An Idol Ain't Nothin' But A Sandwich

This is my 75th recap for Television Without Pity. Huzzah! I can't believe how much crap and tripe and utter dreck I've described. I hope you've enjoyed it.

Tuesday. Ryan "Soak Up The Sun" greets us from the Substitute Seal of Tsathoggua in what will be his last ugly outfit of the season. He has frilly Prince shirt cuffs, another homeless man's jacket, and his best five o'clock shadow. The audience counts down again as Ryan reminds us that 70,000 auditioned and blah blah blah. If you don't know what's going on at this point, then Paula wants you to tell your alien overlords she said hi.

Credits. The androgynous mascot is particularly disappointed that Clay didn't win, for obvious reasons.

Ryan heads back out onto the stage he was just on seconds ago to greet the cheering crowd. The stage looks slightly bigger for the new location, but not much. The audience is a lot larger, but somehow it's not very impressive. The [Product-Placed Camera Company] Theater from the first-season finale looked much more impressive. It was all the balconies or something. This just looks like the old studio, but bigger. I'm sure there's some sort of comment about the finals just being far less impressive this year, but I can't seem to find it. Oh, wait -- there it was, right there.

Ryan blathers on at length and uses more annoying sports analogies as he explains to us yet again that this is the final round and somebody's going to win, blah blah blah. He reminds us that last week there was only a two percent vote difference between Ruben and Clay. And they're extending the voting time for an hour, for those of you take a long time to get tired of hearing a busy signal. He then introduces Clay and Ruben out to the stage. Clay looks like a waiter at a chain Italian restaurant in his white shirt and black pants. Ruben is wearing a puffy black jacket with square patterns on it that looks like a car seat. In the audience, a public relations representative for Nabisco waves a sign that says, "Ruben is our chocolate Teddy Graham." Now there's a brilliant advertising strategy that slipped right by the producers. Maybe season they'll pick audience members based on whether or not they'll hold up signs promoting various products: "I love Ryan, but not as much as I love my plasma television!" Clay and Ruben both pretend to be shocked by the size of the crowd. They blather for a bit with Ryan about nothing, and then Ryan sends them back off stage to prepare for their songs.

After they're gone, Ryan introduces us to the judges, Simon "Jaded" Cowell, Paula "Mad Season" Abdul, and Randy "Stuck In A Moment You Can't Get Out Of" Jackson. The judges are in the same place they usually are. See, they had that cool balcony box last season, like Statler and Waldorf on the The Muppet Show. Randy's wearing a stupid hat that looks like it should have a big card in the band that says "Press."

Ryan tells us that the two finalists will be performing three songs each tonight, before introducing Ruben "The Rising" Studdard back to the stage. But first, they show the same clip biography of Ruben they showed Monday night. I think it's the same. I'm so tired of the repetition that I'm not going to go check. The information is the same anyway. Ruben = Birmingham = velvet teddy bear = the judges' favorite.

Ryan introduces Ruben out to the Substitute Seal to sing Burt Bacharach's "A House Is Not A Home." Well, I never really liked Tamyra Gray's rendition of this song, and since I like Tamyra a thousand times more than I like Ruben, you can imagine what I think about his rendition. There's a lot warbling and unnecessary melisma (a New York Times reporter recently wrote a piece about the overwarbling of the contestants on American Idol and pretty much said everything I have to say on the subject, except better). But he sounds a lot smoother tonight in this number than he has in weeks. Anyway, it's a pretty good performance, but he's no more "into" this song than Clay is into any of his. As we pan across the audience, we can see that Simon is totally ignoring the performance and staring off into the audience.

Judges. Yo, yo, yo! Thing was done. Chills, dawg. Y'all. Man. Dude. You can guess whose responses those were. "Home is where the heart is, and ours is right here with you." You can guess whose responses those were. Simon says it's good, but not the best he's heard from Ruben. He's booed, of course. Ryan heads over to Ruben to blather that we can't vote yet, and to remind us that Clay is coming up. And to be on camera for a few more seconds. Mmmmdelicious screen time.

Commercials. Okay, there's a new "reality" show coming called Paradise Hotel. I was waiting for somebody to just finally rip all the pretensions off of reality television and just put together a show based entirely on pretty people wanting to be on camera for no discernable reason or purpose. And here we are. I mean, even Are You Hot? had some sort of fake contest excuse of trying to find the most attractive people. Paradise Hotel appears to have even less substance, if that's at all possible.

