OK, so I didn't post last week for two good reasons: my computer collapsed again (I spent so much time at the Apple Store, they should have paid me an hourly wage) and I headed down south to Alabama for my mom's 80th birthday party. Guess what? Old people tend not to have wireless networks in their home and the Starbucks in Birmingham closes really early. My quick impression of last week was that we saw a few more successful auditions (in short bursts) but quite a few questionable people got through.
Hollywood Week continued that trend. According to Marc Berman of MediaWeek, the overnight ratings for the Tuesday Idol were solid: the show scored a 14.0 rating. Ratings have yo-yo'd all over the place this season. Last week (with three episodes) reached 24-26 million people and went higher than the equivalent week last year. But last night's show reached about 26.3 million people (per Hollywood Reporter), which is about 25% lower than the first night of Hollywood Week last season (which came a week later and scored a 17.3 rating). Still it's growth over last week and last week was bigger than the week before. American Idol is the #1 show on TV.
Lots of news: the Top 36 people competing for the Final 12 slots has possibly leaked online. Check out the Huffington Post link here or go directly to the NY Post, which has a nice run-down of the entertainment careers of some of the contestants, including stints on Nashville Star, roles as child actors, recording of CDs on their own and so on. We've got to accept that anyone driven enough to get to Hollywood Week on Idol probably HASN'T been sitting at home in their bedroom: people who want to be stars claw their way to the top and Idol won't always be their first stop. Vote For The Worst.com has the complete alleged list.
Ken Levine didn't even watch the episode but groaned anyway. Entertainment Weekly's Michael Slezak has a great suggestion: why not make the final cut to the Top 36 a live episode rather than taping it weeks in advance? That way there would be no chance of the info leaking out. And it's still not too late for Idol to take advantage of the intertubes: as soon as the Top 36 is official, maybe THEN they could post all their auditions online so we can check out the ones who haven't received airtime. Go to the official Idol forums and champion this idea.
My biggest complaint about Hollywood Week is that I still feel like there are loads of people I don't know yet. The judges cut 147 people down to 104. No one was cut that seemed deserving to go on (keeping in mind that we didn't see performances by most of them). But some that did get through seemed highly questionable. What did you think of:
Nathaniel Marshall -- an 18 year old emo kid with lots of tats and a sensitive soul who sang an obscure song called "The Anchor Holds" and broke down crying while defending his song choice. By the way, I disagree with Paula when she criticized the song because it didn't have a broad range to show off his voice. Does every song have to cover three octaves? Can't someone deliver a great performance of a song with a modest range? To me, the range of the song wasn't the problem -- the fact that it made little impact was.
Rose Flack -- sang a very flat, uninteresting take on "(Sittin' On The) Dock Of The Bay."
Von Smith -- the cute guy who over-emoted facially and made Simon wince and declare it "indulgent nonsense." (In this case, the other three judges were right, I think.)
Jamar Rogers -- the buddy of Robert Downey Jr lookalike and superior singer Danny Gokey, Jamar sang "California Dreamin'" and left me cold again.
Katrina Darrell -- the bikini girl who delivered an extremely modest version of Faith Hill's "Breathe" and while it's amusing to see the gals get annoyed by Simon and Randy champion her, it would be more amusing if they didn't also put her through.
Emily (I missed her last name) -- the cool-looking punker who had a bold song choice she rehearsed endlessly and then "panicked" and chose a really boring song she hadn't rehearsed a whit and delivered a poor performance of it to boot.
Nick Mitchell aka Norman -- the guy who dons a headband and dorks around in a "fake" persona. This has to be the most annoying send-through of them all. Nick camped his wqy through "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" and if he were auditioning for a sketch comedy show, I'd say he was fine and shameless. Paula said it would be nice if he actually just sang a song. You think? Perhaps the reason is -- duh -- he isn't memorable as just a singer. And this is a SINGING competition. So why didn't the judges applaud him for being amusing (not to me, mind you) and send him on his way?
What did you think of these performers geting through? Were there any others you found questionable? Anyone who impressed you more than with their original audition? (I found oil rigger guy Jeremy Michael Sarver to be better the second time around.) And ain't YouTube great? Does Von Smith out-sing Lil Rounds on the Dreamgirls showstopper "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going?" And how long before we hear Adam Lambert sing the Gnarls Barkley tune "Crazy" on air? See you tomorrow.