I'm gonna make this as quick as I can.
Opening number: the HELL?! I think that should be the title of this show: "American Idol: The Hell."
Poor Jason can't lip-sync. He's too REAL for this Hollywood bullshit. I enjoy the forced-at-gunpoint "ooh so sexy" look on the dancer's face when she has to touch Smugly. Mama-say mama-sa ma-ma-WTF? Pirouettes! STREET DANCING! Asians! Street dancing Asians! I want Marilyn McCoo to come out and sing the "Solid Gold" theme song RIGHT NOW. This flouncery is brought to you by ExxonMobil! There is some dude two seats down from Paula who looks angry and mortified by all of this. I'm with him.
KYLIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She and Marg Helgenberger may be turning into the same person. This worries me. I mean, I love Marg and I love Kylie but never the twain shall meet, you know?
Service is fun, cool and rewarding. It also turns you into a creepy, scary Lady Skeletor. Let's welcome Maria Shriver! Wow, her voice is just NOT pleasant. When she talks about young people fueling their souls through service I instead believe she is talking about fueling her reanimated corpse with the souls of young people. This show SCARES ME.
Ben Stiller has inspired me to service the FFWD button.
Is this Jennifer Connelly in some kind of late Dark Water tie-in? Ryan confirms my suspicions, if only about the identity of the person involved. WTF is going on with this show. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Speaking of which, let's welcome Snoop Dogg!
Snoop is for the children. It's so hard to say goodbye, but hip-hop's love for "The Way It Is" will never die. If anything would inspire me to GIVE NOW it would be the inspirational, softer side of Snoop. Who doesn't love that?! I mean, his sweatshirt says it all:
YES.
Kobe, WTF is on your face. Try and look presentable for this show, man, you're not above cleaning up for this. Douche.
Hahaha Triple H hahahahahahahaha. He's got two words for ya. Chris: "Please help." Triple H: "Please give." Oh man, so close, so predictable.
Hunger! Obesity! What? My head is spinning. Don't let Paula touch your kids!!! Gang activity is dangerous for children, apparently. Thanks, Randy. Why do I feel bad seeing disadvantaged youth having temporary access to comfortable rides in a luxury vehicle?
"Desperate Housewives" is so hot right now. Yeah. Uh. Teri Hatcher singing. WTF. I feel like political comedian Nicholas Fehn: "Noooo! Just ... noooo! What—WHO ASKED?!" Look, she's backed up by shitty character actors and "reality" "stars" singing and playing instruments! When Teri Hatcher dwarfs your star power, you need to rethink your career. I have a vendetta against the guy playing drums that goes back to "Felicity."
Carrie Underwood: "That was a lot of fun!" You know what's not fun? The reason we're doing this show!
Who is this screaming lady? Am I supposed to know who that is? It's a sad state of affairs when I recognize Simon Fuller but not you. Chris invokes the rule that if we don't recognize someone, they're from "So You Think You Can Dance." He's very wise.
I don't care about either Billy Crystal or Miley Cyrus. Are her teeth fake? I'm glad I have never really had occasion to pay attention to her, other than to see she has a really, really bad case of MySpace Face. Let's stop the madness, people.
Wow, this generation gap is something else, isn't it?
It so inspires hilarity to ensue! In my day, we had MoonPies, not actual PIES made out of the MOON and flying cars and MP3s on the Interweb! I can't take the dichotomy! I do love that Billy Crystal says "Monsters Incorporated," however, and apparently not as a joke. I'd pledge money to put a stop to this segment. Make a pledge tonight, save a life tomorrow. I mean tonight. Or tomorrow, when I believe this show may finally be over.
Did you know that singing on American Idol is the one thing Miley Cyrus hasn't had a chance to do yet? The one thing in the whole world? Apparently, because she just said it. Did you know one dollar can save a life? It must be true, because she just said it!!!
Chris now regrets not watching sooner to have a chance to call in and talk to Chikezie. DAVID H. SIGHTING!!!! I bet his pledge calls are sexy.
I'm like "Is that Simon Pegg?!" but it's Bono. Wow. I need to get some sleep. He and David C. should have a pompous-off. For charity!
RYAN GOSLING ALERT!!!!!!!!!!! If only on a commercial. Oh well.
Speaking of the incomprehensible expanse of human tragedy, let's welcome Fergie with John Legend!
(It is an unfortunate reflection on our society when Fergie can out-sing everyone left on this show, incidentally.)
Heart! Please God don't let Fergie come out and do "Barracuda" with them. Please Lordamighty have mercy. I had to sit through that crap waiting for the fireworks display at the State Fair. Funny how that's inevitably my conduit to Today's Popular Music year in and year out. Oh no, there she is. Oh no, just ... oh no. Does she even know the lyrics to this song? Ann Wilson has no time for her clowning. Crawling on the floor? Gymnastics? Oh come ON now. Is she back on the meth? Is Michael enabling her?
Oh thank you for saving me, John Cena. You gladden my heart with your very pre-taped presence.
Let's visit our Idol pledge call takers! I swear I want a giant poster of Jason on the phone. He's straight out of a LiveLinks ad.
Tremendous. I live. Speaking of which: Eli and Peyton Manning, you are the real heroes.
Now let's all take a walk down memory lane with Hurricane Katrina and Coldplay. What a tremendous time that was! So many memories. Let's share them with one another! I too want to have a group therapy session with the Manning brothers, I swear to God. It looks like the most fantastic experience ever. Hahahaha, oh no, Peyton Manning saying "One, two, three, teamwork" means something else entirely to so many. Something MAGICAL.
I seriously don't think this show is capable of topping the one-two punch of LiveLinks Jason and Los Bros Manning. I should just end here.
