"On The Lot: Competition Week 3

(originally published on 6/12 at the now-defunct www.poweredbyshows.com)

A lot of movie nerds have already turned on the Spielberg-Burnett collaboration On The Lot, a reality television competition for budding directors all vying for one big prize: $1,000,000 and a movie deal at Dreamworks. I, however, am sticking by it through all its format changes, its egotistical directors an its extremely lousy host. Many have complained of the wishy-washiness of the judges, including Carrie Fisher and Gary Marshall, but that ignores a solid principle of reality television: nobody really cares what the judges have to say. If anything, it’s just an amusing distraction while you remember the phone number of the contestant you already know you’re voting for.

Last night brought in the third week of competition, and the second week where one-third of the contestants get to show three-minute version of their submission films and get judged on their own merits and not the limits given by the show during the show’s first week (i.e. original one-minute comedies). It continued to separate the boys/girls from the men/women, and if the show got better ratings could account for some good water cooler talk (e.g. “They got rid of Trever? WTF?!").

Being the critic and film school graduate I am, I have every right to pick apart each of the five films from last night.

Contestant: Andrew Hunt
Film: Polished

Critique: The best film of the night, it had a tone to it that while attracting a bit of a primetime commercial feel (as pointed out by guest judge David Frankel) still contained a playful spirit lacking in some of the overthought and overwrought other films in the competition. The tale of an ignored office janitor who gets his revenge on those who took him for granted. Unlike other contestants, Andrew knows to bring a different sense of filmmaking to each genre he approaches, and instead of the wacky flourishes of, say, Marty Martin, he knows when to tone it down. He is quickly becoming one of my favorite directors on the show for his ability to adapt and tell great stories.

Contestant: David May
Film: Love At First Shot

Critique: I liked the film far more than the bewildered judges, having gotten the night’s biggest laugh from yours truly, but I will admit to it adding up to very little at the end. I didn’t appreciate David’s reliance on cliches (the poorly matched date between a nerd and a bombshell didn’t add anything new), but the other half of the story, where a clumsy Cupid tries to fire his arrow into the date, was quirky and Monty Python-esque in its absurdity. I know from the show (and from a friend, who knew David when they were both students at Chapman) that he intended to be an actor before pursuing directing, and his style lacks confidence and a lot of tact (the scene was overexposed to high holy heaven). Still, not bad.

Contestant: Shira-Lee Shalit
Film: Beeline

Critique: A very odd film helped along by a perfect sense of style, capturing the Woody Allen atmosphere of Manhattan. An urbanite mother, worried that her young son will get the wrong impression from her recent sexual trysts, goes around town convincing her former beaus (and one belle) to pretend they don’t know each other. This film received half my phone votes (the other being, of course, “Polished") based on the confidence of the style/content combination, even if the latter wasn’t enough to make me truly love it. Still, I think Shira-Lee has a chance to tell some really intimate dramedies in the future after this competition, so I want to see her stay.

Contestant: Marty Martin
Film: Dance With The Devil

Critique: An absolute mess of a film posing as a Tony Scott tour de force along the lines of “Man on Fire” and “Domino,” this is all flash and no story. A quick vignette about a man being unable to pay back mob loans, ending up with his death, portrays exactly what’s wrong with some of the big flash-bang blockbusters polluting theatres. All color filters and subtitles (even though the characters spoke English), unnecessary jump cuts and flash-forwards, this man has no idea how to tell a story. The fact that he rudely insulted Carrie Fisher for her critique speaks volumes about his unchecked ego, and while I’m sure he’ll last in the competition, he represents a terrible film school niche that never gave a crap during their screenwriting courses. He doesn’t realize that the directors he’s ripping off started their careers in much quieter, story-driven films that gave them the right to bring forth their unique styles in later films. He has not one original bone in his body.

Contestant: Kenny Luby
Film: Edge of the End

Critique: Still one of the most obnoxious filmmakers of the group, this skateboard film-inspired guy has no clue what a plot is made of: a beginning, a middle and an end. Sure, one is allowed to mix it up, but he does it to the point that his stories are a blur of hyperactive and headache-inducing camera tricks. He’s all about pretty colors and jolting visuals, but a director must must must must must first connect to his audience before anything else. He wreaks of film theory ignorance and stands out as a mistake for those who let him join the competition in the first place. This film, about the troubles of alcoholism, is absolutely useless.

