By Lisa de Moraes
Wednesday, April 30, 2008;
C07
Neil Diamond Night rocked "American Idol" to its core -- and not in a good way.
Each of the remaining five Idolettes this week will get to sing not one but two Diamond tunes, show host Ryan Seacrest says. Grandmother viewers tingle with excitement.
To save time, the show's judges, Randy Jackson, Paula Abdul and Simon Cowell, won't give their critiques after the first performances but only after the second ones, Seacrest says.
Round 1
Jason Castro rehearses "Forever in Blue Jeans" with Diamond, only he's brought along the lyrics to his second tune, "September Morn." Even so, Diamond thinks Jason will "do great." Instead, Jason does well enough.
Seacrest asks David Cook how he has prepared to sing "I'm Alive." David C. says he was going to ask Seacrest the same thing. Oh snap! Neil Diamond is seen predicting in a taped bit that David C. will "do great." He's pretty good.
Nanny Brooke will first sing "I'm a Believer" like a Junior Leaguer at a hootenanny, followed by a more introspective "I Am . . . I Said" at the piano with some of the more difficult lyrics -- something about palm trees grow and the rents are low -- written on the palm of her hand lest she forget the words for the third time this season. Diamond suggests that for the second song, she change the reference to being New York City born and raised to Arizona, since that's where she's from, which will make it more "genuine." It's an interesting word to use in connection with a song that includes such lyrics as "and no one heard at all/Not even the chair."
David "Baby Elmo" Archuleta has picked "Sweet Caroline" for his first tune. Diamond says he's "kind of a prodigy" and with a little guidance "I think he will do great." He's exactly the same as he always is.
Syesha Mercado picks "Hello Again," on which, Diamond says, she did a "wonderful job" during rehearsals, predicting she will "do great" on "Idol" night. If she could just add skating, she would make an excellent lead for "Idols on Ice." Instead, she performs barefoot for reasons that are never explained, which is kinda like introducing a knife in Act 1 without using it by the final curtain. The audience feels cheated.
First round over, all the Idolettes are brought back onstage so the judges can do some speed-critiquing. Randy calls Jason okay, David C. very good, Brooke better than last week but still karaoke and David A. "the bomb," while Syesha was "in the zone."
What happens next is the Very Best Paula Moment. Ever. She has hallucinated an entire second-song performance by Jason before he's given it. Everyone looks confused. Someone stops her. "Oh, I thought you sang twice," Paula says, looking bewildered.
"You're seeing the future, baby -- come back!" Seacrest says.
Simon jumps in while Paula tries to swat the bats out of her brain. Jason was "forgettable," David C. okay, Nanny Brooke "a nightmare," David A. "amateurish" and Syesha "old-fashioned," he says.
Round 2
Jason sings "September Morn" well enough but neither Randaula nor Simon is impressed, with Simon predicting Jason will look back at tonight and "not know who this person is." Which is probably true, but for a different reason.
David C. does "All I Really Need Is You." Randaula and Simon seem convinced they are looking at the next American Idol. David C. simpers.
Nanny Brooke's "I Am . . . I Said" gets moderately okay reviews having to do with her vulnerability but mostly out of relief she remembered all the lyrics -- even the one about the deaf chair.
Baby Elmo plays the Kristy Lee Cook Patriot Card, singing "Coming to America" while a U.S. flag waves in the background. He sounds like a performer at Disneyland. We resist the urge to imagine Hannah Montana deflowering him in a Scary-Stage-Parent-arranged sex scandal. Randaula calls the patriotic card his "zone" and Simon calls it "a smart choice of songs . . . it ticked all the boxes."
Syesha's back to sing "Thank the Lord for the Nighttime" and once again she's barefoot, causing Randaula to begin blathering about her Broadway/theatrical place.
Simon says she's demonstrated she's a very good "actress-singer" but predicts she's getting the hook this week.
