|
||||
Last Sunday, I wrote in a recap that I would say something nice about Clay Aiken if FOX would just cancel the horrible, unwatchable Tru Calling. Two days later, FOX announced they were picking up seven more episodes. I'd just like to express my fondest holiday wishes�for Clay Aiken to fall into an industrial meat grinder.
Take your cursor off the "send" button; I didn't mean it. At the most, I wish for Clay Aiken to entertainingly fall into an industrial vat of French dressing. That would be funny.
So the only change to the opening credits is the addition of "An" and "Christmas" in red neon to the logo. Couldn't they have taken some of that hookers and blow money and paid to have that transsexual terminator mascot turned into a snowman or something? Why, one might come away with the impression that this entire special is just a cheap way of cashing in on�oh, right. Never mind. Oh, there are some animated snow flakes. Ooh! Fancy!
Will wonders never cease? The Seal of Tsathoggua is still intact on the stage. ["THAT DOESN'T MEAN I'M STILL UNDER THERE. HUR! HUR! HUR!" -- Tsathoggua] There are Christmas trees everywhere, and those white fabric covers that you put over boxes that are supposed to make them look like lumps of snow, but never do. Overall, the stage looks like the spot at the mall where parents take their kids to torture Santa Claus.
Speaking of kids, five horrifying little urchins come running out onto the stage. These are the winners of American Juniors, and I don't know who any of them are, so I'll be calling them the Horrid Christmas Moppets. There are four girls and one boy, all dressed in tacky red clothing. Eventually five of the six real American Idol contestants we'll be seeing tonight join them -- the guys wearing black and the women wearing red -- to torment us with the first of seven hundred medleys. They sway awkwardly back and forth on stage as they sing "Sleigh Ride." The Horrid Christmas Moppets contribute by singing, "Ringa ringa linga ding dong ding" after each line. It's as awful as it sounds. After a transition consisting of one line of "Wonderful Christmas" (and how said is it to do a Google search to make sure you have the title right and see Hilary Duff's cover listed before Paul McCartney's version?), Christina "I'll Be Home For Christmas, Because Nobody Else Cares About Me" Christian gets her first solo. She sings "Winter Wonderland." I hope she isn't planning to go out in the meadows and build any snowmen, lest she ends up in the hospital for frost burn with that tiny red miniskirt and navel-revealing sweater she's wearing. Well, her hair looks nice, though, curly and pulled back. Her singing has improved, in the sense that she's lost her trademark vibrato, but without it, her voice is thin, unremarkable, and a bit sharp. After she's done, the Horrid Christmas Moppets come out and sing yet another verse of the song. Isn't it cute listening to pre-teens sing about getting laid during a snowstorm?
An American Idol Christmas
“ Clay finally gets Ruben to leave by telling him there's a pretty girl backstage. He should have added that she was made of turkey and Ruben would have sprinted off the stage. ”
Another transition leads us to Kimberley "Deck The Halls -- And Simon Cowell, Too" Locke, singing "The Christmas Song." She's wearing a simple, elegant, sleeveless red dress that makes the most of her cleavage without looking ridiculous, and she still has the straightened hair. Her singing is simple and elegant as well, so I enjoy it. There's not too much manhandling of the notes -- she's there to sing a song, not trying to show off a vocal range or whatever. The Horrid Christmas Moppets sit on the stage and watch her perform. Kimberley kneels down and sings to the little kids, because she's a good person, whereas I would have kicked them into the audience. After she's done, the Horrid Christmas Moppets give us another insipid transition to a duet between Ruben "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen Before Ye Have A Coronary" Studdard and Clay "O Come, All Ye Faithful. Wait, Not All At Once! Ack! Getting Trampled! Ack!" Aiken singing the afore-teased "Wonderful Christmas." The audience stands and shrieks as the two of them shuffle their way through a nice, but thoroughly uninteresting, song. Could there be a more boring, unmotivated song about the holiday season? Merry Christmas! Everything's fine! We're having a great time! It's like somebody took the conversation I have with my grandmother on the phone every Christmas and set it to music. Anyway, they sing boringly and there's boring shuffling and arm-waving choreography and the audience eats it up with a spoon while I stare at my fingernails. Everybody comes back out for a bland ending. Tamyra "Angels We Haven't Heard On High So Much These Days" Gray was part of the medley, but didn't get a solo.
