Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Dear Nigel:

Your little show called American Idol has lost its way.

And it had better rediscover it soon, or the magic of Season 10 is going to be a distant memory.

Thursday’s episode was a mammoth waste of 60 minutes.

An hour, I might note, in which not one performance was shown on a TV show that’s supposed to be all about the performance.

What in the world were the producers thinking?

And if you were going to split Group Night into two episodes, why in the world would you start on a Thursday and continue a week later?

Don’t you know a much more entertaining show named The Voice — with actual singing — falls in between?

OK, that might have been hitting below the belt, but I’m a little ticked off right now.

I sit down on my couch to devote an hour to deciding who deserves to hang around and who doesn’t on Idol.

What do I learn?

1.  That Symone Zaire Black fell off the Idol stage — seemingly again and again and again.  But she’s OK, made it past round one in fact, and found a group, with some help from her stage dad.

2.  That Amy Brumfield — the one you call “tent girl” — just bet she loves that — got sick, then sicker, then made others sick, then felt better once she found a group.

3.  That Alisha Bernhardt had trouble finding a group.  Lots of trouble.  We know that because we saw about a million clips of her looking for a group.

4.  That Brielle Von Hugel, at age 17, might be a control freak.  Or might just be helping out her group because she’s been to Hollywood before.  I’ll withhold judgment.

5.  That Jen M. — that’s how Idol identifies her in it’s Hollywood-bound listing — is a perfectionist who doesn’t mind singing on short sleep, unlike most of her teammates.

6.  That Heejun Han did not get along with his “crazy cowboy” teammate and now resents all things cowboy. Even the Dallas Cowboys!

7.  That the “crazy cowboy,” Richie Lawson, did come off as something of a jerk with an over-inflated view of his musical know-how.

Now, how long did it take to read those seven revelations?

That’s about how long it should have taken to watch tonight’s episode.

I mean, the only time I smiled all night was when Heejun was cracking his “crazy cowboy” jokes.  And even that was overdone.

Heck, to make matters worse, we barely caught a glimpse of the most beautiful woman in the world.

No, Nigel, I’m not talking about judge Jennifer.

I’m talking about your Britanny Kerr, your NBA dancer.

And here’s the most maddening part.  I’d bet you’re going to spend the first five minutes of next Wednesday’s episode reminding us of  what happened tonight.

In other words, we would have been better off skipping the whole thing.

For a show with declining ratings … well, let’s just say, tonight’s episode wasn’t the answer.

Nope.  Tonight’s episode spelled one thing.

WASTE OF TIME.

Yours truly,

Mark Franklin

At Idol Chatter

 Editor’s Note:  If you’re in the mood to actually find out something about Idol’s top 90 contestants — those featured on the audition episodes and the rumored top 60  — follow the links attached to the names above and go here for the rest.  Whenever possible, I’ve embedded video of pre-Idol performances.