Idol Chatter & Voice Views

For the first time since the finals began, I wanted to throw something at the TV Thursday night.

There stood Shannon Magrane, Erika Van Pelt and Elise Testone — three gals — in the bottom three.

“What do you think of this?”  Ryan asked the judges.

They seemed stunned.  Surprised.  Perhaps even shocked. 

Especially because Elise was standing there, despite what they thought was a superlative performance Wednesday night.

Hello, judges.  Were you paying attention even one little bit in Season 10, when the first five contestants sent packing were females?

If there was anything shocking about Idol so far this season, it’s that two guys had left the show before a single girl.

And that’s only because Jermaine Jones was disqualified and because Jennifer Lopez picked the wrong teenager to put in the finals.

Put Eben Franckewitz in Jeremy Rosado’s spot, and I bet a girl would have left earlier than this.

Shannon became the first victim of Idol’s boys bias Thursday, when Heejun Han rightfully should have been standing in her place.

Oh, well, at least five gals made the tour, including Elise Testone, Erika Van Pelt, Jessica Sanchez, Hollie Cavanagh and Skylar Laine.

Guarantee, they’ll put on one heck of a show.

For the guys, I think we can say the same for Colton Dixon, Phillip Phillips and Joshua Ledet. 

The jury’s still out on Deandre Brackensick.  I think the jury has already decided on Heejun:  Guilty of impersonating an Idol.

The recap …

Stock rising: That tiny dynamo named Hollie Cavanagh just keeps surprising us with her big voice. Eventually, it won’t surprise us any more and she’ll need to stray from the power ballads. But for now, it’s looking like she might go very deep into the competition.

And a week after landing in the bottom three guys, Joshua Ledet turned in a performance that probably made lots of fans forget Jessica Sanchez’s “I Will Always Love You” from the week before. My guess is that he’ll need to be amazing more than once to overcome the popularity edge enjoyed by other male contestants named Phillip (Phillips, of course) and Colton (Dixon, of course).

Stock sinking: It took two weeks for Heejun Han to prove what I think many of us expected — he made the finals with his personality and sense of humor more than his voice. At this point, he looks like the weakest and least confident vocalist left standing, and can’t come close to matching the firepower of the better singers among the Season 11 cast.

Very, very lucky:   I predicted the bottom three correctly after Wednesday show, and wasn’t at all surprised to see three girls in the bottom three.  I thought Erika Van Pelt would go home.  Not because she was bad Wednesday night, but because her performance was forgettable and followed almost immediately by the footage of Jermaine’s disqualification and superb performances by Joshua and Hollie.  Just shows how little margin of error there is for the ladies.

Deserved his/her fate:  As Jimmy Iovine pointed out, Shannon Magrane did not do as well as the judges seemed to think Wednesday night.  I gave her performance of “One Sweet Day” a “D.”  And she didn’t do much better when she sang for the save at the end of Thursday’s show.  The teen who seemed so fearless up until the finals seemed to press a wee bit too much once she got there.

Best part of the results show:  I love hearing Jimmy Iovine’s critique of each contestant.  They are generally on the mark, much the same way Simon used to hit the mark most of the time, whether the contestants liked what they were hearing or not.  I especially appreciated his comments about Jessica Sanchez, who should stick to ballads, according to Steven.  Nonsense, says Jimmy.  And, “if she goes home, we should all go home.”  My only complaint:  Jimmy, why, oh, why did you let Idol talk you into doing that in-show commercial for a new AT&T gadget on Wednesday when you were supposed to be mentoring Shannon. 

That’s right, Jimmy, look who went home.

Coming tomorrow:  An exit interview with Shannon Magrane and a photo gallery from tonight’s show.