Althouse: Fallen "Idol."

May 10, 2005

Fallen "Idol."

I can't provide the normal "American Idol" report because midway through the show, my cable service went dead. (I'm using dial-up to post this!)

It was a very emotional moment. Vonzell had just sung horribly, and Anthony was launching into his song quite nicely... and then, nothing! I'll have to read the Television Without Pity forums to get a sense of what happened. What a shame! The final four has traditionally been the key show. Ah, but I'm thinking Vonzell crashed-and-burned for some reason. They were saying she was nervous. Somehow, it seems, she lost her nerve. Or did she come back on Song 2 and save the day?

UPDATE: Did something quite pervasive happen? I see that my Site Meter went down to 16 during the hour when I lost my service (after being above 200 an hour all day and back up to 290 after that hour). I wonder how many people lost the show and how it will affect the voting.

I'm trying to get a sense of what happened from the Television Without Pity forums. This comment struck me: "Will it be a Tamyra week? Hmm! Well, if we must shock and awe, I say let's unload Farm-Bot!" In other words, Tamyra Grey left in this week in Season 1 and a big loss in the final 4 week has become traditional. "Farm-Bot" is Carrie, and the word seems to be that she was not so good on the second song. As you may know, I've long disliked her, and I thought she was terrible on the first song, the one that was supposed to be good. One thing about her is that I don't think she'd be that competitive on "Nashville Star," and it irks me that someone can make it this far on "AI" being the "country girl" when really there are plenty of country girls out there who'd beat her soundly on a solidly country show.

10 comments:

PORTSIDER said...: Carrie's first song was great, but her second was brutal. She's still the favorite, but I thought Vonzell gained a few points on her tonight. Sorry to hear about your cable service, Ann.; 5/10/05, 9:03 PM
Sloanasaurus said...: I thought Carrie was good in both songs. The judges didn't like her second song, but she had a different look which boosted the overall performance.

I disagreed with the judges regarding Vonzelle, I thought she was average in both songs.

I agreeed with the judges on Bo, he was average on the first song and good on the second. The second song was quite unique, one of the most interesting on the show so far.

I thought Anthony was great on the last song, even though I dislike him (dislike his performances) in general.

I think that Vonzelle will get kicked off.; 5/10/05, 10:19 PM
jennifer said...: Carrie destroyed her second song. And, of all things, shades of season two: Anthony sang the same song. And kicked Carrie's to the curb.

Tamyra finished 4th. So did LaToya. Might it be that we will finally exile Barbiebot?; 5/10/05, 10:28 PM
Matt said...: Blogger went down from at least 7-9 Eastern for extended scheduled maintenance. Hence, low hits in the 8 PM hour.; 5/10/05, 10:39 PM
lal said...: sorry about the loss of service but you saw the important parts---
anthony was marvelous;vonzell was just fine;bo in my view did as well as usual (which for me was blah);and carrie was off tune for part of the first song. carrie will
probably get knocked off. anthony
was the clear winner this time.; 5/10/05, 10:45 PM
Ann Althouse said...: Matt: Thanks for the info. I knew I couldn't post on Blogger but didn't know people couldn't get to the blogs either.

Lal: I hope you're right about Carrie! Though I kind of think it's unfair that Vonzell gets to squeak by on sympathy because she cried. On Television Without Pity, they're speculating that she was forced to change her song at the last minute.; 5/10/05, 11:06 PM
docweasel said...: I don't know if its the time period you're talking about, but all the blogger sites (you, atrios, others) were offline for a couple hours last night.; 5/11/05, 7:34 AM
Uncle Mikey said...: I'm no Anthony fan, but he sold "If You Don't Know Me By Now" better than Carrie, who I still think is a better singer than any of them. I loved Simon's comment that him doing that song was like Woody Allen playing Shaft.

And I don't like Vonzell when she's selling so hard, and don't trust her to be genuine. My initial reaction to her emotional outburst last night was that she was doing it for votes. After the second song she didn't do that fake smile, and she looked beautiful. Just stand there and be yourself, woman.

I did take exception to Anthony's first song, which seemed to be about a performer responding to his wife and/or kids' question "when you coming home, daddy?" with "never, so get used to it, and pretend I'm there." I suppose that's touching if you're dead, but kind of icky otherwise.; 5/11/05, 7:46 AM
Ann Althouse said...: Patrick: I admit I only watched the first season of "Nashville Star." The final two contestants were great. I think you're admitting that Carrie does have a very serious deficiency: she seems robotic. She doesn't touch us. We need to feel something. Ruben, Clay, Kelly -- all those people made us really feel something for them. Actually, at this point in Season Four, none of them reach me. It's just not the same without Constantine. Without Mario.; 5/11/05, 9:37 AM
neo-neocon said...: Mario, now and forever! I miss Constantine, too, but the remainders are just plain boring, especially Bo. Does anyone else think he sounds a bit like Tom Jones, or is it just me?; 5/11/05, 1:15 PM