Summary: David will probably go home, since this show seems to follow more of a popularity contest mold (more American Idol than Project Runway) and puts some elements of talent and storytelling second. I do, however, look forward to the remaining films next week, and hope for the show to finally catch on with viewers bored by reruns on E!

Why "America's Got Talent" is Part of the Problem

(original published at the now-defunct www.poweredbyshows.com)

Just to set things absolutely straight before we go on, I am a very big fan of reality television. Despite the fact that since last March Entertainment Weekly has declared the absolutely true notion that we are currently living in a “Golden Age of Television” in this country, there is still a very large percentage of poorly written, formulaic garbage on network TV we as an audience have to sift through in order to get to the good stuff. (This also would be due to the fact that a good portion of this Golden Age programming happens to not be on the Big Four.) This is where reality TV comes in: for those of us sick and tired of the same police procedurals and sloppy characterization, shows such as Survivor, Big Brother, The Amazing Race, American Idol, America’s Next Top Model and Hell’s Kitchen sort of circumvent that process and give us what we as viewers truly demand: unabashed entertainment. You can gripe all you want about its blight on the television landscape, but it has opened up the industry to nearly twice as many news jobs (consider all the editors and writers needed for each show) and have the ability to be far more interesting and unpredictable (it’s the nature of the best of the shows) than another family drama.

Just like any genre, though, reality TV has its share of groaners. Other than a few random series watched more for the novelty than for the entertainment (Average Joe, For Love Or Money, Joe Millionaire, Mr. Personality), I have avoided nearly all dating shows. Same goes with wife-swapping shows and programs that have “nanny” in the title. These are stinkers. But one that truly gets my goat is NBC’s smash summer hit America’s Got Talent.

Nothing against David Hasselhoff, but this is a pretty awful show that tries to ride the line between Chuck Barris Gong Show ridiculousness and American Idol competition and tends to fail time and time again. It preys on our interest as an audience that we want to see train wrecks happen onstage, but this rubbernecking is something that has led to ineffective nightly news and the muckraking of such pundits as Bill O’Reilly. It’s stupid without being funny, and cruel without being constructive. It’s a freakshow and nothing more.

In the best reality competitions, the contestants have to possess skills in order to move ahead, hence the combined popularity and good critical reception of such programs as Top Chef, Project Runway, Project Greenlight and early seasons of The Apprentice. The participants cannot get by on silly tricks but instead must step forward and pretty much rock the show’s foundation. Not so with America’s Got Talent. In this talent show mess, people from across the country show acts that they believe can earn them $1,000,000. Problem is, no magic show or small animal act is worth even a fraction of that, nor are circus/sideshow tricks designed for birthday parties. These people either expose their delusions, which is pathetic even on megahit American Idol, or simply want their 15 minutes of fame, something the best reality shows refuse to dole out. It’s a formula for obnoxious, unwatchable television.

The bad acts don’t entertain, the good acts belong on other shows, and against the conceit of the show that the program is intended for a variety of great acts, a singer will without question win if left up to the vote of the American people...which it is. I’d love to see a show where contestants bring forth advances in sociological or technological or political advances and allowing the show to fund their dreams and help them reach the people who can really make a difference in the world. It might not work as a show, but I won’t feel like I’ll need a shower after watching it, either. Reality television can one day change the world, and while I am very delighted with most of the good entertainment reality television brings forth, I also support it for what it can do.

What I Did For Nigel Lythgoe: Five Reasons Why "So You Think You Can Dance" is a Better Show than "American Idol"

Tomorrow night marks the premiere of the third season of Fox's runaway summer hit dance show "So You Think You Can Dance," an electric set of 22 episodes that, in a way, pulls you directly into the world that is Media Whore. I've made no secret of my love of musicals, and the show my circle dubs as "Dancey Dance" (or what Stevi calls "So You Think You Wear Pants") fits right into that equation.

I give you five reasons, among many, why "Dancey Dance" is a better show than "American Idol." This is assuming that the show stuck with the voting process of the second season, a vast improvement over the first season. True, in the past I've always mentioned that "American Idol" is a great show in the way that it truly affects our future as a pop culture nation and really rallies for a voting public, and those are ways that makes "AI" better than "Dancey Dance," but for the purposes of this article, it should be noted that each show is better than the other in different ways. I know, I'm crazy.

