After a series of terrifying events during dress rehearsal, tonight’s broadcast of American Idol somehow came off without a hitch — unless you count Danny Gokey’s Dementor-like inhalation of the big note in "Dream On" — and while I may have given this show a lot of crap over yea these many weeks in the Idoldome, it is with utmost admiration and respect that I congratulate the staff and crew on accomplishing that feat.

There’s nothing funny about what happened, so I’ll give it to you straight: At the start of dress rehearsal, beloved stage manager Debbie Williams stood at the top of the massive glowing staircase. The first three steps are fixed, but the rest roll out from under the band deck; as she followed Seacrest down the stairs, she was caught in the gap when they began to prematurely retract. Observers told me she slipped, then grabbed onto the railing and dangled for a moment before falling the 20 or so feet to the ground. She suffered a severe cut on her leg — amazingly, according to one crew member, no broken bones — and was taken to the hospital by paramedics. My thoughts go out to her in hopes of a speedy return, as she is without question an invaluable member of the Idol family, and has never been anything but kind to me and my colleagues.

Dress rehearsal continued, at which point the spinning Idol gyroscope atop the stage right tower came unmoored, showering the stage with glass and causing them to evacuate the theater. Given the way they pack the kids into the "mosh pits," it’s a genuine miracle more people weren’t hurt. Chaos reigned for the remainder of the preshow, as they struggled to re-seat the audience and tape the contestants’ performance clips before airtime. All credit to the stage managers, CBS pages, and — yes — Cory the Warmup Comedian for keeping the crowd (marginally) calm and getting everyone situated with about 30 seconds to spare. This…was the most extraordinary thing I’ve seen in a while.

And so it came to pass that the presence of confirmed rock god Slash in the Idoldome was by far the least interesting thing that happened tonight, an event I’d place somewhere right beneath "Danny Gokey admitting he is a total joke" on the scale of improbability. If I were a superstitious person, I’d say the gods didn’t want tonight’s show to happen. But this is showbiz, PopWatchers, and that shizz, it goes on. After the jump, a complete breakdown of the evening, including a sneak peek at tomorrow’s performances from No Doubt and our very own Paula "Actually Was On Painkillers That Whole Time" Abdul.

addCredit(“Ray Mickshaw/American Idol/Getty Images”)

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