Is everybody watching now?

Really? You chose tonight to start watching? Tonight? Because see, it's Diana Ross night, which means there will be a lot of bad disco and Motown song choosing, and you just might want to die by the end of the night. And not in a good way. Lock up your guns. Mine are in the safe. Ok, not really, but Frank is next to me, and I have faith in him and in my lazy butt. Really. They never pick good songs. They pick the overdone ones that I can't even bear to hear the names of anymore.

The band now has strings and winds, and there's a bigger stage, per usual top 12.

Simon is in a white t-shirt tonight instead of his normal charcoal sweater. No, Simon, those go under the clothes. The judges say their normal blah blah blah about this stage of the game.

Oh no. Diana Ross says she's not a critic. She wants to be the trusting voice and the supportive voice. I liked it when we had David Foster. Wasn't he the one? The one who came in and said that the kids would have been kicked out of his studio? I liked that one.

01 Brandon Rogers is out. He is singing "Can't Hurry Love". I kick you out for selecting the most covered song ever ever. Diana Ross told Brandon to go to his center, his hard place. Wow, his voice just cracked in major fashion. I don't think that was the Tivo. I don't think the hip swinging is going to save you. OH NO! First one out of the gate, and he forgot the words. No no no. Forgot the words to the most overdone song ever. RANDY: Boring, reverted back to a background singer, but your last two notes were like a front singer. PAULA: It's not easy. I know it's nerves. We don't need to tell you what you did wrong. SARAHK: You're the judges. You're waiting for me to tell him? You're waiting for him to look up IMAO when he wakes up in the morning? PAULA: There's a lot you do right. SIMON: Complete letdown, predictable, terrible dancing, forgot the words, no originality, no star quality, came across as a background singer for a background singer. Not good enough, sorry. SARAHK: Yes. That. And I kick you out for song choice alone. Bad Brandon. Bad. Your only hope is if Sanjaya's inexplicable fanbase has been eaten by the boogie monsters under their beds in the past week. And there's always the Queen of the Armpits. You were all bad tonight.

02 Melinda Doolittle. Oh, we're to answering inane viewer email, are we? Cute, maybe I'll send one. What's your favorite color, Ryan? Pink? I knew it! Melinda says the high heels and dresses are the hardest part of the show, and that's something we've heard before from a prior contestant, because it sounds familiar. Anyway, Melinda loves sweats and tennies. Me too. RYAN: Simon, what can you tell her about the high heels? SIMON: You should know, Ryan. RYAN: Stay out of my closet. SARAHK: Thou sayest. SIMON: Come out! SARAHK: Boo-yah. FRANK J.: That was too easy. RYAN: This is about the competition, not your wishes, Simon.

Melinda is all very face-covered-uncomfy during the exchange, but it's a cute back-and-forth, and I especially love how Simon says what I think sometimes. It's fun, our scripted ESP.

Anyway, Melinda is singing "Home" from The Wiz. Proudly, I can say I've never seen that movie all the way through, and I've never heard the song, at least not to my recollection. This is to the advantage of any contestant. If you're saddled with Stevie Wonder night or Motown night or whatever awful theme night they plague my ears with, the least you can do to give yourself a chance is pick an obscure or vague song and sing it well. Trick it up, but don't go crazy. Change a few bars or something. Don't do what Blake did later in the show tonight. That was a mess (sneak preview!).

Anyway, she is modestly dressed, I like that. She does always kind of come across in her dress as a cross between a 1950s housewife and a businesswoman. Does that make sense? It's way better for me than most of the rest of the attire going on here, mind you, because it's modest. Don't get me started, I can go on for hours. Maybe it's the color she is wearing tonight, the very bland black/white/greyish denim thing. But she always looks nice, attractive, and like she respects herself, and I appreciate that and thank her for that.

Oh yes! The singing. Fantastic. I voted for her like ten times. And look, she is crying when she gets the big standing ovation from the crowd. But barely. Just tearing up a little. RANDY: Hot hot hot! Girls 1 Boys 0! SARAHK: Oh YES! PAULA IS OFF HER NUT TONIGHT! SHE'S BAWLING ALREADY, AND IT'S ONLY THE TOP TWELVE! Paula is all-out crying, I am rejoicing. PAULA: Margle wurvy woozy head. Wuv you goo goo! (Simon is laughing.) SIMON: Melinda, why are you crying? (This is in a patronizing tone. I loooove it.) MELINDA: Something incoherent because remember she can't speak directly after singing so powerfully. She's incapable. Especially of saying "thank you". SIMON: You made a very boring song fantastic. You remind me of a young Gladys Knight. FRANK J.: Who? SARAHK: Tell me you're joking. FRANK J.: Gladys who? SARAHK: I'm going to hurt you if you don't tell me you're joking. FRANK J.: Yes, I'm joking. SARAHK: Melinda, it was fantastic. When are you going to thank the judges for the praise? Please? Just for me?