1. "Dancey Dance," after an audition process similar to "AI"--except Hollywood week becomes Vegas week--the dancers are whittled down into a final 20 to perform and compete at a soundstage at CBS Television City right around the corner from the "AI" stage. These 20 (10 male, 10 female) are then paired together by the judges after weighing their strengths and weaknesses. Catch is, you are stuck with your partner for the first five weeks. This means it is a constant struggle in the show to not only improve week-after-week upon yourself, but to also lift your partner along with you. Sometimes the pairing can be incredibly bizarre, and often times one contestant will have to carry a contestant into the next round with all the vigor they can muster up. This makes for a remarkable challenge, both for the contestant and for the viewer, as a talented individual who, say, doesn't work well with others, can find themselves going home.

Other times, it works out in a magnificent way. Contestants will start to grab bits and pieces of energy from their partners they never had before, making them better contestants. A bond forms. (And sometimes maybe a little romance, as I thought when it came to the pairing of Natalie and Mousa.) A perfect example would be the pairing of Allison, a trained jazz dancer from Utah who has a small appearance in "High School Musical," and Ivan, an Eastern Russian immigrant who was known more as a street dancer and "pop-and-lock'er." Judges gave Ivan a lot of crap early on, as he was struggling with the very difficult material that was way out of his league and seemed to be a leech on Allison's talent. After several weeks later, however, Ivan began to pick up this wonderful contemporary vibe from Allison he sorely lacked, and she finally got some flavor into her vanilla moves. The below YouTube clip signifies their best performance. (Keep in mind, all linked videos save for one were dances that made it to the "Dancey Dance" tour, which I caught in Oakland with my mom and sister.) *choreographed by Tyce Dioro*



2. In the voting process introduced in the second season, the show differed greatly in its first half than the second half of the program's run. During the aforementioned rock-solid couplings, viewers voted for their favorite pairs. The bottom three pairs would then perform solo numbers, apart from each other, on the results show. However, the lowest scores didn't necessarily go home, as the home viewers never found out what that was. Instead, the judges would send home the couple they deemed necessary. That's right, the judges. This means that for every show between the top 20 and the top 10, there would be little chance of someone less talented eking by for weeks, or pretty much what happens every year on "AI." If they suffered, they suffered the consequences.

Better yet, the judges truly weighed that contestant's/couple's entire run of the show, going from auditions to now, so unlike "AI" a bad performance would perhaps not entirely destroy their chances of moving on in the competition. This is a breath of fresh air for those who mourn the loss of many an "AI" contestant who just had a bad week. Only one villain really existed in the second half of "Dancey Dance's" second season, Dmitriy, but he was still a very talented individual.

During the Top 10, the couples disintegrate and are randomly chosen, and the voting process turns to the viewers to eliminate individual dancers (one male, one female) each week, and at that point in the competition everyone should be at around the same level.

3. In "AI," producers and vocal coaches are indeed there to suggest songs to the contestants, but the final decision still belongs to the singer. Not so in "Dancey Dance." The judges themselves are the choreographers (save for Nigel, executive producer of both "Dancey Dance" and "AI," who is still a trained dancer), so they know what the hell they're talking about. While each has a wildly different sense of style--compare Mia Michaels' bizarre but beautiful contemporary repertoire to Mary Murphy's rigid ballroom protocals, or Dan Karaty's safe hip-pop boy band music video moves to Shane Sparks' wild and balls-out freedom that informed his choreography in "You Got Served"--they all respect each other's fields, and know how to discuss such things in detail.

4. Since the judges do the choreography (when they choreograph, they are not allowed to judge that week, but return in later weeks), they are given free reign to push the dancers to the limit. There is no pussyfooting around, and if you can't do the Cuban rumba that Alex da Silva is teaching you, you'd better believe you're going to look like a fool out there on the dance floor. This forces a contestant to not only break out of their comfort zone--true, that happens in "AI" sometimes, but even in country week singers find a way to bring it back to their strengths--but to put up or shut up. There is no lying back while your fans rally around you, because if you don't make that lift look spectacular, you're exposed. This makes for a constant flow of energy and pizzaz every single episode, and it's infectious. Admire what Ms. Michaels does to the top 10 dancers in this clip, having them find their inner spirits, make them trust that they don't look like clowns even with some borderline foolish-looking moves, and get them to connect their story to the audience.



