That's what we have this season. Crystal Bowersox and Siobhan Magnus and nine backup singers for H.R. Puffnstuf.

American Idol is like the Academy Awards this year -- a plethora of nominees but only two real contenders. It's Siobhan Magnus vs. Crystal Bowersox.

Well, Kris Allen gets to join Clay Aiken and David Archuleta as Idol contestants who never were put into the bottom two but failed to win it all.

I know I can be a little rough on Paula, but I must say she looked stunning Tuesday with those bejeweled oxen reigns around her neck.

I've just concluded that I hate Kara. She reminds me of every network and studio junior executive, two years out of Sarah Lawrence, who has given me insipid writing notes over the years.

To win on American Idol you have to have a good voice, personality, and poor birth control. It seems like every contestant has at least one child.

Who says that American Idol stretched twelve one-minute performances into two endless hours? They needed all that time just as I need all this space to review it.

We had three Sing Offs during the two hour show and it certainly made for good TV, thanks to the fact that each guy could hear the other one perform.

Aloha from Hawaii. I'm too busy hula dancing and killing wild boar to watch this week's American Idol but the show has gotten so formulaic that I think I can review it even without seeing it.

After the dearth of exciting talent in San Francisco, I was hoping Idol would come charging out of the gate with some great singing. Instead, they started off with a train wreck.

For all the hype about this being the new "improved" American Idol, it was the same. Okay, there's a new judge. But speaking of morons, Paula was back.

LOS ANGELES — Changes are coming to "American Idol" when it returns in January, including a return to "wild card" finalists picked by the show's...