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?

I have to commend the producers on giving those of us who watch seating placement a bit of a surprise. After Julia and Kim were announced, it looked like the two on the end of the top row - Corey and Carmen - would be the focus of that "last two" question of which would be in the bottom. But then Ryan skipped to Carmen and instead posed that question of Corey and Rickey. Obviously, most people thought it would be Corey. We were wrong.

The judges are asked their thoughts. Randy says American kinda got it wrong - the audience applauds. He wouldn't have put these three in. Paula agrees. She is asked if she means all three. Yes. Simon, however, says America got it right. He tells the three contestants that they let America down and they let themselves down. Out of 70,000 people, these were the top 10; they are capable of better and we expect better. Paula and Randy are falling over themselves to disagree, but they really need to shut up and listen. He's not insulting them or saying they were dreadful or anything - just that they are better than they showed. Randy does admit that some of the songs they sang were boring and that certainly hurt them.

Let me again state what I said last week - I really wish Ryan would put Paula and Randy on the spot when they say these should not have been the bottom three. Who should have been, in their eyes? I think Paula would self-destruct if she actually had to provide the names, because that would mean she's saying something bad (or at least not great) about somebody. I mean, she gave Clay a standing ovation, so we know it's not him. She told Ruben he would run for governor and win. She told Carmen that she "brought it," told Corey he was really "on it" and his voice is refreshing, said Kimberley Locke was haunting and gave a touching performance, said Trenyce had great quality and control, and told Joshua that he took the stage like a pro and had a true Southern Comfort voice. Where in there is anything indicating who she believed should be in the bottom three? Meanwhile, she said Julia was a teeny bit pitchy - the closest thing Paula generally comes to a critical statement. So it at least sounds like she thought Julia should have been there, but that's not what she said here. Sure, she said Rickey's was his best performance yet and Kimberly Caldwell had "vocal muscle," but where do those fall in her line of compliments?

Ryan, if you're by some chance reading this - please put her on the spot!

Yeah, yeah. I know. It'll never happen.

Anyway, where were we? Oh yeah - Rickey is quickly dismissed, leaving Julia and Kim. This is ironic because I suspect it's exactly what the producers were hoping for back when they portrayed the two as enemies. Yet here they were, hugging each other.

Julia looked like she was about to be run over by a truck. And, indeed, she's right. After two weeks of being a regular in the bottom three, that bottom finally dropped out. Kim cries, then she goes to lean on Ruben and cry some more. Later, she cries even more. Her makeup turns to liquid, causing Mike DeGeorge to suggest to me that for the next article on what AI contestants need to learn, we should add, "If you're going to cry on the results show, don't wear makeup that would make Tammy Faye say, 'Jeez, lighten up on the mascara!'"

Julia says that for never having performed before in her life, this was quite a way to start a career. She sings her song from last night again. Then, still having a couple minutes to fill, Ryan asks the 10 to reprise their group rendition of "Proud to Be an American." Thus we close out the show.

So much for my predictive abilities. The only one of the bottom three I thought would be there was Julia, and I hadn't picked her to lose (I thought she had more of a hardcore group of fans and that Corey would lose). Oh, and I also thought Alex would be voted out on Survivor Wednesday night, so I was 0 for 2 this Wednesday night. Good thing I didn't try to make any predictions for The Bachelor!

For more discussion on Julia leaving, watch for "Why Julia Lost" coming soon to Foxes On Idol.

David Bloomberg is the Editor of RealityNewsOnline and can be reached at rno@pobox.com.

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