CBS was the most watched network last week when four procedural dramas gained spots among the top 10.
Here are the week's flowers and weeds.
WINNERS
CBS's Thursday. CBS had the most viewers every half-hour of the night, beating ABC's returning Thursday lineup.
ABC's Thursday. ABC, on the other hand, had the highest-rated Thursday among 18-to-49-year-olds -- the McDreamys of Madison Avenue. Back after a months-long hiatus induced by the writers' strike, "Grey's Anatomy" clocked, yes, its smallest overall audience to date for a Thursday original episode (excluding Thanksgiving night) but the highest rating among those 18-to-49-year-olds for a scripted series since "House" back in February. Which, yes, is kinda damning with faint praise, given what's been going on with scripted series since the strike started. At 10 that night, "Lost" retained 74 percent of the overall "Grey's Anatomy" lead-in audience, which -- once you get over the fact "Lost" by now should not be taking up space in a protected time slot and getting spoon-fed the "Grey's Anatomy" audience -- is a very good retention at 10 p.m. Thursday. Particularly compared with retention rates of predecessors in the time slot this season: "Big Shots," 36 percent; "Women's Murder Club,"43 percent; and "October Road," 41 percent.
"Law & Order." Jesse L. Martin's swan song -- and the first original "L&O" episode since March 19 -- scored the show's biggest audience since its Jan. 2 season debut.
LOSERS
Katie Couric. The week after CBS big cheeses appeared in their newsroom to show their support-ish for Couric, her evening newscast logged 5.34 million viewers, breaking the previous week's record low. Couric came in nearly 2.5 million viewers shy of Charles Gibson's No. 2-ranked ABC newscast and not quite 2.7 million shy of Brian Williams's No. 1-ranked NBC evening news.
"ER" matched a series low of 7.5 million viewers last week. NBC has announced it's adding Angela Bassett to the show for its next -- and final -- season. You win the office pool if you bet she's going to play a tough-as-nails attending physician with a secret, troubled past.
"Big Brother." Its smallest season finale ever -- around 7 million viewers. Of course, all its other season finales aired in the dog days of summer -- actually early September -- before the TV season officially started, against far less keen competition. Oh wait, NBC had "Monk" reruns in the time slot last Sunday. Never mind.
"Beauty and the Geek." After hitting a series low of 1.5 million viewers, word leaked out that Ashton Kutcher's reality series would not be renewed next season.
"Gossip Girl." Returned to CW's lineup Monday at 8 with about 5 percent fewer viewers than when it aired Wednesday at 9, despite all the knickers that got knotted over its OM[:-o]G promo campaign, which, turns out, was mostly an OMG campaign and a coupla OM[:-o]G billboards on Times Square and Los Angeles -- B[:-o]D. CW noted it brought the netlet its highest ratings ever in the Monday time slot among 18-to-34-year-olds -- more damning with faint praise -- and the series's third, mind you, best performance ever in adults 18-34 and women 18-34.
"Men in Trees" clocked a record low 5.3 million viewers, after which rumblings of non-renewal could be heard.
"President Bush." First POTUS appearance on Monday's "Deal or No Deal" and the show ties its smallest audience ever among the 18-to-49-year-olds who are the Holy Grail of NBC, and its sixth smallest Monday overall audience. Two nights later, President Bush pops up on the "American Idol" results show, and it virtually matches its smallest Wednesday results night crowd in three years.
"Celebracadabra!" VH1 debuts new D-listers-doing-magic-tricks show and presto! -- all but 539,000 of the nearly 4 million viewers the net had been averaging in the time slot for a month magically disappear.
The week's 10 most watched programs, in order, were: Fox's Tuesday and Wednesday "American Idol"; ABC's Monday and Tuesday "Dancing With the Stars"; CBS's "CSI"; ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" and "Desperate Housewives"; and CBS's "CSI: Miami," "NCIS" and "Without a Trace."
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