now and Then’. Each will perform one contemporary song, and one from the 1960s. I’m looking forward to Jacob’s rendition of Rihanna‘s S&M, and the McCreery Country Makeover™ of Lady Gaga‘s Born This Way. And can we please, please, please have Scotty and Lauren duetting on Love the Way You Lie? Come on, you know you want to …
American Idol posts
Auditions: New Jersey, New Orleans, Milwaukee, Nashville, Austin, Los Angeles, San Francisco
Hollywood Week: Solo auditions, Group round, Final round
Las Vegas & Green Mile: Las Vegas & Green Mile part 1, Green Mile part 2
Semi-finals: Boys, Girls, Results/wild cards
Top 13: Performances, Results
Top 12: Performances, Results
Top 11: Performances, Results
Top 11 redux: Performances, Results
Top 9: Performances, Results
Top 8: Performances, Results
Top 7: Performances, Results
Top 6: Performances
Link: American Idol website