03 Chris Sligh. Haha, he says to Diana Ross that they have the same hair. What? "Endless Love"? Yes, well, I guess there weren't four decades of music for you to pick from, then, were there? But it is Diana Ross night, so what are you to do? I don't like him without the glasses as well, because it seems like he's trying to lose his look a little? The hair went shorter last week, the glasses are off this week. What next week, he starts dressing like Seacrest? Chris, you are who you are, and we like you. BTW, we'd like the humor back. There was a hint with the hair joke with Diana (listen to me call her Diana, we're old friends), keep it coming. "Endless Love", I'm so worried about it, though. Shouldn't I be? I guess we'll see.

This is... interesting. I'm not saying that in a bad way. I had my face all crinkled the whole song, but just because I was trying to make up my mind. He's got a piano rhythm playing in the background that's very familiar, like a Coldplay song. "Yellow", maybe? I don't know which. Anyway, but he's doing the song in that beat, with drums, and I am not once thinking of Lionel Ritchie during this, which is a wondrous thing on any American Idol night. Say it with me, class: "We should never invoke Stevie Wonder, Lionel Ritchie..." I could go on. The vocals are fine, nothing spectacular, but good. I like him and want him to stick around, so I voted for him ten or so times, even though it probably only deserved one vote if that. It was weird, but much better than at least four others tonight, so I have no shame in voting for him so he can stick around. RANDY: You had that Coldplay "Speed of Sound" vibe going, and you don't have to trick stuff up. Sometimes just sing because you have a good voice. Don't worry so much about style and sing your heart out. That was a mess for me, dawg. PAULA: Sometimes I worry that you're trying to be ultra-hip and ultra-cool. Worry less about trying to be contemporary. SARAHK: Paula, sometimes I worry that you try to be ultra-hip and ultra-cool, like when you try to use the words that the kids use. 'Cept they'd probably say Chris is ultra-rad and gnarly, dude. SIMON: You murdered the arrangement. You took a beautiful song and did very bad things to it. SARAHK: You made Chris Sligh sing a Diana Ross song. And one week, you're making him sing J-Lo. Step back, or I'll cut you. SIMON: It was unemotional, uninspiring, and I would keep your glasses on. RYAN: Did you think you would ever be on a stage singing Diana Ross? CHRIS: Yes, Ryan, because the American Idol producers have proven year after year that they despise SarahK and want to make her life miserable. I think the judges didn't like my arrangement more than they didn't like my vocals, so hopefully next week I don't screw up the arrangement in their eyes so badly. SARAHK: Yeah, that's probably a good assessment. FRANK J.: They tell them to take risks, and then they tell them it's not ok to do anything to the songs. SARAHK: And they have Diana Ross night on American Idol.

04 Gina Glocksen. Twice Diana Ross tells Gina to "pronunciate" everything. Pronunciate. Pronunciate. Children, if you don't know why that's a problem, you're probably the ones putting Haley and Sanjaya through to the next rounds. Gina is dressed appropriately to herself again tonight, and I like it, but I have to say, she is not right for the tapered leg jeans. She needs a good boot cut. Then again, I feel like tapered leg jeans are a bad look for everyone. Any '80s looks should never come back from the dead. Don't let any sale racks tell you differently. Tapered jeans just always look like they're two inches too short. From the waist up, she looks great. The singing was good but nothing spectacular. But it was good. She sang "Love Child". Ok, fine. I voted for her several times, because I'm a fan, and she was fine. RANDY: Not my favorite performance from you, pitchy in spots, boring, weird. PAULA: You're much better than you did tonight. You shouted sometimes. Enunciation wasn't great. SIMON: Wasn't terrible, wasn't fantastic. Right song for you, right image for you. Forgettable, middle-pack performance. SARAHK: It was fine. I like you.

Before the break, Sanjaya is smiling huge and waving at the camera. I just want to give him a lollypop. "Ok, here's your lollypop, Sanjaya, now go skip rope with the other children!"

