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?
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.
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.
After Clay's done, he invites Ruben back out on the stage so everybody can die of screaming again. Ruben has switched to a white parka and pants. Ruben lets everybody know his album drops on Dec. 9. Music critics everywhere are sharpening their knives already. They got a little dull from butchering Clay's album. I had to buy a whole new set, myself. Ruben's going to sing "This Christmas." Originally performed by Christina Aguilera. I'm just kidding; it's a Donny Hathaway song. Man, searching song titles on Google will make you feel sad. I think crappy pop singers over the last five years have covered every single song every made. Ruben's singing is…nice. That's the word for it. Nice. Not too loud. Not too soft. Not too simple. Not too ornamented. Not too boring. Not too edgy. It's just…nice. The chorus calls for some wailing, which he does well. He doesn't hold out the notes too long, because he probably can't, but this just points out to me that you don't have to hold out every single damned note all the way to the horizon to sound nice -- a lesson all the other contestants could learn. Overall, he's meh. Just like everybody else. Oh, and Ruben's tongue is stained blue for some reason, which seems to have drawn more attention than his actual singing. Ahhhh…childhood memories of Otter Pops.
The Melodramatic Announcer is far too important to tell you who's sponsoring some dumb off-season special. As a bumper back from the commercial break, we get teased for some of the bad auditions to come season on American Idol 3. A horrible woman in a seafoam dress sings in the language Anne Heche created when she thought she was God. Yikes.
The Horrid Christmas Moppets caper around onstage and sing some more about getting laid under the tree Christmas morning. How sweet. Those kids are going to make some Hollywood therapist very, very rich. Well, richer.
After the Horrid Christmas Moppets are done singing and their stage moms are done shoving daggers in my ears with their shrieking, Ruben comes out to introduce Clay and Kimberley to sing a duet of "White Christmas." Clay comes out first and sings the first verse. He sounds the way he always sounds. He gives folks in the audience that smarmy smile that makes him look like Julie Andrews. After he's done with the first verse and chorus, he sits on some stairs that lead out to the audience as Kimberley comes out in a white pantsuit with a fur top to sing her part. They're just rubbing PETA's nose in the fact that they took on Clay's fans and lost. Kimberley sounds the way she always sounds. The idiots in the audience wave their arms back and forth for "White Christmas." When they sing together, Clay and Kimberley sound the way they always sound, except louder and with more warbling than a flock of songbirds. They each want to make sure you can hear the individual parts of the duet. Listen to my part! No, listen to my part! Blending is for those loser background singers! The audience dies of screaming again.
Oh, look! An ad for the American Billboard Music Awards! Which isn't at all in bed with American Idol. No sirree bob. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess they're going to love Ruben's album and think it's the best thing produced since, well, Clay's album.
We return to another horrid Christmas medley, which probably had to be thrown together after Justin Guarini apparently dropped out of the special. What with him getting dropped by his label and all. I'm not sure I would help them rake in more money either. The Horrid Christmas Moppets are nowhere to be seen, thank God. Clay, Ruben, Christina, Kimberley, and Tamyra are all on stage, dressed in black this time. Clay, Ruben, and Christina get solos in "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town." Then they sing some Christmas song I've never heard of called "Step Into Christmas." Tell me that's not supposed to be a Payless holiday sale commercial jingle? The giant monitor on the back of the stage is covered with giant red-and-green pixels. Hey, maybe this was supposed to be a Payless commercial, but then Star Jones got all pissed off because she didn't want to be eclipsed by Clay and they stopped the check after the song had already been filmed. Ew! They snuck the Horrid Christmas Moppets up onto the side of the stage. They just wanted to let us know: "La! La! La! La! La! La! La! La! La! La! La!" Thanks for the information. I'll keep that in mind. The Horrid Christmas Moppets spread out across the stage to sing back-up for Tamyra's solo. She sings another Christmas song I've never heard of, "I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day." I'm not sure who originally performed it, but a Google search has me staring at two wretched words: "Spice" and "Girls." I'm going to stop doing searches and just make up song titles if I don't know them, because this is just making me sad. After she's done, the Horrid Christmas Moppets run offstage to be yelled at for not smiling enough. Kimberley gets another solo, from a song I hope is titled "Rock And Roll Christmas," because I don't want to do a search and see Avril Lavigne's name. The other non-moppet Idols sing back-up for her. Okay, a Christmas song, no matter how upbeat, should never have a "Woooooo!" in it. Anywhere.
Suddenly, green lasers start shooting across the stage as Christina starts her "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" solo. That's just not right. If they're going to have lasers, shouldn't she be doing a Pink Floyd song? Did they have any Christmas songs? I'm not going to search myself, mind you, lest I find out that Three Doors Down has done a cover of "Welcome to the Machine." After a very quick trip back to "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" and "Jingle Bell Rock," the Horrid Christmas Moppets rush back out onstage so they can all end with the Medley Pointy Pose. The audience cheers the Pointy Pose.