When we return, Ryan hangs out in the crowd and talks to a "celebrity" by the name of James Worthy. From my research, I can tell you that James Worthy is a pro basketball star who played a Klingon in an episode of Star Trek: The Generation. Jeez, that's the level of fame we're getting tonight? I remember last year when they had folks from Angel, Everybody Loves Raymond, and Mad TV all over the place. Of course, that was when the show was on during the summer and wasn't destroying everybody during sweeps. I'm betting these television stars are a lot less excited about the success of American Idol this season. James likes Ruben, if you care. You don't care. Nobody cares.

up is Clay "Don't Turn Off The Lights" Aiken, who has added a black jacket and shiny silver tie to his ensemble, so he doesn't look so much like a waiter anymore. They replay his clip show. Clay = special ed teacher = geeky = wild card = Simon hates him so very much. Interestingly, they pick his cheesiest song ("Grease") to show in his clips, which I'm sure doesn't feed any conspiracies at all.

Ryan introduces Clay out to the stage to sing an original song called "This Is The Night." It occurs to me that I don't think Clay or Ruben picked any of the songs they had to sing this week. Nobody says anything about it, and there's no explanation of how they were selected. So by original, Ryan meant "full of the same vapid lyrics, overwrought strings, and mawkish, undeserved sentimentality that hack songwriters like Diane Warren toss into all of their worthless pop ballads that somehow dominate the charts even though everybody hates them." The song has lyrics about kisses you can't take back and you have to seize the moment and carpe diem and blah blah blah. This is the song where the protagonist of any Disney cartoon discovers his or her inner strength. You know the one I'm talking about. And then they play it again over the closing credits. Each line in the chorus has three whole words, all the better to glory note the last one for about five seconds. There are lyrics about being in heaven and waiting for this night. Essentially, take all the lyrics from "A Moment Like This" and cut them up like magnetic poetry and rearrange. Do the same with the music. And that's how they made "This Is The Night." And of course, Clay melodramatically oversings every line. Oh, and this will be Clay's first single, so if you can stand listening to it, more power to you.

Judges. Randy says Clay blew his brains out. Amazingly, he means that in a good way. Amusingly, he says that he hates that song and hopes it isn't Clay's first single. He'll probably get his paycheck docked for that comment. Anyway, he thought Clay did a great job with an awful song. Paula says that Clay has the power to "transport us into [his] world" and "finds the matrix to a song." Matrix to a song? Paula, honey, they already filmed the third Matrix movie. You can kiss their asses all you want, but it's too late to snag yourself a cameo. Simon, in an effort to keep from having to praise Clay's singing or anything, says that it's astonishing how much better-looking he is now than when he first auditioned for the show. Simon spits out his Tourette's "I'm not being rude" comment before telling Clay that he used to be really ugly. Yeah, okay, Mr. Manboobs With '80s Hair. Nobody parts down the center anymore. Anyway, Simon thinks the song sounded like "American Idol: The Musical." You mean like that movie your corporate masters are producing to be released in the theaters in a month? The one that's a musical? You great big idiot? The audience boos, of course. Ryan heads out onstage to blather some more and get some more camera time. He warns us that Ruben and Clay will be performing songs by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. This was the point where I started looking for my cyanide capsules. As you can see, I never found them.

Commercials. How can they make The Fast And The Furious even more homoerotic? Replace Vin Diesel with a male supermodel in the sequel. Hysterical. Pretty, pretty drag racers.

When we return, Ryan blathers for a few minutes more before reintroducing Ruben out to sing John Lennon's "Imagine," a "haunting" song about rejecting organized religion, violence, and capitalism. So I guess I can understand why nobody involved with this show or FOX understood what it was about. They probably heard only "Imagine all the people" and then dollar signs appeared in their eyes and their brains started going, "Ka-ching! Ka-ching!" and they didn't hear the rest.

Anyway, for the extra-cheesy treatment, Ruben is dressed all in white onstage, surrounded by a string quartet, while a guitar player accompanies him off to the side. Ruben gets a spotlight, while the quartet plays in the dark. It's an object lesson in How To Make Your Song Seem Really, Really Important And Reverent If You Aren't Capable Of Singing It That Way. Ruben warbles every single note, which cuts the emotional urgency out of the song and replaces it with shallow ornamentation. It just sounds like a bunch of words. A bunch of words set to melancholy music. At the end, the audience cheers Ruben. The string quartet stands and takes a bow. The audience ignores them and shouts, "Ruuuuuuube!" Yes, you're all rubes. Applaud away and then go out and buy a zillion albums.

As a bumper to the commercial, one woman details at length that she's going to be upset no matter who loses. That's so very sad.

Skin: It's Romeo and Juliet, but with porn! Just the way it was always meant to be.

Wanda Sykes thinks Ruben will win. Brooke Burke -- who, as a million people emailed me, hosts Wild On, not Dog Eat Dog, as I previously reported -- casts her vote for Clay. Regis and Kelly like Ruben. Eric Close likes Clay. Quentin Tarantino likes Ruben. Tarantino's been out of the loop so long, they feel the need to identify him as a screenwriter/director in his captions, just in case we didn't know.