5. I've said it before and I'll say it again: there is nothing more exciting, energetic and erotic than a great dance sequence. They get you pumped and feeling alive. They get you to move to the rhythm of life, which is indeed a powerful beat. And if done right, they get you the girl, figuratively speaking (or literally, depending on your circumstances and skills). "Dancey Dance" understands this, and isn't just a sort of reality television regurgitation for the masses. (Yes, I hate "Dancing with the Stars" with a passion.) It hits you on an emotional level on almost every occasion, something "AI" can only boast with a handful of contestants. Let's look at runner-up Travis' contemporary dance with third-place Heidi, using a song featured in one of the greatest modern movies most people have never seen, "Baghdad Cafe." *choreographed by Mia Michaels*



I've said so much about how great the show is without even mentioning the great first season the show had, or even the winner of season two, the supremely talented Benji. It's so good, I don't even have to. But I leave you with the final and unofficial sixth reason why "Dancey Dance" is better than "AI"--"AI" doesn't have zombies. *choreographed by Wade Robinson*

The 8th step of addiction recovery would be very odd in this situation

So, I just voted 100 times for Jordin Sparks to win "American Idol." I know the first step of addiction recovery is admitting you have a problem, and I wholeheartedly admit that I fall under this category, but there is no part of me that wants to quit the drug that is "American Idol." Sorry.

During today's final performance night, though, one thing did strike me as incredibly awkward: Marlee Matlin was in the audience.

You Can't Get It Right Every Year: How "American Idol" Just Broke My Heart

*sigh* Yes, I was a Melinda Doolittle fan. Yes, she was just sent home on "American Idol" last night. And yes, I'm still pretty angry about the whole thing. Sure, I get attached to singers on the show every year, just to see them whither and die in the competition or make a misstep that costs them every thing they've worked for on the weeks on the show preceding. There's no real science involved with who goes through round-after-round on this gargantuan ratings hit, but there is an art to the same idea. Really, I knew Melinda was going to go home, but for the first time in a while, I just didn't want to believe it.

I'm sure I'm not the only one in the country to say it, but I consider myself a sort of scholar of this particular television show. Anyone who followed my writings at the Los Angeles Loyolan knows I spent an unhealthy amount of space writing about this yearly phenomenon, often in ways that I'm sure cost me the small amount of readers who actually took the time to peruse my personal articles aside from my more objective critical pieces. In season 3 when Jennifer Hudson was booted from the show after only reaching seventh place, I placed an ad, separate from my own personal column, with a false obituary, putting the date of her ousting below that of her picture. My editors looked at me funny, but I kept it. Now she has an Oscar, is in the midst of probably creating one of the biggest R&B albums of this decade and has been requested by Ms. Franklin herself to star in the early-in-development biopic of Aretha. Bottom line: listen to me.

Sure, I've backed other losers like Paris Bennett (season 5, fifth place), Constantine Maroulis (season 4, sixth place), Nadia Turner (season 4, eighth place), Kimberley Locke (season 2, third place), Gina Glockson (season 6, ninth place) and my Bay Area darling LaToya London (season 3, fourth place). But with the exception of a couple, each went home exactly when I thought they would. It's really difficult to know what America wants in a singer week-after-week, and when their story no longer seems interesting, really, it's time to go.

Case in point: season five's golden boy wasn't Taylor Hicks, but Chris Daughtry. Now, let's put aside that his debut album has sold about 17 wackydongzillion albums (I think that's the official amount as of yesterday's Billboard charts) and has probably outperformed the combined sales of the three contestants who did better than him that season (those being Taylor Hicks, Katherine McPhee and Elliott Yamin). He has that voice that alternative rock stations love: you know, sort of Grunge 2.0, kind of like Fuel and Nickelback and Staind and all that other crap but more sellable to the masses and, more importantly, the teenage girls who made sure that "Titanic" will always be the biggest box office champion of all time. Here was a man who auditioned for "Rock Star: INXS" but was rejected, forcing him to move to a more family-friendly venue.

Now, when he was ousted, the country went up in arms. There was more of an outcry for a recount for him than it ever was with Al Gore or John Kerry. Thing is, I called it the moment he sang "Suspicious Minds" during Elvis week. I had the privilege of attending the "American Idol" dress rehearsal a week earlier for the top 5. Really, there's not much to the untrained eye that would make the dress rehearsal more interesting. It's merely for the singers' own benefit, as the clips that attach to the respective phone numbers at the end of the real live show happen to be taken from the dress rehearsal (in case you've ever sat through a live show, and then wondered why the clips at the end "didn't feel right").