Commercials. Do you have any idea how hard it is to not care about the Michael Jackson scandal when you're an editor at a Southern California newspaper? It takes a lot of work.
When we return, Clay is there to lie to us that Tamyra's career has "really taken off," because she's appeared on Boston Public, which has been moved to Fridays so that FOX can quietly kill it and end David E. Kelley's career as a Christmas present to us all. It still doesn't make up for Tru Calling, FOX. He adds that Tamyra's working on an album as well, though he fails to mention that she just got dropped by her record company, too. So, yeah, Tamyra's doing so much better than when she was on the top-rated summer show two years ago. Anyway, Clay introduces Tamyra to the stage to sing "All I Want For Christmas Is You," in a manner so smarmy he makes Ryan Seacrest seem understated.
Tamyra heads out to the stage in a white pantsuit reminiscent of Kimberley's, but without the fur and about three sizes. The green lasers return and surround Tamyra, making it look as though she has time for one last holiday number before she has to turn around and walk up the gangplank to the mother ship that will return her to her home planet. You can't even make out her face in some angles because the lasers are so bright. Anyway, her voice is a bit rougher than it was back when she was competing on the show. And she sounds a bit flat. And just sort of blah. Sorry, Tamyra -- absence didn't make my heart grow fonder after all. I liked you more during the first-season competition. A pan across the audience shows that, sadly, the lasers aren't writing things on the back of the theater wall the way they do on Spaceship Earth during the night show at EPCOT. Which is the only thing about EPCOT that isn't brain-crushingly dull. The audience cheers mildly for her when she's done.
After she's done, she introduces Ruben onto the stage to join her to sing a duet of "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas." He's wearing a black suit now. What is the point of all the costume changes, anyway? Costume changes are part of some elaborate production show, and this isn't one. My criterion for determining whether it's an elaborate production show is simple: At some point, does a singer descend onto the stage via a contraption in the ceiling? If the answer is "no," it's not elaborate enough for costume changes between songs. Anyway, they both have wonderful voices for duets. Maybe that has something to do with neither Tamyra and Ruben sounding all that compelling to me as soloists these days. They blend well, and neither goes for unseemly glory notes. The held notes are held, simply and beautifully. The notes that aren't supposed to be held, aren't. It's just a warm, sweet, lovely song that succeeds by not trying to be more than what it is. The audience loves it.
Commercials. Another bad singer reminds us that American Idol 3 is coming. He's not even that interesting a bad singer, and Simon Cowell's comments to him aren't that interesting either. That doesn't bode well.
When we return, Clay pimps the stupid Christmas album as a stocking stuffer. Then he introduces Kelly back to the stage to sing "O, Holy God, Does Jesus Love the Glory Notes or What?" Actually, the song is "O, Holy Night," but that's what I call it. I mean, the song exists for the purpose of hitting really high, loud notes to prove your love of Jesus. Kelly comes out in a black pantsuit and sings the first verse a cappella. A chorus is standing in darkness, waiting for their cue to add more melodrama to the song. She sounds lovely at first, but then, of course, the time arrives to start shrieking the song. The chorus comes in as Kelly sings that the NIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT! WAS DIVIIIIIIIINE! FALLLLLL! ON YOUR KNEEEEEES! Actually, she does resist the urge to glory note the song all the way to the end. She only shouts about a verse in the middle, but still, it was more than enough. The audience, of course, loves it. They haven't forgotten about Kelly's frying pan of talent any more than they have forgotten Clay's.
When she's done, Clay comes out to tell everyone that they don't have time for any more performances, unless you live in Canada, where I guess they have more time than we do, because they wedged in a song by their Canadian Idol somewhere. Maybe it's because of the metric system or something. Anyway, Clay thanks us for joining them. He says that if we liked his hosting, his name is Clay Aiken. If we didn't like his hosting, his name is Ryan Seacrest. I came up with the idea of calling him "Ryan Seacrest" all through the recap based on this comment, but I was afraid that I'd get dozens of e-mails saying things like, "u stupidd!!! That wasnt Ryan it was Clay did you even watch the show???????"
But before they go, there's time for one last medley. Uch. The chorus starts singing "O Come, All Ye Faithful," and the Idols file out, as well as the Horrid Christmas Moppets, all in white. Clay gets a solo of "The First Noel," which he warbles and oversings. My eyes cross when he shrieks, "NOOO-WELLLLL!" Ruben blandly croons "O Little Town of Bethlehem." Tamyra belts out a verse of "Silent Night" and then Kelly comes out to join her for a diva duet. I really can't point out enough the ridiculousness of them shrieking out "Silent Night." And on an appropriately overwrought and oversung note, the medley, and the special, comes to an end. And then we're left to ponder the wonder and meaning of the holiday season in the two seconds it takes for FOX to remind us that Kiefer is trying to stop a drug lord from killing off Los Angeles with a V-I-R-U-S. See! Helping others is what the holiday season is all about.