Chikezie First to Go in Top-10 Countdown

By Lisa de Moraes
Thursday, March 27, 2008

Chikezie Eze got booted from "American Idol" last night, taking with him 50 percent of this year's Idolette Top-10 personality pool.

Chikezie's exit was the result of 30 million viewer votes, show host Ryan Seacrest, the King of All Media, told viewers at home. That's the most votes cast in a week this season to date. Ironic, given that Tuesday's show clocked the smallest audience of a performance show so far this season.

Chikezie got done in by the "Idol" vocal coach.

Before his Tuesday performance, he told Seacrest that the first time he sang a ballad he was torn apart by the judges. But the voice coach talked to Chikezie last week and explained he had to follow his heart, which is almost always nonsense.

So instead of listening to the "Idol" judges, Chikezie listened to the voice coach and went with a ballad that "resonated deeply within me." To wit, "If Only for One Night."

That worked out well.

Last night's results show didn't go so well for the judges either. The bottom three vote-getters this week also included Syesha Mercado. And Jason Castro, who, after acknowledging he'd not rehearsed his song much and not performed very well, modestly assured the show's 25 million-ish viewers that his being in the bottom three was intended to be "a shocker."

Grievously, Jason was quickly sent to the Sofa of Safety, leaving Chikezie and Syesha.

Judges Randy Jackson and Paula Abdul also seemed perplexed -- Paula more than normal, we should clarify -- about Syesha's presence in the Bottom 2, because they'd both raved about her performance the night before.

Randy, in fact, called her performance of "If I Were Your Woman" "stellar," "unbelievable" and "blazing hot," while Paula went with "perfect."

Simon Cowell, on the other hand, insisted he'd known all along Syesha was destined for Bottom-2-dom this week.

But, reviewing our notes from performance night, he'd said her performance was "definitely the best" at that point in the show -- and those who'd sung before her included Jason and Ramiele Malubay. You have to keep an eye on that Simon, though he is the only judge worth listening to.

Simon had conceded Chikezie sang his song very well but said the performance itself, specifically Chikezie holding out his hand to the manically waving chicks in the Mosh Pit, was cheesy.

So, in a way, Chikezie was done in by the vocal coach and Drippy Mosh Pit Chicks. Such a shame because, besides his abundance of charming personality, his rendition of "She's a Woman" is by far this season's best "Idol" performance. The show will miss him.

* * *

CBS's second stab at quitting "Jericho" attracted about 6 million curious Tuesday night.

Despite Jake and Hawkins having successfully delivered the bomb, exposing the evil Cheyenne government for what it was and bringing hope for a united U.S. of A, the show went out with a whimper rather than the bang CBS may have hoped for.

The 6 mil is a tick above the 5.7 million who'd watched the penultimate episode one week earlier, but pretty much on par with the show's performance since it was brought back in February to help fill a prime-time schedule decimated by the Hollywood writers' strike.

Six million is certainly not a number that's going to convince CBS that it should recant on its second cancellation of the apocalyptic drama. CBS scrapped the show last spring, only to change its mind after being buried under 8 million peanuts -- not to mention the e-mails and phone calls -- from the show's fans.

Those fans were aware Tuesday's episode of "Jericho" would be the show's last on CBS, and possibly anywhere. Last week the network announced this would be the series finale. Two endings had been shot for this season's seven-episode order; CBS aired the more closed-ended one.

* * *

Reality ratings monsters "American Idol" and "Dancing With the Stars" both came out of their Tuesday 9 to 9:30 p.m. skirmish bruised.

Fox's 90-minute "Idol" suffered its smallest audience for a performance show this season, though still drawing a hefty 25 million viewers.

The one-hour return of the "Dancing" results show, from 9 to 10, logged 17.5 million viewers, which is down slightly compared with last spring's results-show return crowd of just under 18 million. Considering it ran against "Idol" for 30 minutes -- as opposed to last year's three-minute overlap -- that isn't bad.

* * *

NBC continues its retro ways, ordering a prime-time celebrity edition of "Family Feud" this summer, from "American Idol" producer FremantleMedia.

FremantleMedia owns the "FF" franchise, which got its start as an ABC daytime show in the mid-'70s, and has already resuscitated it as a syndicated strip series, hosted by John O'Hurley.

NBC's version would be the game show's first foray into prime time as a regular series.

"Family Feud" is being considered for the network's "All-American Summer" lineup of mostly reality programs premiering in May, coinciding with the return of another '70s reality series, "American Gladiators," which became the network's go-to show during the recent writers' strike.

The network also is likely to add to its lineup a "Knight Rider" show, based on the '80s talking-car series, after the recent made-for-TV flick of the same name drew promising numbers.