Chris is disappointed the chyron is covering up Posh's rack. Annie Lennox is lovely. Celine Dion is ... something else. Take that however you wish. I love the affected way she says "affected."
The Simon Cowell Roast hosted by Jimmy Kimmel? No. Tight shirts, nipples, haircut, the Grinch, unbuttoned shirts, check. What better way to introduce this video package to show how concerned Simon is for the plight of the disadvantaged than by saying he's an asshole?! This show is on CRACK. Sweet caring Simon is forever a wonder to behold, though.
Let's go back to that Carrie Underwood well, people! It's all we got! She's turning into Jenny McCarthy. It's disturbing. This is a good way to burn through 15 minutes of show. Oh wait, this isn't 15 minutes long? Really?
Sheila E.! Chris is once again interested in this show! Please, no more wacky dancers. Retarded cheesiness is too high a price to pay for cross-promotion.
Please let's not welcome Sarah Silverman. ELLIOTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was so fast Chris had to point and rewind as I was too busy ignoring the TV. It's like there's some kind of conspiracy against me.
The British Prime Minister looks like Dan Rather.
Reese Witherspoon, whatever. ELLIOTT!!!!!!!!!!!! Once again, they show him when I'm ignoring the TV. This is truly an evil plot, how dare they.
Now let's enjoy eight people who do not sound at all good singing with one another, performing that piece of crap from Rent that everyone is sick of!
How do you measure the degree to which I am irritated? Seriously, are my ears broken or is this horrible? Hahaha, Jason SMOKED that solo! I need to find enjoyment where I can, I'm sorry.
They've put every unfunny comedian on the planet on this show, right?
More Miley Cyrus and wacky dancers? Really? Someone did this song at karaoke the other night and it was hilarious. And frightening. Wow, is she ever spastic. Please, you are 15, I don't need to see you rub your crotch on the camera. "And I'm ready to rape"? Don't tell me I'm the only one who heard her sing that. She has the most snotty-ass way of speaking that seriously makes me want to smack her in the face. Oh boy, let's go to Kentucky with Cyrus pere et fille! I'm done with this. FFWD.
I didn't think there was anything more horrifically unfunny than Robin Williams in this day and age, but Robin Williams as Yakov Smirnoff would appear to be it.
In the immortal words of Fresh: Would you smash?
Brad Pitt comes out on stage in order to introduce a pretaped segment of Daughtry lip-syncing in Uganda. My head just exploded.
It looked like DWI. It WASN'T! The driver tells us her frightening story. All this and Weather First TONIGHT on the Fox 9 News at 9!
When you say it's Idol's best season yet, I don't believe you! We have irrefutable proof. Now let's welcome Mariah Carey to this opportunity to promote her new album!
And then the DVR is done, so if there was a magical cameo from Danny Noriega (as Getty Images leads me to believe) I totally missed it.
So, let's recap. The high point of this show:
Oh wait, that didn't actually happen, as this show was hell-bent on DEPRIVING me of Elliott and his emotional emotions about emotional things. But this happened:
I approve! And the hiiiiigh point of this show?
Relive the magic and cherish it forever. THIS is American Idol!
Posted by Kim at April 9, 2008 11:58 PM | The Sound of Breaking GlassOK, so I had to watch this on FFWD at like 11:30 because the playoffs are much more important. As Simon says, "Sorry!" I should have just read your highlights because you are right right right, and also see through the eyes of my soul, as always.
PS Jason Castro makes me smile. These are scary times.
PPS Miley Cyrus is exceedingly whorey. It's like I keep saying, and her "this is the only thing I haven't done yet" line only cosigned that a million times. That and outfits, dancing and rape threats.
PPPS The weird Teri Hatcher thing was OK for me because I realized it was instead of that weird "I Will Survive" fiasco from last year. This was a righter kind of weird.
PPPPS What I learned from this show is that Simon continues to be a delight, mostly everyone else is a huge jerk and George Michael cannot be touched. I don't think I even realized "Praying for Time" was genius until Carrie Underwood tried to sing it.
Posted by: jane at April 10, 2008 06:48 AMGod bless you for watching all this craptasticness.
I saw about 15 sporadic minutes, but I seemed to catch the "high" points.
I saw Teri Hatcher allegedly singing.
I saw the very uncomfortable segment with Miley and Billy. Who green-lighted that?
I saw Jason trying to give the phone to Ryan while he was still introducing the next video package.
I did see all of Annie Lennox; she really is an awesome singer. No joking.
And the screaming lady? What the hell was that?
I watched Ghost Hunters on Sci-Fi. I love Jason and Grant.
Posted by: pieman at April 10, 2008 06:52 AM
You are a trouper, even if you did have access to the magical FFWD.
I tried to watch this, really I did. But the playoffs started and every time I switched over during a commercial it was instant "GAH! Make it STOP!@@#!"
I would have liked to see Annie Lennox, though. I suppose that's what YouTube is for.
We made the playoffs a priority as well. Actually I made a long nap a priority over all others, but that's just getting technical.
Jason flagging down Ryan with his phone while Ryan was trying to be deathly serious about introducing the next deathly serious video package was remarkable to behold. Why on earth they'd choose to throw him in the middle of the Goof Troop to do that is beyond me.
Our affection for Jason Castro is a true sign we are witnessing the End of Days.
I had blanked "I Will Survive" out of my mind forever. Whew. This was indeed an improvement. They are learning.
Here's my holy shit moment of a lifetime for this show: I didn't even notice Carrie Underwood was singing "Praying for Time" until you told me. I was THAT detached. I swear I didn't know. P.S. I fear this may be foreshadowing of a George Michael night, though Jason singing "Faith" may make this entire enterprise worthwhile.
Posted by: Kim at April 10, 2008 06:19 PM