META: This Week In "This Week In American Idol" [22 March 2007 Edition]

Join us for a quick wrap-up of this week's American Idolatry, after the jump...

TUESDAY: Sanjaya Malakar is so bad, he even makes little girls cry:

After butchering "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" during last Tuesday's "performance show", most viewers assumed hoped that Sanjaya Malakar could not do any worse.

After the 'fro-and-break-dancing-filled bastardization of Modest Mouse's "Float On" during last Wednesday's "results show", most viewers assumed hoped that Idol could not do any worse.

Sadly, we gave neither Sanjaya nor Idol enough credit.

Sanjaya on Tuesday put on what I am calling the worst performance I have ever seen in the Finals. In case you missed it:



I'm sorry. I'm truly, truly sorry.

My theory has been that Sanjaya knew he was "on the ropes" and decided to "go for it". And I applaud his energy. But that vocal???

Put simply, that vocal was an aural "fuck you!" to his critics, which is pretty much everyone.

Here is what some of the other Idol watchers thought about that...that...[shiverzzzz]:

" If last week's Ford-sponsored bastardization of Modest Mouse's "Float On" delivered a point-blank gut-shot to popular music vulnerable belly, then Sanjaya Malakar's (whom we previously believed to be just a harmless, tone-deaf--yet alarmingly well-coiffed!--kid, but now realize is the earthbound emissary of some vengeful god sent to destroy us all) Tuesday night Idol performance of The Kinks' "You Really Got Me" stood astride its body as it lay bleeding in the gutter, rolled it over so that it could bite the curb, and then delivered the swift kick to the back of its head that finally ended its suffering. The strong of stomach can relive the harrowing ordeal through the clip presented above, in which an adorable little girl's salty tears stood in for those streaming down the collective cheeks of America on the night of music's grisly televised execution. "

Sanjaya Malakar And The Death Of Music [Defamer]

" WITH DIAMOND DAVE AS PETER NOONE: Okay, let's get this out of the way right off the bat: Sanjaya was terrible. He performed the Kinks' "You Really Got Me," only it was more like the Van Halen version of "You Really Got Me," only it was really more like what Velvet Revolver's version of "You Really Got Me" might have been like if Weiland was actually an overexcited teenager who liked to stick out his tongue a lot. Sure, he made that one girl cry (nice homage to the Ed Sullivan days there!), but we didn't exactly have dry eyes, either, because we know that he's going to survive for at least another week, thanks to Randy and Paula being charmed by all the "fun" he was having. "

Idolator's American Idolatry: The Little Girls Are The Only Ones Who Understand Sanjaya [Idolator]

" Contrary to what the cynics say, some people on American Idol can actually sing. That gal Melinda Doolittle can sing the lights out. But the Sanjaya Malakar Era needs to come to an end. Tonight. This has become an urgent national priority. His performance last night should have ended with an arrest. Animals have perished with more harmonious death rattles. Chickens who have been captured and beheaded on stumps have showed better dance moves.

" The deeper philosophical question: Can a person sing so badly as to ruin the original? Or has "You Really Got Me Now" been slimed forever? "

Bring Me the Head of Sanjaya Malakar [WashingtonPost.com]

Not everyone thought it was that bad. WaPo teevee blogger Lisa de Moraes -- who definitely should know better -- thinks this was one of the better performances of the nite:

" Noone tells Sanjaya he looks more like a Herman's Hermit than a Kink and if he wants to win the competition he should sing "I'm Into Something Good," only then he says maybe Sanjaya had better sing "You've Really Got Me" by the Kinks. Sanjaya sings the Kinks' song and, while we know saying this probably means we need to adjust our meds, Sanjaya's performance is one of the better ones of the evening. "

No Sir Paul, but Plenty of Nostalgia on 'Idol' [Washington Post]

TUESDAY: What was the deal with that crying girl???

Okay, Sanjaya didn't actually make that girl cry because he was terrible. That girl actually was crying because she loves Sanjaya.

No, seriously.

The Los Angeles Times tracked down that young lass. She is 13-year-old Ashley Ferl. Ashley and her family were in town to attend the taping of Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?, but their passes also got them in the audience at Idol's afternoon dress rehearsal. Ashley cried there too, and the producers decided they needed to bring her back for the live show for dramatic effect.

