American Idol cuts to 20

Watching the first results show of the season, it's now an hour-long each night. Sheesh. Hmm, very interesting Paula tries to spin the fact that all the people on this show have been elsewhere, she says kids nowadays are savvy, if they haven't already tried to make it somewhere else they're probably not very good.

I do think Idol loses something really important when it's no longer real amateurs. Oh well; they do some glammed-up group thing, to the strains of Daughtry; it's funny that they're going with the flow and making these kids even more non-normal. Who wants to vote for a bunch of ringers?! Especially when you have YouTube. The applause coming back is tepid.

The group sing, it's okay but also overproduced. Like Idol meets Gossip Girls. A medley of 60s songs, it's kindof a mess, really drags. It's so weird that every year their first show is this horrid 60s one; like they're not even attempting to compete with reality.

I think Idol's potential is being undermined by its producers; it's really a pretty wretched 3:30 of TV. It's not a good thing if the audience starts associating Idol with boredom.

Guys up first; I vote for Garrett and Colton. Everyone's in black suits, left over from the medley. Ryan calls Garrett out first for 'a chat'--and wow, cuts him just like that. It's cold, sudden, but not unexpected. He says he's just being himself. He's really a nice guy, put on the spot, sings himself out. Hope he gets to keep the suit. Wasn't hard to lose him, he was just non-compelling.

Ladies are up after the break. Calls us Kristy first; oh-oh. Cool, she's safe. I voted for Joanne and Alexandrea; oh no, it's Amy Davis! That's horrible, I liked her. She seems a bit in shock. They show her mom, you can definitely see that she's half-Japanese. She's struggling even singing her swan song; oh well.

Back, Ryan says he's going to turn his attention to the judges. Paula did a track on Randy's new album, they run a promo for it. Whoah, Paula's singing and dancing in the music video, Randy's wailing on the guitar. The song's got a hpnotic beat, but melody isn't that great, I guess it's part of some dance album. Near the end they juxtapose clips of old cheerleaders, which is interesting--old vs. new, but this very night on Idol it's like they wanted to go back to the days of black and white.

It's all incestual, like a 5-minute commercial. Back to the women, I guess they're gonna mess with them for a while. Calls up Joanne and Amanda, everyone on the sofa is safe and will be back. Back from break, Joanne's cut. So I'm 2 for 3 so far; not bad. Randy says it was your nerves. Simon says it was your worst performance, that's what happens. She's pretty gracious, Ramiele's crying and Carly's comforting her.
Hey, I wonder whatever happened to Sanjaya's sobbing fan? Asia'h's crying too. They're doing a new thing where the peeps of the cut person stands up above the stage and watches them sing out.

Back for the last time, they have 8 minutes to fill so it'll probably get stretched out a bit. Colton and Chikezie--wow, they get right to it, no messing about. Ryan makes fun of Simon, Simon asks Paula four times in a row, quickly: What'd he say, what'd he say, what'd he say, what'd he say? Paula says it wasn't nice. Paula tells Colton to never think about giving up singing, you're talented. Simon disagrees, tells him to get a good day job.

Oh, they switch it up, show their journey at the end--it's not fair, they should give each of them their own moment, heck they have a full hour! All the losers are on stage together, preppie Colton sings us out. Man, Ramiele crys at the drop of a hat, at this rate she's going to be exhausted in a few weeks. Hey, even Danny Noriega's crying--whaaat?

Right
Garrett
Colton
Joanne

Wrong
Amy