Troubled Hollywood

Apparently it doesn’t pay to makes promises to your audience, then have machinations behind the scenes to make sure it carries out as promised.

American Idol makes a habit of having one big elimination a season, from Chris Daughtry to Jennifer Hudson. But this season, they just couldn’t seem to hold on to the talent that had the bigger personalities. They promised us more personalities this season, but then gave these personalities tough themes to work with, ending in early dismissals of many that were thought to be serious final four, if not final two contenders.

Chikezie was pegged to go home early in the semi-finals, but then came on strong, especially during the Beatles weeks. Just when we were all falling in love with his style, he left. Michael Johns was an extremely handsome and personable transplanted Aussie, and while he struggled in the early weeks as well, he really came on strong. Just at the point we were making final two whispers, he got voted out. Despite Carly Smithson being repeatedly told she was the best female voice there, she was voted out before two of the weaker ones.

Then last week happened. Jason Castro, after continually being beaten down by the show, seemed to quit trying and just phoned his performance in. No one could blame him after being forced to sing Memory from Cats and receiving a critique from Paula Abdul before he even sang the song. Voters didn’t have a choice but to vote him out after that.

For whatever reason it all happened, it doesn’t seem to matter. The fans are speaking up … in the only way Fox will listen, by not tuning in. While American Idol is still number one and number two in the Nielsens, the Tuesday final three performance show, without Jason Castro, Carly Smithson, Michael Johns, or Chikezie, posted its lost audience in five years. They can say all they want that we’re the ones that voted these people out, but if people are getting upset enough to not watch, then the public isn’t being represented.

Fox is noticing, but I’m not sure they realize it’s in the way that Nigel Lythgoe and his judges wanted to feed the two Davids down our throat. They’re already promising changes for next season, finally agreeing to go back to a thirty minute format for the results show. Apparently we can only take so many “creatively chosen” viewer questions and only so much of cheesy group numbers that force a rocker to do hideous disco dancing.

You’re on the right track, Fox. Keep going. You have many more things to change before you put the show back to the way we like it, back to the way it was when we, the viewers, made it number one.

Photos Courtesy of americanidol.com

For more information on American Idol, see SirLinksalot: American Idol.

I should have been thinking all night about how great the final three performances were last night on American Idol, but instead I was thinking about who they are and their current (past?) occupations. Ryan Seacrest started it by announcing the final three at the beginning as a high school student, an actress, and a bartender. There just doesn’t seem to be anything stunning about that to me, but he must have announced it for a reason.

Let’s break it all down.

David Archuleta is 17 and technically a high school student, but does he still go to school? I mean, I’m sure the guy is studying, and surely he’s had a tutor while on American Idol, but before that, was he walking in the doors of his neighborhood high school in Utah, or was the prior Star Search contestant always being tutored while he looked for his next big break? He just doesn’t seem like a kid to me. Then again, neither did Jordin Sparks. For a show that promised us at the beginning of the season that we’d get to know the contestants much better, we really didn’t. Who is he? What does he like to do? I’ve only seen the guy singing. Read more »

Yeah, I know, I really should be writing some celebrity gossip this morning. Some days there isn’t much, but today, we have jurors thinking Uma was being less than honest, Star calling out Babs, Amy being arrested, and talk of Charlotte teaching Adam the Facts of Life (that would be Mrs. Garrett and Mr. Sandler) in a love scene, but today, all I can think of is Jason Castro.

Jason, I’ve been a faithful viewer of American Idol for seven seasons, and I’ve been writing about it for four. I started writing about it after the last dismissal of a contestant that had me this upset, when Jon Peter Lewis left in season three. Like you, Jon, was truly an individual and a one-of-a-kind performer. He was just out there doing his thing, to steal a phrase from Randy Jackson.

Still, in all these years, I have never seen American Idol chew someone up and spit them out the way they did to you this season. They needed you this season. You brought something different to the show, something we hadn’t seen before. You brought a different vibe to the show. At first it was just a different type of fun, but once you sang Hallelujah, we saw there was something there behind what seemed like indifference earlier. You let your feelings come through in that, and it was something we weren’t really seeing in the other performers at all. Read more »

This week should have been a lot better than it was. Neil Diamond, People! While others were more excited over Beatles or Mariah Carey it was Neil Diamond music that I was waiting to hear. I grew up on it, as my mom was a huge fan. By the time I was an adult, I found myself at one of his concerts. It’s a comfort to me.

