On the Scene: 'Idol' Top 12 results show
Mar 13, 2008, 04:24 PM | by Adam B. Vary
Categories: 'American Idol', On the Scene
That wasn't Katherine McPhee singing live last night. Well, I mean, it was Kat McPhee, but she wasn't singing live. Her performance, along with that fascinating viewer questions segment, was pre-taped about an hour before the show. And I would love to tell you all about it, but unfortunately, I got shut out of the studio. Fox didn't so much inform me that McPheever and David Foster were not doing their oh-so-energizing rendition of "Something" live, and so I arrived, as per usual, 45 minutes before the show was due to start. And so I missed it.
While it's tempting to launch into a Doc Jensenian explication of the temporal paradoxes presented by this unexpected scenario -- how would the Kristy Lee Cook from the pre-tape have behaved if she'd known that she was in the bottom three, which she should've known by that point in the show, except she didn't because it was pre-taped, boom, Lost American Idol, and your mind is blown -- instead, after the jump, I think I'll just give you a straightforward tick-tock of the goings-on in Stage 36 at CBS Television City.
Fortunately -- for me, anyway -- an unexpected benefit of the Kat McPhee/"call-in" Q&A pre-tape was that for the second night in a row, Corey the Warm Up Comic did not have time to go through his normal warm-up routine. (Click that link if you want a full picture of the Corey the WUC experience, but please do consider yourself forewarned.) Instead, Corey only could half-heartedly pull a dude up on stage to shake his booty, allow a pretty decent pop-lock hip-hop dancer do his thing, and then in his customary NBA announcer fashion, introduce the judges and Ryan. Oh, and some guy named Jim Carrey.
I'm going to continue Slezak's pledge not to mention the movie Carrey was there to plug, but that won't stop me from remarking about how the be-pachyderm'd comedian's entrance brought a doofy "gawsh, that's a movie star right there" grin to no less than Simon Cowell. There weren't any other celebs in the house, best I could tell (and I do not consider Sanjaya a celebrity), but I've never seen all three judges as starstruck as they were with Carrey. I mean, Simon even did an air rimshot after one of Carrey's on-air jokes, a move I thought was limited to American parents out to embarrass their kids.
(Speaking of, I've got to apologize if I mention things you've already seen or heard on the televised show, which I missed last night as I was out at my mother's 60th birthday dinner. Happy birthday, mom!)
Cheesier still was that group number, but at least that's something we've all come to expect. It was fun to hear the audience scream like it was an actual Beatles concert, but did anyone else notice that several of the Idols weren't really singing for long stretches of the songs? D'Archie practically didn't open his mouth until "Can't Buy Me Love"; he looked like he was concentrating more on the choreography than on matching harmonies.
After the medley finally finished, Carrey left the studio with a flourish, and Jason Castro and Syesha Mercado got Howie Mandel-style fist pumps from Randy as they left the raised platform behind the judges' table. As Corey the WUC moved through the audience handing out copies of Chicken Soup for the American Idol Soul, the Idols took their position on the benches and promptly began drinking from mini-water bottles (with straws, mind -- don't want to muss that make-up). During the recap of Tuesday's show, the audience applause-o-meter pretty much foretold the bottom three: The weakest cheering by far was for David Hernandez, Kristy Lee Cook, and especially Syesha.
Yesterday, I noted that the sound system in the studio blew out Syesha's voice when she sang on Tuesday (a problem I gather from your comments bothered some of you watching from home, too). Someone with the show must've noticed as well, because Syesha's voice came through loud and clear last night, and though it still didn't make it any less painful for me to listen to, that didn't keep Ramiele and Nigel from singing along, or a relieved Carly, Michael, and Jason from cutting loose.
Michael was free-spirited the entire show, actually. During the ad
break, Corey introduced Danny Noriega in the audience, and when Danny
stood up, Michael waved to him with what I can only describe as an
ocean-wave wave, launching his hand palm up towards the sky. As Carrey
might say, allll righty then. Later, while Kristy Lee Cook butchered
performed "8 Days a Week" for a second time, Michael and Jason both
danced like they were at a hoedown, and then roped Carly into a
recreation (homage? lampoon?) of Kristy's wide-stance twist-dance. KLC
encouraged a lot of silly behavior, really: Nigel even do-si-do'd with
a crew member. (But not with Jim Carrey, who had reemerged sans
elephant ears and watched the rest of the show in the wings of the
studio.)
Once we went to the ad break, Michael, Jason, Brooke, and David Hernandez all quickly zoomed off the stage doing the I-gotta-pee run. Chikieze started chatting up D'Archie, David Cook and Carly stood up and, er, just stood there, and Ramiele stared off into space, looking forlorn, most likely convinced that, given the order in which Ryan'd announced Syesha and Kristy's bottom three-ness, she was most likely last in line. She didn't have long to feel sorry for herself, though. Amanda Overmyer immediately stepped down from her row, sat next to Ramiele, and began to console her, kinda like that single aunt who always brought you a popsicle after you skinned your knee. David Cook soon joined them, sitting on Ramiele's other side and delivering the Season 7 pixie some hard-rocking TLC. And then Jason gave her a sweet shoulder squeeze after he'd returned to his seat. (I hope he washed his hands.) They all must really want to keep Ramiele from getting upset. Poor Syesha and Kristy, meanwhile, sat clear on the other end of the stage underneath the still-malfunctioning Stage Right Idol uber-globe, all by their lonesome the entire time.
With all the Idols back in their seats, we moved into the pre-taped segment. Amanda continued to defy my prediction that she'd be this season's in-her-own-world LaKisha Jones, instead gamely cracking wise (and more than one smile!) with her roommate Carly. But eventually the reality of the results sunk in, and as the lights went dark so we could better appreciate Kat McPhee's stirring, invigorating, rousing performance, all the Idols fell silent. Even when Debbie wrested Jim Carrey away from Simon and Randy during the next ad break and asked him to sit on the couch, most of the Idols barely interacted with him (although I did see David Cook try to crack a joke, only to have Carrey act as if he wasn't there at all).
We spent so much time off the air that I think Paula thought the show was over, because we were about 10 seconds back into the live show before she made it back to her seat. Ryan gave the bad news to David H., a relieved Ramiele went back to the benches, and the bottom three remained standing stage center during the final ad break. (The judges left the stage again during this break, and I had to wonder why, since they'd all taken their leave of us at least once during the show already.) We came back, Ryan gave the even worse news to David H., and all the rest of the Idols crowded around him as his Goodbye Package played on the video screen behind them.
It wasn't until the show was over and the lights came up, though, that I saw they were all waiting for Chikezie to release David H. from his now-patented results-night bear hug. The guys must've really bonded -- when they finally separated, they were both in tears. Paula went up to David and wiped them off his face, and then Simon spent a surprising amount of time talking with him. Actually, Simon spent a surprising amount of time on the stage entirely; last season, he would deliver his words of wisdom to the voted-off contestant and then make a bee-line for the door. Last night, though, I caught Simon spending time talking to Carly and Michael too. Even Kristy got a brief audience with Simon (but, based on the look she gave him as he stepped away, I doubt she was exactly thrilled with it).
Corey invited the audience to stick around for the taping of American Idol Extra, but I had a dinner to get to, so I had to pass. Next week, the formidable Whitney Pastorek will be giving you the inside skinny on Idol, so until then, were you dancing along with Kristy's "8 Days A Week"? How would you react if Jim Carrey showed up at your workplace to plug his new movie? And what would you ask the judges and Idols if you got to "call in" to the show?
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