The Next Best Thing, Episode 4: Viva Las Vegas!

So this is where all the talent’s been hiding! After a paltry four contestants advanced from the Orlando round, I was starting to worry, but as you’ll read here, the Vegas rounds hit the talent jackpot.

The show starts off with a recap from our host Michelle. She reminds us who our judges are and what they’re looking for. She also reminds us that thus far, our judges have been to Tinseltown, The Big Apple, and the Happiest Place on Earth. She doesn’t actually use those nicknames, however—but I just found it interesting that the show only auditioned in places with cutesy nicknames. Why not places with great names of their own? Maybe The Next Best Thing is hiding somewhere in Pocatello, Walla Walla, or Tuscaloosa? Were those names just too darn amusing? Were the producers afraid the contestants would be upstaged? Will I ever stop asking rhetorical questions?

Lucky you—the answer is “yes,” because dammit, there’s a show to recap! Before I go on, I’d like to apologize for the lateness of this recap; my son just turned five and there was a flurry of birthday-related activities taking over my world. Sadly, reality television had to take a back seat—but fret no more. On with the show!

This episode starts out with a contestant I’ve seen before. His name is Marcel, and he’s impersonating Jay Leno. A few years ago, when The Weakest Link was all the rage, there was a special episode that featured celebrity impersonators, and Marcel was among the contestants. When I see him chatting with Michelle, I recognize him right away from that previous appearance. I recall that he was pretty good, and have a feeling that he might be advancing.

In an interview, you can’t see that much resemblance, but once he comes out on stage, wearing a blue suit, prosthetic chin in place, his hair appropriately gray, he really does resemble Jay Leno. Elon is visibly taken aback by the physicality. He laughs and slaps his hand on the table. Marcel delivers a joke, and Elon tells him it’s eerie how much he looks like Jay. However, he tells Marcel, when you’re doing Leno, you have to demonstrate an ability to vary your voice between high and low registers when speaking. Elon demonstrates this, and Marcel is able to do it very well. One wonders why he wasn’t employing that all along; perhaps he was nervous. The judges all vote to move him forward. Good call!

Next up is Ozzy Osbourne. He walks out, looking and walking just like Ozzy. But once he gets on stage, he just stands there. He opens his mouth, and the resemblance is gone. He then announces that he’s going to do something by Patsy Cline, and inexplicably, he launches into “Crazy.” It’s not good. Of course, why would you expect it to be?

Elon stops the singing to tell the contestant how disappointed he is; when Ozzy came onstage, Elon was excited, because the contestant had the Ozzy walk and the “aura,” but then the voice killed it. He asks the contestant if he thinks it’s a good impersonation, and the guy says “not really.” Ha! Jeffrey asks him if he will eat a bat, but the contestant compromises by offering to eat a chicken egg. Lisa asks the guy to yell “Sharon,” which he does, and that seals his fate. Buh-bye.

Garth Brooks is our next wannabe, wearing a black cowboy hat and singing “Friends in Low Places.” The judges do a little shtick in which Elon is applying a defibrillator to Jeffrey’s chest. Needless to say, he’s not moving on.

“Queen of all media” Oprah Winfrey is next, her hair in ringlets and wearing red satin. In an earlier snippet, they showed this contestant in line outside, and she did that little Oprah thing she does when she’s introducing someone or something and she prolongs the name. (Sorry, it’s hard to translate auditory into text.) She sounded just like Oprah, so when her audition came along, I had high hopes. For whatever reason, though, she doesn’t sound as much like her this time, and the judges say no.

A Pulp Fiction-era John Travolta is next. He doesn’t look that much like him, but the voice isn’t bad. His material is stupid, however. Lisa calls him a “mini-me John Travolta,” Jeffrey says it’s a “reservoir dog of an audition,” and Elon tells him he’s not “stayin’ alive.” Oh, those wacky judges!

Next up is Sharon Owens. Since that’s the name of an imitator and not the imitated, you can probably surmise that she will be moving on. The producers really don’t care much about the suspense factor, do they? Sharon says she will be imitating Barbra Streisand, and turns to give us a side view of the schnoz. She assures us she hasn’t had any plastic surgery, quipping, “Who would have surgery to get their nose to look like this?!”

When she comes out for her audition, she’s wearing a blonde bob and a black jumpsuit-like ensemble. She begins to sing the theme from “The Way We Were,” and she has Babs’ mannerisms down perfectly, from the way she holds the initial “m” in the opening word “memories” to making the goofy facial expressions. She can’t sing as well, as evidenced when she goes for the high notes, but in the lower register, where she can focus on style over quality, she’s got it down.

The judges are amazed by the singing, but ask if she can talk like Barbra too. “Sure!” she says, “What do you wanna know?” and it sounds dead-on. They make a joking reference to the incident in which she swore at audience members who disapproved of her politics, and she rolls with it, firing off an “f-you” that of course, gets bleeped. It’s a unanimous yes from the judges. Another good call—they’re two for two in my book.

A little “Mony Mony” greets us after the commercial break. Billy Idol won’t be going on, however. He’s followed by Austin Powers. He looks pretty much like him, though I think the guy from an earlier episode was a better visual match. He starts talking, and the accent is inconsistent. Elon tells him the physicality is good, but he’s concerned about the voice. He has the contestant do a couple of standard lines like, “Yeah, baby!” and “Oh, behaaaaave!” and the guy sounds great. Elon wants to move him forward, but the other two are concerned that he doesn’t have the stamina to keep the voice consistent. They argue a bit, but ultimately it’s a no.

Ol’ Blue Eyes is back, and this guy’s speaking voice is very much like Sinatra. He says he’s not the next best thing, he’s the first best thing, and the judges like the swagger. He’s wearing a tux and a fedora, so he’s nailed the physicality.

But can he sing? The answer is, happily – YES! He sounds and moves like Sinatra as he sings, and the judges tell him he’s the best Sinatra they’ve seen throughout the auditions. Jeffrey tells him to make the audition more real and hit someone. The contestant quips, “You’re first!” The judges laugh, and Jeffrey remarks that the contestant even has blue eyes. He replies, “Yeah, and they’re killing me. I can’t wait to take them out!” Ha! This guy has a great sense of humor, and I look forward to more from him in the future.