The Show That Keeps Them Hanging On

By Lisa de Moraes
Wednesday, March 14, 2007

"American Idol" is back with its latest batch of 12 finalists -- and so much better this year!

There's Rickey Minor and the Much Bigger Band, with horns and strings, show host Ryan Seacrest tells us.

Plus, they've added actual e-mailed questions from the Little People With Their Humdrum Lives.

And, Ryan and judge Simon Cowell have kicked up the "You're gay!" "No, you're gay!" cross talk to a whole new level.

Like when one of the Humdrum Lifers asks contestant Melinda Doolittle, "What do you consider the hardest part of being an 'Idol' contestant?" She says the tight dresses and the high heels, and Ryan asks Simon, "Any advice on the high heels?" And Simon replies, "You should know, Ryan!" To which Ryan responds, "Stay out of my closet!"

Snappy stuff.

Diana Ross agreed to be mentor this week; apparently she has still not seen "Dreamgirls," starring former "Idol" contestant Jennifer Hudson.

Brandon Rogers kicks things off with the traditional First Contestant on First Night of Finals Stinks performance, this time to the tune of the Ross hit "Can't Hurry Love," which he's updated with a doubled-over-in-pain dance. Simon, still the only judge worth listening to after all these years, tells Brandon, who is a backup singer in real life, he came across as "the background singer for a background singer." Ooh, snap!

Doolittle, this year's other backup singer, wearing a little puffy-sleeved dress and shiny shoes so appropriate for the singing of "Home" from that gawdawful "Wizard of Oz" remake "Wiz," trots out to perform yet another version of her wide-eyed, slack-jawed "Golly, I can't believe this is l'il ol' me up here onstage!" routine that has gotten her so far, um, so far. We are so over this shtick, but hey, at least she has a strategy. And, of course, she's nuts, having explained earlier in the competition that when her left hand touches something cold her right hand had better touch something cold right away for the sake of "equal opportunity." This time she tops herself on the humble-o-meter, shedding actual tears toward the end of her song, which, of course, gets judge Paula Abdul bawling.

"Why are you crying?" Simon asks Melinda.

"I've never heard anything like that for me," Melinda says, in response to the applause.

Chris Sligh and His Lush Locks have taken off their eyeglasses to sing "Endless Love," which winds up sounding like a Christian rock song. The judges don't like it. Simon tells Chris to put the glasses back on. Chris starts yakking about how it's the "Idol" song arranger's fault and if America doesn't vote him off tomorrow night, allowing him to come back next week, "I'll try to do something that's arranged a little bit better."

Diana Ross turns "pronunciate" into a word, telling Gina Glocksen she has to "pronunciate everything" in the song "Love Child." Gina spends so much energy "pronunciating" she runs out of gas halfway through the song.

Sweet little Sanjaya Malakar, who earlier in the competition tried to win Abdul over by doing his hair like hers, this week hopes to wow Ross by doing his hair like hers. Sanjaya has very versatile hair. But he can't sing a lick, which he demonstrates with "Ain't No Mountain High Enough," sung while he timidly moves like a boy trying to step through a field of pet snails.

Judge Randy Jackson says he's really come to look forward to seeing what hairstyle Sanjaya will have. "Hair 'Idol' -- you got it jumpin' off!" Randy roars. Simon tells Sanjaya that "when you hear a whale in Beverly Hills, that's where Diana Ross is watching this show." Sanjaya says no offense, but he has no idea what he's talking about. Even Ryan wonders about the marine biology reference.

Haley Scarnato is, as usual, very bad, this time singing "Missing You."

Randy and Paula hate it, but Simon says he doesn't think it was that bad and she has "real presence up there," which we suspect means the dress the stylist had put her in shows off her "shoes" -- "Idol"-speak for cleavage. Then Haley does something that's never been done on "Idol" before. She says her performance was the worst, that "I messed up the words and I feel like such a schmuck." The crowd eats it up. The judges eat it up. We eat it up and now want her to stick around, at least until Simon starts being cruel to her again, which, now that Haley has learned the Power of the Shoes, may be never.

Phil Stacey plods his way through "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me," which has been slowed to a crawl. Randy calls it boring and Paula says to speed it up. But Simon says the tempo was just right.

Lakisha Jones, the best singer in the bunch, mesmerizes with "God Bless the Child," which she sings quietly.

Blake Lewis tries to beat-box the heck out of "You Keep Me Hangin' On." It doesn't work. The judges say so.

Stephanie Edward and Chris Richardson both chose Ross disco-era songs.

Why? wondered Simon, telling Stephanie, "you have a multitude of amazing Diana Ross songs and you chose ["Love Hangover"]?

And, finally, Jordin Sparks sings "If We Hold On Together," which sounds like a treacly Spielberg movie song. Oh wait -- it is. It's from the animated "The Land Before Time." Simon calls it "a bit gooey, that song," but compliments her performance.