But to a true fan of the show, it was a lot more subtle of a discovery. With the top four of Taylor, Katherine, Elliott and Chris, I saw their true colors and what put them into the final positions: how their fans treated them, and how they treated their fans. Taylor, of course, had his infamous Soul Patrol, made up mostly of women above 35 who swooned over, as David Spade once referred to him, "an overweight, grey-haired, slightly retarded Southerner." Taylor ate up every moment of this, gave them his full attention when he could, and seemed genuinely respectful of these people who had made him their lives for the four-five months of the show's duration. Elliott was the same: he had a loyal fan base, not nearly as large as Taylor's but one that really let their freak flags fly. He was kind and grateful, and enjoyed having their company and fed off their energy.







Katherine, on the other hand, was an Ice Queen in big capital letters. After each of her songs, Ryan spoke with her for a moment and recited the phone numbers necessary to vote for her, and she immediately walked off the stage the first moment she could. No wave to the crowd, no acknowledgement, no nothing. Really, I don't feel she ever really had much of a fan base, those with "McPheever," but I can tell you what she did have: a beautiful face and great tits. It's the 21st century, but great tits will still get you pretty much everything you want. Except for a top spot in a reality competition and an album that's anything other than excruciatingly lame! (Zing!)

What surprised me, though, was that Chris did almost the same thing, but with that very frightening scowl of his. Yikes. I knew how he treated his fans, and karma's a bee-eye-itch my friend.

Therein lies my very longwinded explanation of why I'm usually right when it comes to "American Idol." Sorry you had to go through that, but really, everybody and their mother (literally) seems to watch this show, as it does not focus on any age group or gender demographic, and is watched pretty much equally in all states. (Except for Montana, where I hear they have horses instead of televisions.) It's a lesson I learned and have been able to apply with the following season (this one). Really, predicting "Idol" is a continuous learning experience. You have to pay attention to the trends and the signs. If Simon wants somebody off that week, he shouldn't praise them (to energize that singer's fan base) or completely demolish them (which REALLY energizes that singer's fan base out of protection), but merely say "that was okay." Apathy and wishy-washiness equates to death on "Idol."

Other items I learned over the years:

-Nobody likes "gospel jaw." (Bye, Jennifer Hudson)
-Hot legs without showing off your boobs barely gets you halfway. (Enjoy your fiancee, Haley Scarnato.)
-Having eye sex with the crowd and the camera each week gets old. (How's that two-week stint on "The Bold and the Beautiful," Constantine Maroulis?)
-Don't have the same hairstyle each week, then suddenly change it. (Fuck off, Ace Young.)
-Don't be a black person who can't sing. (White people are more forgiving of their tone-deaf kin.)

Hell, it didn't even surprise me when this year's villain Sanjaya Malakar made it all the way to the top 7 with nary a note on key at any point after Hollywood Week. True, I wanted him gone with every fiber of my being, and definitely shed a tear when he was chosen to stay over the incredible voice that is Gina Glockson (too rock-n-roll for America, to state another "Idol" trend).

To continue to precede my true thoughts on why Melinda is gone, I have to deal with another topic. (I'm sorry I'm sorry, but for every person who thinks I'm just going crazy with all this "Idol" talk, there are four out there who know exactly what the eff I'm talking about.) That being this whole controversy on Howard Stern's show as to why, say, Sanjaya finally left and how the show truly picks who goes home each week. See, Stern's show, along with the website votefortheworst.com, were trying to really pull a prank on TV-watching America by asking their fans and visitors to vote for Sanjaya Malakar to stay in the competition. Both pretty much claim it was their doing that made him last so long. When he finally left, one of Howard's "insiders" at "Idol" said it was because the producers sent him home, not America. This guy claims that while most of the "paperwork has already been shredded," everyone knew that it was producers Simon Fuller and Nigel Lythgoe who made the decision, and apparently make the decision every week, about who stays and who goes based on buzz and ratings. Each week, he comes on to say who will be off next, and can be right.






Now, I have a major problem with Howard Stern. I used to be a fan, but I don't like the person he has become since moving onto Sirius radio. I don't listen to him enough to really speak of his new show in detail, but my mother listens to his full show everyday and relays these things to me. But there are some really big issues with these claims, in no particular order.