Ryan wanders into the judges' dressing room, which actually looks like the lobby at a fairly nice hotel. Simon is still participating in I Love The '80s by wearing a tie-less suit with the shirt open halfway down his chest. Paula's wearing a sleeveless red cocktail gown that looks rather classically stylish for her. The earrings are a bit too flashy, but that's really the worst I can say about her look tonight. Randy is wearing a boring suit, but has an orange tie. Ryan plops down between them on a sofa and asks if they're all excited and stuff. Simon looks dreadfully bored, as usual. He's not having sex or rolling in big piles of money, and really, what else is there to be excited about? Paula's happy, of course. Simon blathers away sarcastically about "giving back to the community." The only reason Ryan's even in here is so that they can show the [product-placed cola] refrigerator positioned prominently in the background. Simon and Ryan have a big fake hug over the whole fake "giving back to the community" thing.

And to prove that there are no depths to which a FOX show won't sink to humiliate others in order to create "good television," and nor are there any depths to which fame whores will not sink in order to get another few seconds in the spotlight, American Idol has brought back several of the bad singers (voluntarily, I assume) to butcher "Sing (Sing A Song)." For us to laugh at, of course. Even if the show "tricked" these kids into participating, they have nobody but themselves to blame. They've been watching the show. They had to know that they've been openly mocked, sometimes five or six times. But no, they're desperate fame whores who aren't going to let a little thing like shame or self-respect prevent them from another few seconds of media attention. They film the kids singing in various different locations -- badly, of course. Edgar's there, the creepy nave twins and the creepy blonde twins are there, Cedric the pimp is there in his hot banana suit, the creepy boy with phony falsetto is there, Si-NOT-ra is there, the guy who sang the national anthem through his nose is there, Mariah Scary is there, and the girl with the jackhammer vibrato is there. Oh, Patrick Lake is there, too. Mind you, he very nearly made it into the final twelve, but here he is, participating. And even if they tricked him, Mr. "Rocker" agreed to sing some cheesy little song just to get back on television for a few seconds. Because he's a big phony.

The four boys sing "Words" from the Bee Gees, and they sound dull. They do harmonize well, though. Falling into the category of "completely embarrassing" is the rendition of "Physical" by Carmen, Julia, and Kim Caldwell. Carmen writhes around with a solo about how much she wants to have sex. What happened to our sweet, sweet virgin jailbait? ["DON'T FORGET, SHE LOST HER VIRGINITY TO A BOTTLE OF SHAMPOO AND LOVED IT. NOW WE'VE LOST HER TO THE JOYS OF CARNAL PLEASURES." -- Tsathoggua] Julia gets a solo and sounds nice, if a little bit soulless, like a zombie. Kimberly gets a solo, and of course she walks up to sing directly into the camera. Hi! I'm Kimberly! Look at me! Hi! I'm on television, singing! Hi! I'm Kimberly! Olivia Newton-John stands in the audience, wearing a pained smile on her face. She'd probably be crying, if all the facelifts hadn't sealed off her tear ducts. Charles and Vanessa get a duet of Neil Sedaka's "That's When The Music Takes Me," a fun little upbeat number that works well for both of them. Charles's voice isn't the best tonight, but they're both having fun. Then Clay gets a solo of Lionel Richie's "Hello." Whap! I can sing! Whap! I can sing! Listen to me turn every note into an exercise in going over the top! The medley concludes with an awful group rendition of Diane Warren's wretched "Rhythm Of The Night." The kids run out into the audience, of course. Kimberly points and stares into a camera again. Look! I'm Kimberly! I'm on television! They head back onstage to finish the songs. Sparklers go off on the back of the stage. They end with the required medley pointy pose. Yay! The pointy pose!

Ooh, there's Mark Valley in the audience. See, they forced their actors out after all. They probably should have captioned him and mentioned Keen Eddie if they wanted that cross-promotional thing to actually work.

Commercials. When we return, Ryan reads more fake blather off a card about Clay and Ruben "taking" various states. Shut up. Shut up, shut up, shut up! We've still got forty minutes here, people. So Ryan brings out Clay, Ruben, and Kimberley to sing for us their songs from the compilation CD that I have no intention of ever buying. Of course, I hardly ever buy any music at all, anyway, so the market is hardly quaking in its boots. Anyway. Clay sings "On The Wings Of Love." Ruben sings "Superstar." Kimberley sings "Somewhere Over The Rainbow." They do this weird, cheesy thing where they blend the three songs together at the end, turning it into another medley. They all sound the way they always sound. I told you the wad was shot. Actually, I think Kimberley should let "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" go. I think some of the songs she performed in the contest -- ones that she didn't have years to perfect -- sound better, more interesting, and a little more spontaneous. The audience cheers. There's Justin Guarini in the audience, wearing the grim smile of somebody who's realizing that his fifteen minutes will probably be up by the end of June.