'American Idol": We Buried Paul
Seven contestants remain after Paul McDonald is sent packing.
A turbulent season of American Idol just got completely chaotic. Defying all logic and sense, our favorite singing pixie, Paul McDonald, got the hook last night, the first male finalist dismissed.
You know what this is going to cost Idol in electric bills? They were using McDonald's blinding smile to light the building. (By the way, have you noticed that Ryan Seacrest, not to be outdone, seems to have boosted his own teeth bleaching regimen lately? Mirror, mirror on the wall, who has the whitest choppers, y'all?)
Idol voters may be experiencing severe ballot regret today after listening to Haley and Casey's off-key, growl-punctuated duet last night.
On Wednesday, after McDonald sang a Bob Seger rocker, Randy Jackson enthused, "You just witnessed the first number at the Paul McDonald concert!" Sadly it was also the last song of the McDonald show.
I had assumed it would be Stefano getting the heave-ho. His performance of "End of the Road" on Wednesday night was stirring, but for a guy who was saying all week he was going to focus on his stage presentation, Stefano was once again inert.
The guy really has only one gesture, where he bends his knees slightly and grips one fist tightly. He looks like a wrestling coach on the edge of the mat exhorting his grappler.
Yeah, the voice is great but remember Elliott Yamin had arguably the best pipes of season five but never got his Elvis on.
It's been a crazy, unpredictable year, with contestants who were in the bottom three the week before suddenly back on the sanctuary couch.
A reader this week had a really practical proposal for normalizing the results: Instead of voting for your favorites, why not change the procedure to voting for the person you want to see sent home? That would reduce the randomness factor considerably. What do you think of that idea?
It was nice to see Kelly Clarkson back on the Idol stage. But her duet partner, country star Jason Aldean, seemed to be wearing a seven gallon cowboy hat on a four gallon head.
Fair warning: If the cringe-inducing Scotty McCreery wins this thing, I'm moving to New Zealand.
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