American Idol 2, March 26: Third Time's the Charm

We begin another extended results show with Ryan Seacrest going on about how terrible it is to send somebody home. Blah blah blah. Yes, Ryan, we get it. After introducing the judges and getting Randy's standard answer filled with "dude"s and "dawg"s, Ryan pulls out the "Randy Jackson Dictionary for Dawgs" - basically a Randy-to-English dictionary. Much hilarity ensues. You'll just have to trust me on this one.

We move to the contestants, sitting and waiting. Ryan shares with us some of the things the contestants said after Tuesday night's show. Julia thought Kimberly Caldwell was the best, and Kimberly Caldwell thought Julia was the best. Awww. Ain't it sweet the way these two (who were originally portrayed as rivals) have come together. Kim says she's just so proud of Julia - as if she's her mom or something. Gag.

Carmen thought Joshua did the best. Ruben and Corey thought Trenyce was the best, but Trenyce thinks she could have done better. Clay said Ruben and Kimberley Locke were the best. He says Ruben just owned the stage and Kim was haunting.

We get highlights from Tuesday night's show. Then all of them come together to sing "Where the Blacktop Ends." It's okay, but I found the music to be a bit too loud, such that I couldn't really hear their voices well at times.

It turns out they are not just singing together here on the show. Burt Bacharach, who had appeared on the show last year to help the singers perform some of his songs in the competition, is back. This time he has asked the top 10 American Idol contestants to help record a new version of his song, "What the World Needs Now Is Love," which he thinks rather appropriate given the times. We see them practicing and then recording the song with an orchestra. The single will be released April 15 and proceeds will benefit the Red Cross. You can be sure that we'll have a link to order it as soon as one becomes available.

Now it's time for a huge amount of filler! Before we get into this, I have to address the question of why they are trying to make a 15-minute show into a full hour. Obviously, the answer is "ratings." Last week I suspected they started the same time as Survivor because they were afraid people wouldn't leave Survivor halfway through. This week I think they started at 7:30 for that exact reason, but regarding The Bachelor. If they could keep viewers tuned in, they might not turn to ABC for the Bachelor premiere. That's my hypothesis, anyway.

Getting back to the show, the filler right now consists of questions from the audience again. Yippee! Katie asks Kimberley Locke what she thinks of life in L.A. as opposed to Tennessee. Kim says it's really different from her small town. The people are different and the way of life is different. OK, so, in summary, I guess we should conclude that life in a big city is "different" from life in a small town. Got that? Good. Moving on.

Annie asks Simon if he was stranded on a boat with Paula and Randy and had to kick one off, which would it be and why? He says he'd boot Paula because then he could kill Randy and eat him. Ryan comments that if he's eating Randy, he could survive for months. Ooooh.

Katrina asks the three judges who their idols are. Randy says it's himself! Then he gets serious and says it's Sly and the Family Stone. Paula Abdul says hers is Stevie Wonder. Simon says his is Paula Abdul. He actually looks serious…

Candice asks Paula if she thinks the right person is always voted off. Paula says no, and the perfect example was Tamyra last year.

Chelsea asks Clay if any movie star could play him, who would it be. Clay asks Ryan if he's available. Then he suggests perhaps Yahoo Serious (okay, who remembers him?). Ryan suggests Brad Pitt and Clay says okay.

Last question - Sarah asks Ryan why he slipped her his phone number earlier. The woman next to her elbows in and says hey, he gave it to her, too. People start asking just how many audience members Ryan gave his number to and a majority of the audience stands up. These writers, they crack me up.

To kill more time, we see the line of people waiting for tickets to the show. Ryan goes out to the crowd and offers tickets in exchange for American Idol trivia. None of it is worth mentioning here any further.

The contestants have another group number now, as Ryan says they sing to show the unity of the country. They sing "Proud to Be an American" (actually, I'm not sure that's the song name - it might be "God Bless the U.S.A." - but you know the one I'm talking about so let's not get picky). As usual, they sing well together as a group.

Ryan fills another few seconds by announcing that American Junior Idol will be coming soon. I guess they settled on a name. On April 12 and 13 they will be having tryouts in L.A. Just in case you were wondering.

Finally, it's time to see who is in the bottom three. Recall that I had predicted Trenyce, Corey, and Julia. Yeah, right. It turns out to be Kimberly Caldwell (what?!), Rickey Smith (huh?!), and Julia (phew!). Strangely, even when Ryan recapped Rickey Smith's song from the previous night, he still only referred to it as "a Larry Gatlin song." What is going on? Do they even know what the song was? Or is it something they can't repeat on the air?