Episode Report Card Shack: D+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT First Dubya, now this
By Shack | Season 1 | Episode 12 | Aired on 08.20.2002
Justin hits The Octagon to attempt to repeat his loin-stirring rendition of "Get Here" from the Pasadena auditions. Justin is wearing an outfit rather similar to Kelly's, but the guy version: a black denim jacket, jeans, and shirt. Justin's performance is better than he has been lately, but still not quite as good as it was in Pasadena. He seems to have lost the range he showed back then. And when we had seen him only twice, the stage presence seemed so effortless. Now that we've seen that he actually works at it quite a bit, it loses impact. It's like seeing a magic trick after you know how it's done. Still, there's some good eye-fucking, solid notes, and a stellar ending. A great performance from Justin.
The crowd goes wild. Justin's dad goes even wilder. Randy tells Justin that he thinks it was Justin's best performance in the whole competition. Paula blathers about Justin's "quiet sincerity" and asks him to keep it up. Whenever Paula says "quiet sincerity," I think she means "eye-fucking." Simon tells Justin that it was fabulous, great, wonderful, and terrific. Everybody's happy. Justin heads up to Black and Decker for the blah blah blah votecakes.
Commercials. Man, why'd they have to ruin a movie revolving around Jesse Bradford in a Speedo by casting Shiri Appleby? Dammit.
When we return, it's time for round two. Fortunately, we don't have to watch anymore pre-performance clip shows. Black and Decker simply introduce Tamyra's return to the stage to sing Stephanie Mills's "Feel The Fire."
Tamyra heads out to the stage in a black blouse with revealing sleeves and black pants. Tonight's fashion choices are all about the many shades of black. The audience is already on its feet and cheering before Tamyra starts to sing. I think the audience is generally biased in favor of the big ballads, with a few notable exceptions.
Whatever voice problems Tamyra is having are nearly undetectable in this performance. Actually, that's not entirely true. She's still a little hoarse, but it works for her in the song, giving her voice a smoky quality she doesn't normally have. I think perhaps she and Kelly both deliberately underplayed their first performances in order to save the strength for their ballads. Still, though Tamyra sounds beautiful, her energy level is way down in comparison to some of her previous performances.
Judges redux. Randy "Tamyra, Tamyra, Tamyra"s that this is the kind of performance from her he loves. Paula orders Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, and Celine Dion to "move on over" to make room for Tamyra. Well, Whitney and Mariah have already moved over so far that I'm not sure we'll ever see them perform ever again, and I'm not going to get into the whole "Celine" thing again. Ick. I'd prefer it if somebody pushed her off the bench entirely. Simon admits that he's running out of compliments. He's got more than enough insults to make up for it. But not for Tamyra, whom he describes as "superb" and "world-class."