WH Sanjaya. Ahahaha. He's singing "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" or whatever that song is called. Are you kidding? He thinks he can sing that? Oh no. When he comes on stage, his permed, poofy hair is tousled, and he's wearing earrings. I'm sorry. I'm sure he's a nice twelve year-old, but I cannot stop laughing at this. I think someone pulled a nasty trick on him and told him he's supposed to look like whatever artist they're imitating each week. I use imitating very weakly. Frank thinks he's going for the whole young Michael Jackson look, Jackson Five era. Oh yes, it's a singing competition. Well, that was just horrific. Frank asks if he's the worst to ever make the top twelve. My mind wanders back to Jasmine [UM, see UPDATE below], but she had decent moments. Sanjaya's voice isn't that bad, if he's singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", but Mozart would probably not approve, considering it's a ripoff of his tune, come to think of it. Ok, bad example. Ok, it's not that bad if he's singing something like the ABCs. Wait, same tune. I didn't do that intentionally. Hmm. "Mary Had a Little Lamb"? Ack. Anyway, I'm gonna go with yes, he's probably the worse to make the top twelve (when you put it all together – singing, stage presence, dancing), but Haley's armpits and high-fives are so unnerving that it makes it difficult for me to hear her sing, so her onstage issues are even worse than his dance moves. Anyway, that was an absolute trainwreck. Stop the madness, whoever you are that is voting for him a million times a night. RANDY: Wow, um, dude, I don't even know what to say. Dude, it wasn't very good. Thank goodness for the background singers. I look forward to your hair every week, though! PAULA: You sang on pitch. You're the sweetest soul, you have the sweetest smile, it warms people's hearts. You need to explode with your vocal sound with reckless abandon. SIMON: When you hear a wail in Beverly Hills, that is where Diana Ross is watching the show. She's going to freak when she hears that. I don't know what else to say. Look, I'll be positive. How old are you? 17? You're very brave. SANJAYA: Your first comment, Simon, was so far over my head. I didn't understand you. SARAHK: It took me a while, too. At first I thought "whale" and didn't get it, but then I processed with my brain, which understands homophones, being older than 17, and needed no further explanation. (Simon defines "wail" as a "scream", and Ryan explains that Simon doesn't mean anything from a marine biology standpoint. It's a very uncomfy moment, but not as uncomfy as if Diana Ross had been a large woman. Thank goodness she's as large around as a praying mantis, or Rosie O'Donnell would freak out and call American Idol "weightist" again tomorrow on The View and look like a giant fool. Haha, I can't do that without laughing. She says something every day that makes her look like a giant fool.) SARAHK: Oh, um, did I mention that was hideous? Please go home.

UPDATE: How could I forget. I think he's even worse than... dun dun dun... KELLIE PICKLER!

06 Haley Scarnato, the Queen of the Armpits, is wearing a funky deep purple maternity dress with lots of cleavage so we might forget how badly and airily she sings. Haley says they're drinking water backstage, and Ryan says pointedly that there is always Coca-Cola available. Queenie is going to sing "Missing You". Snoo-oo-oo-ooze, I'm missing hours of my life, tell me why I'm listening to this... Frank just turned to me and said, "You could sing this so much better." "I hope so! And thank you." Forgetting lots and lots of words. Wow, what is that around her thighs? The dress is like this maternity dress with lots of cleavage, but then they took this big piece of darker material and just cinched it around her thighs, with some of the dress hanging below it. Not much, because the dress only comes about two inches below her hoo-hah, but what is that thing? Frank thinks it looks like a tire. I don't know, maybe a chastity belt. RANDY: You know what I'ma say. You forgot your words. You were pitchy, which is unlike you. Dawwwg. PAULA: You look beautiful, which probably isn't what you want to hear, but hey, it's a big auditorium, and half the time the audience doesn't know you forgot the words. SARAHK: Because they're asleep, or focused on your armpits, a good distraction, or their husbands are telling them how much better they sing than you. SIMON: It wasn't that bad. SARAHK: What? It was atrocious! Did you see the outfit? SIMON: You look like a star tonight. SARAHK: Did you see the chastity belt around the waist, and the dress up to her hoo-hah? SIMON: Yes you forgot your words, but other than that it was a pretty good vocal, and I think people actually will remember you tonight. SARAHK: [...] (That means I'm speechless.) Oh, and Haley is so farklempt that she can't even stand up anymore. Forget that Paula and Randy had nothing good to say except you're pretty, but Simon said it wasn't that bad, and she's about to fall off the stage. Make sure the defib and some antiperspirant are on standby just in case, peeps, because she has lived her whole life now and can finally die because Simon has half-complimented her and her cleavy hoo-hah dress. SARAHK: It was really bad. Simon is distracted by the hoo-hah. And if I hear one more person say "It is what it is", I swear...

