All American Girl, Episode 1: The Good, The Bad, The Bubbly

Suzanne – I know Michael. I’ve worked with Michael. I had a really hard time with this piece.
John Salley – Crazy!
Geri – That weirded me out.

Venice leaves the stage and is asked if she was aware that one of the judges knew Michael Jackson personally. We learn that the women had been told who the judges were earlier in the day. Regardless, this was a major misstep.

Next up is Jaime Preston. She sings “I Will Survive” with as much hip swinging and sexy eye batting that she can manage. She also completely ignores the two female judges to focus on John in an attempt to get him to make the decision with his… uhm… to get him to decide in her favor.

John – Sexy! That was hot!
Geri – It’s good to be sexy, but I want you to try to appeal to girls as well as men.

Mitch Mullany’s voice comes to us once again with a snippet from the rules. We are reminded that tonight the 45 potential AAGs will be cut by one half. This, he explains, will leave us with 24 remaining contestants. Right about now I’m beginning to get a headache as I try to crunch these numbers. I grab a calculator and it absolutely refuses to explain to me how these numbers add up. Once we are down to the final 10 contenders, America will phone in and vote with one girl being eliminated each week. This I can follow, being an avid American Idol watcher.

We now meet singer Marissa Cain. Before beginning she tells the judges that she will sing one verse and the chorus of a song. She doesn’t like the verse, but she likes the chorus and the verse sets the chorus up well. She performs a difficult Martina McBride song a cappella. There is a minor stumble at one point as she stops singing to apologize to the judges as she slips off key.

Suzanne – I couldn’t catch all of her comments verbatim here, but she criticized Marisa for being negative about the song before even getting started with singing it.
John – Don’t take this so personally.
Geri – You did well. It was great.

Now it’s time for Myshema, a street poetess. She is powerful and quickly has the audience (mostly comprised of other contestants) eating out of the palm of her hand.

Ashley Esqueda takes the stage next and admits to the camera that she can’t really sing that well and she’s hoping her clothing will be stylish enough that the judges won’t notice her weak voice. She rumbles through Belinda Carlysle’s “I Get Weak.”

Suzanne – Great hat. That was ok.
John – Good outfit. (I guess her plan worked.)

Melanie Sanders comes out and belts out a rather amazing version of the National Anthem.

Geri – The All American Song. That was perfect.

Once again Mitch Mullany gives us a little bit more of the rules. In addition to these Day 1 performances, each of the women will also be judged on intelligence, personality, and athleticism. At this point in the show the ladies start coming on stage quicker and quicker as if the producers are rushing to an important moment.

Monica Polumbo sings “How Do I Live Without You.

Geri – Great “pazazzi.” (whatever that means)
John – Pretty. Nice Southern personality.

Kira Pozehl – plays a nice bit of classical music on the piano.

John – Pretty and cute.
Geri – You just reminded me what this show is all about. (In my notes at this point I wrote down, “Good! Now tell me!”)

Kira leaves the stage and gushes to the camera that she was really pleased with “Ginger’s” comment. It’s okay, Kira, most of the rest of us are trying to forget Geri’s name as well.

All the girls are called to the stage for an announcement. Monica, Myshema, Kira, Melanie, and two other girls are told that their performances are so strong that they are excused from the second performance round and will automatically advance to the next round. By now I’ve lost all track of the rules and almost expect Monte Hall to pop onstage and tell the ladies they can advance to the next round or they can have what’s behind door number two. (I’ve visited ABC’s official site for the show to get the full information on some of the young ladies and a full breakdown of the rules, but at present all it has under the profiles section is a message to check back after the final 10 are announced.)

For the second round of performances the judges/coaches are given three options. They can tell the performer immediately that they are advancing, tell the performer immediately that they’ve been eliminated, or they can just wait and decide later.

Venice is the first performer and tries to regain the ground she lost with her Michael Jackson impersonation by playing the violin. She’s not too bad, but the judges barely wait for the last note to finish echoing before telling her she’s been eliminated. Natalie, the young lady who danced for a scant 30 seconds at the beginning of the show, decides to sing and play piano for her second attempt. She performs a decent version of Alicia Keyes hit, “Fallin’” and the judges grant her a pass to the next round.

We now see very quick glimpses of the second performances of several other women while the host tells us that after this round the coaches will have to choose up teams which they will indeed be coaching to even better performances. I’m not sure exactly how John Salley’s experience qualifies him to teach young ladies how to be better singers, but I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt here.