Yet, here I was this week listening to Idol after Idol not do Neil’s music justice. I just didn’t get it. It should have been a great week. They could have all found something in that song catalog to sing. David Cook did the best, yet found music that wasn’t widely known as Neil’s, so maybe he made the best choices. Most of us didn’t have that much to compare it to.

There’s a magic that David has when he changes songs to fit him, whether it’s his original arrangement or not. It just works. Yet, when others make changes to the arrangements, they fall short. I don’t know who it was that advised David Archuleta to change Sweet Caroline the way he did, but that was just miserable. He murdered a classic that is a singalong anthem of sorts. Thankfully he was able to redeem himself with America. And Simon called him on it. Read more »

I’ve been tracking American Idol for years. “Tracking,” I guess, is an odd term, but I’ve been more than “following” it. I was a fan the first season, a little more than a fan the next few years, and by season four I was recapping and commentating on it. I follow the trends, and while there are always going to be surprises, I can usually tell how it’s all going to go down, save for a week here or week there. But these past three weeks, I have to admit, I have no clue where it’s going this year.

You have to understand that from January to May, I’m all about Idol. Not only am I writing about it, I’m talking about it … often. With my friends and family, as well as belonging to a few Yahoo groups dedicated to American Idol. So I know from those groups who is popular and who isn’t, who people can’t stand, etc. And the trend normally at this earlier point in the show is that the people that are forgotten about are the ones that land in the bottom three. It’s the people that don’t do badly, but don’t do great, and when it comes to voting, they’re just forgotten about.

We’ll usually have some surprise results to make people really sit up and take notice, and the show loves to have fun with that, drawing it out, shocking us, etc. Yet this year, that’s happening every week. Not only is the person staying that everyone seems to like the least (Kristy Lee Cook), but the people that are so middle of the pack and aren’t staking out a claim to who they are and why they belong on the show are sticking around. Read more »

Getting to the top 10 of American Idol, it seems like we’re finally beginning to separate the pack from those that can and those that can’t. It’s the personalities that seem to really be coming in to play here, as let’s face it … everyone there has a good voice, or they wouldn’t have even made it to Hollywood to begin with, let alone to the final 24. Those that we just couldn’t connect with for one reason or another are gone, so now it comes down to personality, and if they have a personality to keep us excited every week, they’ll stick around for awhile.

While Ramiele Malubay has a pretty voice that she finally showed she can belt with, there’s no connection from her to us. Despite the show telling us before the season started that this time there would be more focus placed on getting to know the performers, I don’t really feel I know her. Trying to figure out songs for each to sing, I can’t begin to tell you what I think she should sing, as I don’t know really who she is. She sang Heart’s Alone, and while she was finally belting a song out to prove the voice she had, it still had me wondering what else she was going to do with it. Not to mention the fact that outfit with the shorts was horrible. It made her look even more short, as well as stumpy.

I kind of feel the same way with Syesha Mercado. Vocally, tonight, she was the best she has ever sounded, and I’m sure this is the performer the judges put through to the final 12 … finally. However, I’m wondering who the hell she really is as well. We need to find out some fun things about her, as without the personality, she’s just another good voice, and frankly, we’ve had too many females to have done well on the show with pretty voices. She needs to show us something along with that. Read more »

Hours after the scandal was outed, the fact that American Idol contestant David Hernandez was working for three years as a male stripper, it was for the most part ignored on the show, with most of the guys having a great night.

David Hernandez happened to have another great night. The guy has a fantastic voice. Although, I have to say despite the fact I watched the show, wrote a recap for Reality Shack, and have been talking in forums about it all night and morning, I can’t tell you what the guy sang. That doesn’t spell out long-term success, but I think it will keep him there for at least a few more weeks. No one mentioned the scandal at all, although one person with good hearing thought she heard Simon mumbling before the judges’ comments started, asking how he would strip to that. Knowing Simon as the King of Snark, it’s extremely possible. Oh yeah, David sang It’s All Coming Back to Me Now, just as the song title just did.

David Archuleta sang like a pro and performed the same, but as I predicted last week, there is no way he’ll be able to match last week’s Imagine. Again, can’t remember what he sang, not a good thing. There is grumbling from us fans about what is up with his lip-licking and breathing, which could have to do with his paralyzed vocal chord. But this is what happens when a performance doesn’t captivate us. Read more »