Episode Report Card Joe R: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Act Your Age, Not Your...On Second Thought, Don't Act Your Age
By Joe R | Season 6 | Episode 1 | Aired on 01.15.2007
Next into the audition room is Sarah Krueger, who is dressed for a job interview, in her smart little gray skirt with the oddly-placed slit. Once again, the "dress to impress" directive is interpreted too literally. Sarah's got gorgeous Felicity hair and is from Wisc-ahhhhn-sin (oh, flat "a," my familiar friend). Also, she's apparently only dealing with Paula right now, even though the way they keep cutting to tight shots of Paula without any of the other judges in the frame makes me wonder if she hadn't passed out again, so they made her film some pickups last week on the backlot during the fifteen-minute window each morning when the Beefeater and the oxycodone are in perfect balance and she's able to sit up under her own power. Anyway, backlot Paula instructs Sarah to proceed with her audition song, "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." Sarah sings quite beautifully, though the comparisons to Katharine McPhee are almost unavoidable. Fewer bells and whistles than Katharine, to be sure, but Kat always had a bucket-load of intangibles that no one else was playing with. The cleanness of Sarah's voice is as suited to her as Kat's focus-pulling melisma was to her. Simon compliments her "control," which is entirely correct. He says she looks great, though he doesn't comment on the receptionist-at-M.Y.W. wardrobe. Then again, he usually saves that for the later rounds, when he's not PTSD-ing about Apollo Creed and the Cowardly Lion girl. Jewel seems to be finding a lot more personality in Sarah than I am (maybe it's the Felicity hair? It's been known to have an appeal entirely divorced from the woman underneath it) and passes her on to Hollywood. As do the rest, and like all the other golden-ticket holders, Sarah emerges from the correct door with her dignity intact.
After the commercials (can Trading Spouses just air the episode with the damn crazy Jesus lady already so I can stop seeing the promos for it? See also: Til Death. I love a Margaret Cho guest appearance, but not that much), the sun is setting in Minneapolis, which means we're about due one more trainwreck before we put this baby to bed. Speaking of babies that need to be put to bed: meet Jason Anderson. He's actually introduced in tandem with Brenna Kyner, though I don't think they came to audition together. They're just kind of sitting next to each other because everybody else has already left. Brenna is a huge fan of American Idol and wants to get herself on TV. Her exact words are, "It is my dream to be on American Idol, and now I'm living my dream, and now I can, you know, scratch that off the list of things to do before I die." You know, aside from the fucked-up priorities in your life where being on this show is your life's dream, that's pretty much the best attitude we'll see out of any auditioneer tonight. Brenna, I predict, will not get her heart broken by this show, and that's fine by me. For the time being, she's Bubba Gumping it about how she watches "Canadian Idol, Australian Idol, Azerbaijani Idol, The Federated States of Micronesian Idol..." Brenna -- did I mention? -- is a fan. She and Ryan chat a bit about how, since she's the show's biggest fan, logically she should win the show. Ryan asks if a "relatively good voice" plays into it, and she's all, "Duh. Obviously I'm an awesome singer." Not at all serious. Being in on the joke, like Brenna is, makes all the difference.
Back to Jason now. Jason's sixteen, which kind of makes me feel bad for what's about to happen, but he's not of diminished capacity. He's just kind of delusional. Kind of really delusional. He's juggling with what we called devil sticks -- where you hold the two rubberized batons and use them to bat a third, fringe-clad baton around in the air to the delight and amazement of everyone in your eighth-grade class who isn't off with the cool kids playing hacky-sack. Because he's sixteen, Jason always sounds vaguely pissed off, even when he's not, which is going to play into a whole lot of...hey, why don't I quit prefacing and just tell you how it goes? Jason brings the devil sticks into the audition and juggles with them as he sings, poorly. He either thinks he can sing and is deeply deluded about his talent level, or else he wants to be on TV in a less-healthy-than-Brenna way, and he knows his moment isn't inside the audition room, but outside, once he's done. I can't quite pin down which it is, because it seems like it's both. The judges are totally over it, and between the props and the sixteen-year-old perma-scowl, Simon's in the mood to be blunt about it: "Useless at everything. I mean, even the juggling was pathetic." Jason cops an attitude like, "Um, actually, I'm a really awesome juggler," in a way that starts out punk-ish and ends up kind of vulnerable. He's either a very transparent professional actor, or else a really transparent...sixteen-year-old boy. Anyway, he juggles, and Randy and Jewel -- as well as Paula, who is beyond wasted at this point, I don't even know what else to say about it -- go for an ill-advised America's Got Talent joke that's supposed to be at Simon's expense but, as is always the case, ends up mocking the kid even more. Instead of putting him out of his misery, they let Jason dig his own grave by attempting to dance for them. Finally, Simon has to tell flatly him that he's not in any way a singer, and he's dismissed.