WH Phil Stacey. Ha, most of these reviews I wrote the first time through, and I'm just touching them up on the rewatch, but I didn't write word #1 on Phil's review. "I don't like him." Does that suffice? I think I was still writing about Haley, not bothering with the man who didn't bother with the birth of his child. I remember hearing it and thinking he sang well, but I still don't like him and his head. He's singing "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me", a song his poor child will probably have to sing to him someday just to get him to pay attention, daddy! I'm going by song title only, not delving into lyrics, because that would require yet another rewind, and like I said, I don't like him. It's a good, solid vocal. A little screechy in a couple of spots. And his head is fully uncovered. That offends my sensibilities. And at the end, they're trying to pander to the people like me who seethe with rage over the fact that he missed the birth of his child to audition for AI when there were eight audition cities, not just one audition city, because there's a poster that his friends and wife are holding, a picture of the baby that says "I'm voting for my daddy." Poor child is going to need so much therapy when he/she grows up and reads what people wrote about his/her dear old dad on the interwebs. RANDY: You get the boys' award for the night. Hot vocally. PAULA: Needs to be more uptempo, that song. SIMON: No, I think you're wrong, that was the right tempo. It was ok, a very good song choice. But when you hit the big notes, you tend to shout. So it's like you're shouting in my ear. Better than last week, that's for sure. Not awful, not great. SARAHK: Good but screechy in parts, and now I have a migraine, which probably has nothing to do with you unless your name is gluten, but I'm going to blame you for it.

08 LaKisha Jones decides she wants to be old friends with Diana Ross, so she tells her that her name is Kiki. She is singing "God Bless the Child" in a full-length white dress. I could do without all the cleavage, but other than that she looks lovely. I know I complain a lot about cleavage, I'm not oblivious to my own "Dawg"s and "You're so pretty"s. Maybe it's because I'm not a man and can walk in front of a mirror and look at boobs any time I want, or maybe it's about modesty (I am a modesty girl, I won't lie to you), but any time I see that on the girls it's an automatic demerit from me. I'm not going to slap any hands with rulers, but I am going to make them work harder for my approval to get a vote. And almost every week I feel like I should shield my eyes for fear that LaKishas EEs might plaster the screen any second now. I know it's hard to find modest apparrel these days, but it can be done. Melinda does it every week. I do it. Anyway, the singing is great until the very last note, which is very flat, and she knows it, because she cuts it short. Other than the last note and the flouncy boobs, it's a great performance. So far, second place. She finally has the fire back that she had the first night of the voting. That's good, because it was starting to look like a runaway for Melinda. RANDY: You didn't overdo it, you could do because you have the big voice, that was sensational. PAULA: (Tears.) Beautiful performer, blah blah blah, something about possessing something important. SIMON: You've either got it or you haven't got it. You've got it. You and Melinda are in a different league. SARAHK: Second place! Other than the flouncy boobs and the flat note at the end, it was outstanding. Better than I could do, of course. I voted for her once. Like I said, I give demerits for the boobs. She would have had to be flawless to come back from that and get 10 votes like Melinda did.

09 Blake Lewis. He is doing "Keep Me Hanging On". I'm angry over this. See: Brandon Rogers's song choice. Blake has gone and arranged this all electronica and synthesizery, and any minute now we will see the 'NSYNC boys ride out on their mechanical bulls and start singing "Space Cowboy", rewound '80s style (don't get me wrong, I love me some 'NSYNC and can't wait to see Joey Fatone on DWTS next week, but the key is "rewound '80s style", and when they rode the mechanical bulls onstage during their Pop Odyssey tour, even I thought that was too campy, and I was soooo not hearing any slander against my 'NSYNC boys). Dawg. I was not wit that. I appreciate that he tried to do his own thang, dawg, but 1) I'm not sure you can overdo a song any more than "Can't Hurry Love" and "Keep Me Hanging On" and "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" have been overdone. Visions of curling my hair in the locker room at the racquetball club in the '80s really are popping into my head. Seriously. No place in American Idol. These are the aughts. (That's the zero zeros, Sanjaya.) 2) The stage lighting? I felt like I was in our Karaoke Revolution game. 3) Vocally, it was fine, but that was a hideous arrangement, and I could hardly hear you over all the crappy keyboard stuff. Detention for you, Blake. RANDY: Yo yo, check it out, check it out, I'm a big fan, right? SARAHK: He didn't like it. RANDY: Let the classics be the classics, yo. There weren't enough vocals in there. SARAHK: You're the one always telling him to beatbox instead of sing. Make. Up. Your. Mind. PAULA: I saw a big difference between what Blake did and what Chris Sligh did. We saw you arranging it and stuff, and I think you could have a hit with that again. SARAHK: The vodka and the drugs tonight. Everyone who's had a hit with that song had it by 1985. SIMON: I didn't get it. It was atrocious. If you'd heard that in isolation on the radio, you wouldn't like it. You didn't sound as good as we've previously heard you. PAULA: We like Motown sound. SARAHK: And I like kitty cats.

