Eze does it! And other bad ‘Idol’ puns from Filler Night
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- February
- 6
“American Idol” didn’t seem to put a lot of effort into its “Best of the Rest” night—which I call Filler Night, for obvious reasons—so this post will be shorter than the others.
About 45 minutes into the episode, I was genuinely disappointed with the featured contestant quality. Then I finally said wow aloud when Chikezie Eze (above) busted out with Luther Vandross. Dude, nice.
Thankfully, 17-year-old Danny Noriega (left) was solid enough on “Proud Mary” for me to almost forget the remainder of an episode that otherwise left me cold. Almost.
Sure, Amy Davis and Carin Lee McKinney (right, respectively) were easy on the eyes, but their voices were not as true to the ears on “Blue Bayou” and “One Night Only.”
Among Hollywood-bound contestants for Season 7, Davis might have represented the greatest differential between looks and voice quality—not because she had that terrible a voice, but because she was that pretty. McKinney had more talent to match a look that was equal parts Katharine McPhee and sneaky-hot Lindsey Cardinale, but her otherwise-great rendition of “One Night Only” seemed to drip with affect. Potential, though.
From model-types to a plus-sized model, Hoboken’s JoAnne Borgella (left) was fine. No complaints, but I’m not exactly raving either. She’s probably in the middle of the pack of 164 heading to Hollywood.
And then there’s the matter of Alesha Stelzl, who might rival fellow blond Josiah Leming for VoteForTheWorst.com’s endorsement. The only thing about her that screams platinum is her hair. More about Stelzl and the rest of the episode after the break.
Given a second chance after her first audition was so blatantly awful, Stelzl returned to sing Dolly Parton’s chorus—all four notes of it—on “Islands in the Stream.” So while I didn’t comprehend Randy Jackson and Paula Abdul’s votes of approval, I couldn’t have agreed more with Simon Cowell’s assessment of Stelzl’s second chance: “That wasn’t the ending I wanted.” I searched for her photo via AmericanIdol.com and Fox’s PR site, but came up empty—maybe because I didn’t really want to find it. You can find a screen-grab photo of Stelzl halfway down this page in the meantime.
One random judge moment I enjoyed, however, was the exchange between Cowell and Ryan Seacrest with regard to the glitter left behind by a contestant who nicknamed himself “J. Smoove.” Cowell’s a funny cat, deliberately abandoning his awkward dustpan technique when told the cameras were off.
I don’t care enough about the rest of the contestants from Filler Night to document them, especially the whole creepy/fake/creepy fake “Three’s Company” bit. Blech.
The burden is now on the 164 remaining contestants to impress (or depress) me enough to mention their performances in the Hollywood rounds.
(Photos courtesy of AmericanIdol.com/Fox)
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, February 6th, 2008 at 11:31 pm by Chris Serico.
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