A judge and the producers threw two curveballs at David Cook, but he made solid contact on both.
Season 7 of "American Idol" is sputtering to a finish, and the contestants can't be blamed solely. Several times this season, the producers have made bad administrative choices -- two weeks of the Beatles; two Neil Diamond songs in one night; Andrew Lloyd Webber week -- that torpedoed whatever momentum the show had mustered. Tuesday night, the contestants and especially the producers were at fault for deflating a showcase evening with bad song choices.
Even if yours is the most popular show on television, you're asking a lot of an audience when you make it sit through just 90 seconds of Dan Fogelberg's "Longer," Aerosmith/Diane Warren's "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" and a song about penguins from the animated film "Happy Feet." Those missteps were compounded by the contestants' choices, which turned out to be nearly as bad.
When the night was over, the consequences seemed murky. It looks like Syesha Mercado will go home Wednesday, but I'm not sure the evidence against her is rock solid. Simon Cowell declared David Cook the winner, and he might have been, but it wasn't in a blowout. The roll call:
David Archuleta leads off the show and we are presented with the Final 3 routine: The songs in Round 1, the judges' choices, will be presented in footage from each contestant's homecoming last weekend. For Little D, the announcement comes from the the mayor of whatever town in Utah he's from, a guy in an American flag shirt who has a handlebar mustache like the horns on an Oklahoma steer. With great Mormon/redneck flair, he announces Paula's choice: Billy Joel's "And So It Goes."
We then go live to Paula, who explains the pick: "It's a beautiful song ... I know you can handle it" and she says something flattering about Little D's timbre. He, in turn, gives her that dead-eyed Stepford stare and a smile as wide and bright as a fleet of white limousines. Either he has no idea what timbre is or he's so nervous he's just trying hard not to pee his pants.
It turns out Billy J was a a wise pick for Little D, but his version is so Josh Groban-gooey I want to leave the room building city hemisphere. So the vocals are fine, but the boy has other problems. His body is illiterate: It speaks no language. He doesn't know how to stand comfortably, and he still hasn't figured out what t do with his empty hand, so he repeats the same underhand motion -- like he's pitching a Whiffle ball to a 4-year-old. And he sustains that same vacant/panicked look -- which must be the one look he hasn't been told to wipe off his face.
The camera goes to daddy, who beams like an owner watching his horse warm up for the Kentucky Derby. He's proud: Little D has coasted through another creamy ballad. The judges are split along the usual lines: Randy: "Paula chose a dope song; you can sing anything." Then he resorts to his usual dried-up, worthless bromides: "You were in the zone ... You're in it to win it." Paula, who picked the song: "It was pure and sunny." You know, like concentrated orange juice. Simon is closer to the truth: It was good but predictable.
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