Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Rest assured, someone will sing tonight on American Idol.

There’s just no way  the show’s makers can inflict another non-performance show on us.

Not after ending last week’s episode with Jennifer Maisch of the Betties opening her mouth to sing her first note.

And especially not with the timeline mapped out on the Idol publicity site for what will happen between tonight and the semifinals.

According to that site, tonight’s two-hour episode will end the contestants’ time in Hollywood.

That’s right, Idol apparently intends to cram the group night performances and the final solo round into one episode, which makes last week’s waste of an hour on what was billed as “Tears! Breakdowns! Fainting!” even more maddening.

Note they didn’t mention “Puking!” even though there was plenty of that going on.

If you’d like a closer look at some of the singers likely to figure prominently in tonight’s episode, go here for a look at the Betties, here for a look at the Most International Team, here for a look at the Make You Believers and here for a look at three members of Those Girls and That Guy.

Personally, I find these Hollywood Week episodes maddening because it’s almost impossible to track who’s been eliminated and who’s advancing unless the contestant happens to be among the show’s chosen few.

Most maddening of all is when a group takes the stage to perform and Idol identifies two or three singers and not the rest.

Hey, Nigel, check out those red boxes on The Voice.  You could superimpose those on the screen with the name of each group and its members as they’re performing.  Just saying.

Actually, more maddening, is the very end of Hollywood Week.  At the end of the show, we’ll see singers in a couple of rooms jumping around celebrating and singers in a couple of other rooms looking dejected.

Who advanced?  Who got eliminated?  You’d better be good at picking out faces because, after 10 years, Idol still hasn’t discovered — or else hasn’t cared to discover — an effective way to let us know.

Of course, I have a suggestion.  Producers could cut out a couple of minutes of recap during tonight’s episodes and present each advancing contestant’s name and face at the end of the show.

I mean, these are the elite few who survived “the hardest Hollywood Week” ever.

Don’t they deserve at least that much recognition?

For those who like to look ahead, here’s what else is coming up on Idol.

Thursday:  Buckle up for another two-hour marathon.  But it should be chock full of performances since the contestants hit the stage in Las Vegas for one last chance to impress the judges before decisions on semifinalists are made.

Next Wednesday:  The judges begin introducing us to their hand-picked semifinalists during another two-hour Idol.

Next Thursday:  The judges reveal the rest of the semifinalists during a one-hour show.

And, then, finally, the voting begins.