Ashley's favorite Idol contestant: "Sanjaya, Melinda, Gina and Jordin". Awww, but only one can win -- who do you want it to be? "All four: Sanjaya, Melinda, Gina and Jordin".

WEDNESDAY: Time for the "results show". Wait, you mean it's over already???:

Did you catch the "results show" on Wednesday? Well, if you blinked, you probably missed some key parts of the "show" -- but you most likely did not miss any of the commercials.

Veteran Idol watchers surely noticed that two staples of "results show" nite were missing from Wednesday's show -- the opening "group" number, and the "last hurrah" number from the departing contestant. In shows past, only booted contestants who had performed atrociously on the "performance show" were not allowed to sing one more time before a national audience [IIRC, Kellie Pickler was once such contestant]. But last night, they seemed to have legitimately run out of time. [I address the lack of a group number below.]

How did they run out of time? Even Ryan quipped that they might not be able to get it all in last nite.

WaPo teevee blogger Lisa de Moraes breaks it down for you here. The long-story-short: commercials. de Moraes tallied up a full 15 minutes of commercials in last night's broadcast -- and de Moraes rightly counts towards that number the "music video" [Ford commercial], the Brad Garrett shtick [Fox commercial], and the "Idol Cares" and "Idol Challenge" bits [commercials for Idol/Fox]. Toss in 2 mentor performances -- twice the usual number -- and there's not much room for, ya know, the Idols themselves.

Fox knows that they have an audience of about 30 million people watching, and if Cingular and J.C. Penney insist on paying Fox a lot of money to sell goods and services to those people, I can't begrudge Fox for taking the loot. But c'mon -- HALF THE DAMN SHOW???

THURSDAY BONUS #1: Fox, Idol, still pissed off at Paul McCartney, blame Heather Mills:

[This item contains a lot of "rank speculation" and should be taken with a whole lotta salt -- Ed.]

Tuesday night's theme was supposedly "The British Invasion", although that misnomer is a little misleading. Tuesday's set list included: 3 songs from Shirley Bassey [LaKisha, Jordin, Melinda], whose "invasion" of the U.S. was not very successful; 2 songs from The Zombies [Blake, Chris S.]; and 1 song each from The Exciters (not even British!!!) [Haley]; Peter Noone / Herman's Hermits Gerry And The Pacemakers (sorry -- Ed.) [Chris R.]; Dusty Springfield [Stephanie]; The Nashville Teens (actually British!!!) [Phil]; The Kinks [Sanjaya]; and The Rolling Stones [Gina]. Notice a big whole in that set list???

Tuesday's theme was supposed to be "The Music Of Paul McCartney", and the mentor was supposed to be Paul McCartney. These things normally need to be scheduled some time in advance, of course. So what happened on Tuesday?

Here's my theory. ABC, which planned to debut the new season of Dancing With The Stars the nite before Paul Mac was scheduled to be on American Idol, decided that a great way to goose ratings would be to talk Heather Mills into appearing on the show. Paul knew this would get a lot of ink before his big nite and peevishly pulled out at the last minute. And, he not only took his ball -- he took his songs with him. This forced Idol to scramble to come up with a last-minute theme-and-mentor replacement. Who might be available on such short notice? Peter Noone! LuLu! If Paul pulled out within the last week -- after rehearsals had already begun? -- Idol might need 2 mentors to lighten the mentoring load on the compressed time frame. That would also provide an explanation for why there was no group number on Wednesday -- there was no time to rehearse.

Fox is peeved at ABC for their success with DWTS -- this is supposed to be Fox's time of the season [pun intended] -- and they're possibly also peeved at ABC for driving Paul away. So how will Fox get back at ABC? Fox has announced that next Tuesday's "performance show" broadcast will run from 8:00 PM to 9:07 PM, cutting 7 minutes into DWTS's first "results" show of the season.

Niiiice!

This week's mentor is Gwen Stefani. I have not seen an announcement of a "theme" -- "the music of Gwen Stefani" would not be a good idea. Gwen and Akon will perform "The Sweet Escape" on Wednesday.

It should be an interesting week.

THURSDAY BONUS #2: 14:59...14:58...14:57...:

Ashley Ferl began her post-Idol media blitz today with an appearance on The Today Show. Defamer has a brief clip, but it's not embeddable here. If you care to see it, head here.