10 Stephanie Edwards is singing "Love Hangover". I don't know this song, which is to her advantage. The problem the kids have been having tonight is that they're picking ridiculously overdone songs, songs that have been covered by every pop singer and Motown artist on the planet. This one, not so much, at least not in my world where I don't listen to Motown that much. Stephanie looks good. Paula is dancing. Stephanie seems very comfortable on the stage. She has a great voice. This is very boring, very strong and pipey. Stephanie sings the type of song that she always sings, and those aren't my kind of songs. I think she can really sing, but the smooth, mellow R&B thing is not my kind of music. The problem with it is this is probably the kind of album she would put out, because it's the same kind of song from her every week. It's the kind of artist she will be, and that's not the kind of CD I would buy. Anyway, it was good but boring. RANDY: Interesting with forgetting the words tonight. (I rewound twice and still couldn't find where she forgot the words, so she hid it well.) PAULA: Why didn't you do the fast part at the end of the song? SARAHK: I have no idea what she's talking about. This is such a nondescript song, I'm surprised anyone remembers ever hearing it before. STEPHANIE: It was just too long that way, so I had to cut it some where. SARAHK: Maybe she's like me and can only sing slow songs well. When I try to sing fast stuff, I get all out of breath. So I don't do that, lest I embarrass myself. SIMON: It felt like you sang an intro to the song. You're going to have to do better to make an impression.

11 Chris Richardson is singing "The Boss". It's not so good. The way he's dressed? Cruise ship performance. Then the camera is right in his face, so he gives a big "cheese!" smile because he doesn't know what to do. Vocally it's not awful, but it's not great. The stage performance and in and out of the audience, it's all very cruise shippy and jerky to the point of Taylor Hicks. No really, it's that jerky. And I'm a fan, so I'm not being ugly. And the outfit. Please don't do that again, ok? That's a preacher tie. *sigh* RANDY: Not my favorite performance of yours, you overdid it a bit. Interesting for me. PAULA: You nailed the blend of contemporary and back then-i-ness. Blah rah rah. SIMON: Take you and your charm and personality out of the equation, listen to the vocals, and it was dreadful. On the radio, it was terrible. SARAHK: I wouldn't call it dreadful, but it wasn't great. I thought all the personality stuff was worse than the singing this time. Thank goodness the tweenies will vote many times for you, because I like you. But I can't vote for your preacher tie.

12 Jordin Sparks. Remember I don't like her for some reason. I think it's just because she can't stop smiling no matter what she's singing. Oh thank goodness. Diana tells her to actually think about the words she's singing, and Jordin says she's going to do just that. If she gives it half an effort, I'll actually dial in a vote for her because it will make me so happy to see her stop the toothiness. Oh no. She is sitting at the edge of the stage when she starts singing. I hope she doesn't do that McPhee Knee Sing Thing. She's singing "If We Hold on Together" from A Land Before Time, because she really likes the cartoon movie songs. And she does have a good Disney movie song voice. That's not an insult. Hello, my name is Ariel. She stands about halfway through the song. I'm not crazy about the dress. It's not a good cut for her. She sounds really good, and her facial expressions actually fit the song. I'm in shock. Her voice is starting to shake on the vibrato late in the song, I think that's nerves doing it to her. But I'm going to cut her some slack and vote for her once because she's most improved. Sure, I tell you to pay attention to the words and it goes right by you. Diana Ross tells you, and you're all ears. It was very good. I'll give her 3rd place, I'm feeling generous. RANDY: I'm so impressed with you. Tonight, you just made it a 3-girl race. PAULA: Natural gift, breath of fresh air, sang your heart out, lalala. SIMON: It was a little bit gooey. Very, very good vocal. And absolutely you've put yourself in with a chance of being in the finals.

02 Melinda**********
08 LaKisha*
12 Jordin*
03 Chris Sligh**********
WH Phil
04 Gina**********
10 Stephanie
09 Blake
11 Chris Richardson
01 Brandon
06 Haley
05 Sanjaya

Hrm. Prediction. Sanjaya is still going to stick around. I don't know how. And even though Simon's reverse psychology thing with Haley (oh, along with her bad performance) is going to knock her into the bottom three where she belongs, I predict that Brandon will get the ax tomorrow night. Bottom three: Haley, Brandon, Stephanie.

• Currently 3.04/5
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• 7
• 8
• 9
• 10

Rating: 3.0/5 (14 votes cast)

SarahK's TV stuff
Email This | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble It!