* * *

Bursting with "American Idol," Fox finally crawled atop the heap among young viewers for the season to date. And the same week NBC announced it will get you to watch reruns of its shows by gussying them up with additional footage (a.k.a. the stuff originally left in the editing room) and calling them "newpeats," CBS finished second with a rerun-laden lineup of shows people wanted to see a second time. Or maybe CBS's viewers are so old they've forgotten they saw the episode the first time around, as NBC might argue.

Here's a look at the week's peaks and valleys:

WINNERS

"Criminal Minds." Wednesdays at 9, CBS's perv-tastic crime drama scored more viewers than the premiere of David E. Kelley's "Wedding Bells" even though (a) "Criminal Minds" was a repeat; (b) "Wedding Bells" enjoyed an "American Idol" lead-in audience of nearly 30 million viewers, while "Jericho" contributed a mere 8 million lead-in to "CM"; and (c) the three female leads of "Wedding Bells" include a hot chick whereas "CM" stars Mandy Patinkin and smile-challenged Thomas Gibson. "Wedding Bells" did manage to outstrip "CM" among younger viewers, though not by as much as you'd think, given the "Idol" lead-in and the whole hot chick vs. Mandy Patinkin thing.

NBC's Monday. Network's screaming-at-briefcases series "Deal or No Deal" set a new high -- 18.4 million viewers, nearly 7 million more than the time slot's closest competitor, "Prison Break" on Fox.

"College Hill 4." BET reality series bagged 1.6 million viewers in its debut -- up 33 percent over last season's debut.

Anderson Cooper. The first to jump in to sub for Regis Philbin while the syndicated-show host has heart surgery, Cooper gets to strut his stuff in front of Reg's average crowd of nearly 5 million this season, compared with Anderson's average CNN crowd of 853,000.

LOSERS

"South Park." About four months after Michael Richards's slur-strewn meltdown at an L.A. comedy club, the "South Park" spring season-debut episode lampooning the incident, "With Apologies to Jesse Jackson," logged 2.8 million viewers. That's about 22 percent fewer than the average audience of 3.6 million who caught last year's spring opener in which Isaac Hayes's character, Chef, got bumped off.

"Wedding Bells." Considering its "American Idol" lead-in audience, the "Bells" debut on Wednesday lacked the "Yo factor" -- Fox said it outperformed by 9 percent the only other drama premiere that has ever led out of "Idol" (that would be "Point Pleasant" in January '05). Moved to its regular Friday time slot, a rerun of the "Bells" premiere plunged to fifth place among all viewers and young ones, too, behind even CW's "Smackdown!"

"Desperate Housewives." Sunday's repeat snagged 7.7 million viewers. Last season, the ABC dramedy's one and only March rerun averaged 13.5 million.

The week's 10 most watched programs, in order, were: Fox's Wednesday, Tuesday and Thursday "American Idol," "House" and "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?"; NBC's Monday "Deal or No Deal"; CBS's "Without a Trace," "CSI" and "Cold Case"; and NBC's "Heroes."

* * *

TelevisionWithoutPity.com, the "spare the snark, spoil the networks" Web site much loved by fans of TV -- and snark -- has gone corporate.

Sigh.

GE-NBC-Universal 2.0 has bought the site for its Bravo bag of broadband channels, including not only BravoTV.com but also the recently launched getTrio.com (which rose like a phoenix from the ashes of cable network Trio), BrilliantButCancelled.com and OUTzoneTV.com, which yesterday wondered on its home page if the flick "300" was homophobic and whether Daniel Radcliffe (a.k.a. Harry Potter), who is now appearing naked in a remake of "Equus," is a "Hero or just another naked actor."

Groan.

Bravo chief Lauren Zalaznick said yesterday in a statement that TwoP will broaden the scope of Bravo's sites to "create a community where smart people with something to say about their favorite shows -- past and present -- can get together under the umbrella of Bravo's pop sensibility."

Moan.

TwoP is known and loved for its "recaplets" and full-blown recaps of each and every episode of reality and scripted series deemed recap-worthy, and for the forums in which viewers rant and rave about these shows. Officially launched in 2002, TwoP attracts about 1 million unique visitors each month and they each spend about 13 minutes on the site each visit. Overall page views clock in at roughly 30 million, according to stats provided by Bravo.

Founders Tara Ariano and Sarah Bunting, who started what became TwoP in the late '90s as a place viewers could grouse about "Dawson's Creek," will remain editors.

They attended a Bravo phone conference call yesterday to assure The Reporters Who Cover Television that GE-NBC-Universal 2.0 did not want to bring any kind of influence to bear on the much-loved renegade-ish brand.

"Part of what we found attractive was that Bravo gets what we do and understands our brand," Bunting said. "It was organic in terms of both sides understanding that we do things a certain way and they were okay with that."

No one on the call chose to discuss the dollar amount thrown at Tara and Sarah for the site.

Ariano said they have lots of changes planned: "Right away, we want to add a few shows. Beyond that, we have our eye on doing less dated content, podcasts/audio/video, as well as more news, more interviews and blogs. . . . We will continue doing what we do and add more stuff to make it a destination for every TV viewer."

Sound of collective TRWCT tooth-gnashing.