Wednesday, February 18, 2009

American Idol: Semi-finals, week one (results)

Spoilers for the first "American Idol" results show of the season coming up in a hurry so I can start watching "Lost"...

So, your first three through are Danny Gokey (duh), Alexis Grace (only slightly less duh) and Michael Sarver. Even though everyone and their mother knew Danny was going through, the producers tried to milk an extra freak-out from Tatiana by putting her next to Danny for the final spot at the end of the show, and at this point I'm finding the producers' desperate attempts to make her break down on camera far more distasteful than Tatiana herself.

I was fast-forwarding through a lot of the episode, but I didn't hear Seacrest say who finished in fourth place, which the producers have said previously means an automatic spot in the wildcard episode. My guess is Anoop, since Ryan said he finished only 20,000 votes behind Michael, but we'll see.

I would've preferred Anoop over Michael, but beyond that, this seemed like the right group to advance from a very underwhelming show last night.

What did everybody else think? And how much did you suffer through live? And why do the producers keep bringing Michael Johns and Carly Smithson back to duet on "The Letter"?

21 comments:

  1. By the way, no "Lost" discussion here. I'll have a review post up later.

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  2. Cannot even remember which one Michael Sarver was, cannot seem to care.

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  3. You probably remember him as "oil roughneck that they keep pairing with welder guy."

    Next week is kind of an unrecognizable group, with the exception of Norman Gentle. Should be interesting to see if you get your way, Alan.

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  4. No surprises here...although the third spot was a toss up between Tatiana and Ricky Braddy IMO. Anoop too -- I bet those three will be in the wild card show. How many are going to be in that show anyway? And will it be only people from the top 36, or any chance they'll bring Jamall (Danny's friend) back?

    Oh...Danny's relative showing the photo of Danny and his deceased wife? Enough already -- you are living under a rock if you don't know his wifed recently passed away.

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  5. I agree, Alan. I'm no Tatiana fan, but I'm actually beginning to feel bad for her with the way that the producers seem to be trying to drive her even more nuts than she already appears to be.

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  6. Tatiana is a mess. I now know who was the basis for Kristin Wiig's "Penelope" character on SNL.

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  7. The only surprise tonight is that Tatiana didn't pass out after the results. I realized, while watching Stevie try to comfort her and her kind of ignore Stevie all together that it simply doesn't occur to Tatiana that all of those other people sitting with her were cut as well. In Tatiana land she's the only one who lost...which is sort of sad.

    A week ago I would have been happy if they considered the entire top 50 for the wild card spots, but not anymore. Sorry Jamar. I liked you while you were on my television, but I don't think it works to totally discard the 27 who did make the cut in favor of people that the judges didn't think were good enough the first time. Even if those people are better than who they did put through. I would hope that Anoop makes the cut because in spite of the boring song last night, I've enjoyed him and would have preferred him to Sarver. Sarver did, otoh, sound so much better tonight (though still not enough to make me care at this point) so maybe now that he's gotten the first week out of the way he'll loosen up a bit. I do like the guy, at least as far as personalities go.

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  8. The show is something like 42 minutes without commercials, and I think I watched it in six, the majority of which was just fast-forwarding. Really, I should have just skipped it and read this post, but I had to make sure Tatiana didn't do something crazy or something.

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  9. I hope Ricky Braddy makes it back for the Wild Card show at least.

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  10. As my wife astutely pointed out, there was no suspense when it came down to Danny and Tatiana. We'd been told that there was only 20,000 votes out of 20,000,000 between Anoop and Michael (0.1% of the vote). Therefore they must have been places 3 and 4, because it was highly unlikely that Alexis would have been between the two of them. Therefore she was placed 1 or 2. Michael was three. Thus the other place had to go to a guy - Danny. Make sense?

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  11. Six minutes. I assume Anoop will be in the Wild Card show.

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  12. Bill,

    Ok, normally I don’t dig the results show on Idol, but the last five minutes this week was great TV:

    - Danny and Tatiana for the final spot. The best was that she was probably the only person watching that didn’t know she was done and that made her subsequent breakdown even more special. Drama Queen indeed (by the way A-Rod, that was a genuine display of emotion, even from a psycho). I agree Alan, the producers are go way over the top with her. Frankly, I think the cruelty factor on this show is one of the most unreported/discussed aspects of pop culture.

    - Are you kidding me with Danny? With his backstory, combined with his ability to channel Joe Cocker, makes him a bigger lock to reach the final 4 than UNC or UConn. It is even crazier considering he advanced while singing a Mariah Carey song? Come on. Seriously, how on earth can a guy nail a Mariah Carey song?

    - Then while Danny was singing, the camera panned to the adorably sexy Casey Carlson, one of the “losers”. She had a look on her face that was saying “America, I wanted to be your crush this spring. I guess it wasn’t meant too be…”. Alas, maybe not, but let's see if Simon brings her back...

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  13. After Ryan handed Danny the mike to sing, Tatiana was able to pull herself together long enough to realize she was not in the camera's sight, shook off one of the girls hugs, walked up the risers and across to the other side, got herself situated back in camera range, then "collapsed" in another girl's arms.

    I lost any shred of sympathy for her after that. Simon was right, all she wanted was to be famous.

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  14. Baggsey: to get technical about it, Danny, Michael, and Anoop could have been 1-2-3 with Alexis fourth. Actually, Alexis could have been as low as seventh and still gotten through as the top woman, though this is obviously very unlikely.

    It's too bad they got rid of the previous format, since several of these singers would no doubt do better after the opening night jitters were dispensed with.

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  15. Michael is awful. And he was WAY worse last night than the night before. Anoop and Ricky are far better than the roughneck. Oh, have you heard, he's a roughneck. Can they beat me over the head with that fact 50 or so more times please?

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  16. This is a show that must be watched on DVR, or anything with fast-forwarding capability. And I like Idol, generally, but it goes on forever.

    Can't argue with choices, though the "roughneck" (he's a roughneck you know) was a slight surprise, but got through based on his solid audition round performances and backstory.

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  17. Is anyone else a little uncomfortable watching Simon watch Alexis?

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  18. I actually thought that, while still average and a step down from the auditions, the roughneck did much better last night than during the performance show. He seemed loose and giddy and mostly in the right key.

    @LA: Yeah. Simon needs to dial it back a bit.

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  19. Again with Gokey and the deceased wife. Not to mention forcing the pimp spot for him again, even if it meant destroying the suspense for the entire back half of the episode.

    But seriously. A relative holding a picture for the cameras? Seriously?

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  20. Oh, and apparently Carly and Michael were mentoring the contestants in Hollywood Week but all of their material ended on the cutting room floor, so the producers let them sing live to compensate for that fact.

    At least that's what I read on EW.

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  21. the producers of American Idol are obviously singling out Danny Gokey as a favorite, but he's good so i don't much mind

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