The audience cheers for everybody, and Clay takes on the role of the emcee, introducing everybody to the audience. He tells us the names of the Horrid Christmas Moppets, but I don't care. I'm trying to imagine what on earth could have ever prevented Ryan Seacrest from taking another opportunity to ham his leathery monkey-face up on national television. He must be giving all the folks at 19 Entertainment their holiday blowjobs as thanks for making him the most successful fame whore in America. Clay is insanely smarmy as an emcee. It's like he's doing a parody with a weird announcer voice. He's nearly doing Harry Shearer doing an emcee. He makes a joke that Ruben (or "Ruuuuuuben," as Clay calls him) got the only thing he wanted for Christmas, because I guess Clay's family celebrates Christmas in May. Shut up, Clay. Everyone except for Clay and Ruben files off the stage. Apparently Ruben's supposed to leave, too, but he's too caught up waving to the crowd that's probably actually cheering for Clay, or for more of whatever drug they've been given that made them so damned happy to be there. Clay finally gets Ruben to leave by telling him there's a pretty girl backstage. He should have added that she was made of turkey and Ruben would have sprinted off the stage.
An American Idol Christmas
After Ruben's gone, Clay reminds us that these songs are from that wretched Christmas album they're selling, in case you had come to the incorrect conclusion that anybody put out a special effort to get this show together. Then he introduces Kelly "Here We Come A-Wailing" Clarkson to the stage, adding, "[She] captured the hearts of America, and has no intention of giving them back." ["BECAUSE THEY'VE ALREADY BEEN EATEN." -- Tsathoggua] Kelly will be performing a song with the stupid name of "My Grown-up Christmas List." She heads out on stage in a simple red dress similar to Kimberley's. Oh, I've heard this song before, and I didn't like it then. It's a bland world peace song performed before by Amy Grant. I don't know why it's particularly "grown-up" to be asking Santa Claus to stop wars and stuff. That actually sounds more childlike than asking for the latest Barbie crap. I suppose it's more poetic than a real grown-up Christmas list begging not to get laid off year and for your 401k not to lose any more money or else you won't be able to retire until you're 103. Kelly doesn't hold a single note steady, manhandling and massaging each note like a chiropractor dealing with a quarterback who's been sacked about a thousand times. The song contains the hope that "right will always win," whatever that means. Oh, I think by "right," the song means "we." She gets cheers and shrieks and such for her singing.
Commercials. There's something wrong with the world when I see Steve Martin playing roles that should clearly go to dipwads like Tim Allen.
You know, you don't have to be a rich, spoiled heiress to be squeamish at the thought of sticking your arm up a cow's ass.
When we return, Christina gets some more precious, life-affirming screen time as she introduces Clay back to the stage to sing "Don't Save It All For Christmas Day." Clay comes out in a white suit to croon this bland song about stopping to smell the roses and being loving all the time and blah blah blah cloy-cakes. It's like a sentimental, mawkish continuation of Kelly's last song. No wonder suicides go up over the holidays (although apparently that's just a myth. Or maybe it's a myth that it's just a myth). ["It's a myth." -- Sars] If I couldn't make ends meet, listening to idiots sing about how we should put ourselves out for others for weeks on end would make me want to jump off a bridge. Anyway, Clay's performance starts off pretty good, up until he starts getting to the glory notes at the end. The closed caption actually reads "LO-O-O-O-VE" for one of the held notes. And they aren't even particularly good notes. And then the camera spins around him, and his face follows it like he's Kim Caldwell, and then he does this ridiculous leg-shimmy thing. I don't know. It looks like he's trying to reach up to get something down from a high shelf. Of course, the audience shrieks and dies on the spot due to the intensity of the love for Clay.