1. To rig a game show is illegal. Seriously. It absolutely is. There is a law specific to television game shows for such a thing. Hell, Robert Redford made an entire movie about what created this law. It's called "Quiz Show," it got a fuckload of Oscar noms, and it isn't a bad movie. Howard's insider claims that the voting process on "Idol" is done so that nobody but the producers can actually check on the numbers, so it's their word against everybody else if they cheated. Now, this seems far-fetched for anybody who cares about this show, because why would they bite the 30 million hands that feed them? This doesn't take into account the long-lasting presence of such "Idol" duds as Scott Savol (s4), Anthony Federov (s4), Jasmine Trias (s3), Diana DeGarmo (s3 final two), Carmen Rasmusen (s2) and our very own Sanjaya. But I can tell you why each of these contestants made it as far as they did. Seriously. I wouldn't even break an intellectual sweat.

The insider finally made a wrong move this week and said that the producers were going to get rid of Blake Lewis, the sole remaining eye candy for girls on the show. Wrong!

2. Howard has been struggling like crazy with his ratings ever since moving to satellite radio. Sure, he likes to tell you how many new subscribers come to the service each month solely because of him (which you can't really prove one way or the other) and how much praise he gets, but really, I think Sirius Radio made a $500 million dollar mistake. A good deal of people don't know that a lot of these new subscribers aren't subscribers at all. Sirius bought the opportunity to have their service installed in a series of new car models (forgot which specifically) and are counting those toward their subscriber numbers. So let me make it clear: Sirius is counting the radios they personally paid for in cars that haven't even been bought yet, that are simply sitting in lots across the country. Way to boost your numbers Enron-style, assholes.

Howard also happens to be a huge fan of reality television. Seriously. He can't stop talking about the latest developments of "Survivor," "Big Brother," et al, but he seems to have a problem with "Idol." Why? I think it's because it's far and away the biggest hit American television has had in years ("Grey's Anatomy" and "CSI," while juggernauts, can't even TOUCH what "Idol" has), and he's just trying to stir up shit to boost his own ratings. People are talking about him in relation to Sanjaya's long "Idol" life in great numbers. Hell, I'm doing it. Fuck this, I can't give him anymore press, as small as it may be.

3. A good predictor of "Idol" results, though it took me a few years to believe it, would be dialidol.com, which is a service one downloads to speed-dial your favorite contestants, then with pretty damn good accuracy tells you who is going home this week due to the amount of busy signals each contestant gets. They say they were 87% accurate with season 5 predictions, which is honestly better than most pop culture publications such as ew.com and zap2it.com. They've been pretty dead-on this year, and finally, last night, they decided it was too close to call a winner, just as they did last year when Taylor, Katherine and Elliott each received 33% of the vote, plus a few different decimals. Howard's insider (dammit, I'm doing it again), as aforementioned, said Blake was going home. Nope, it was Melinda.

4. Sanjaya stayed on because he was a young teenage boy, cute in a very odd kind of way, was unthreatening and unassuming, didn't stir the pot, had a sister who also auditioned and made it to Hollywood week and was probably incredibly gay (for that good ol' Clay Aiken vote). He was voted off when that became boring. Each week he stayed was not a surprise. Not by a longshot. It wasn't Howard. It wasn't votefortheworst.com. In a show that got around 60 million votes for this week's competition, I cannot believe that either's relatively small fanbase had any kind of impact on the voting. This is the kind of program that got all of Ruben Studdard's hometown in Alabama to vote hundreds of times until the voting time ran out. "Idol" fans are RAVENOUS, and no stupid shock jock or lousy website can really affect that with any true seriousness.

---

Now, onto Melinda Doolittle. She has, in my opinion, the best voice I've heard on "American Idol" in the five years I've watched it (sorry, didn't really get into season one until the final damn episode). Clay Aiken and Jennifer Hudson are the other two, but both have a tendency to go wildly over-the-top, and hence neither one won the competition. My mother is a rabid Claymate, so I choose my words wisely (she goes across the country for his concerts, used to sell his old demos to benefit his foundation, and has a painted portrait of Mr. Aiken hanging on the wall in her office), but Melinda really did have something special. And she brought it week after week.

Herein lies the problem: she was great. Every single week. Every. Single. Song. This may sound incredibly odd to outsiders, but completely normal for those in the "Idol" loop, but being consistently great doesn't get people fired up.

She started off with a great origin story, though. After graduating from Belmont Unversity in music, for years she's been toiling as a back-up singer for such acts as CeCe Winans, Aaron Neville and "Idol's" own George Huff (s3, fifth place), and has never really had much confidence in her abilities, at least not enough to be a headliner. She came to the auditions on a whim after her accompanying friends suggested she try out, and she was the only one who went through. For much of the first half of this season, her story has been a heartwarming yarn about breaking out of her comfort zone and finally allowing herself to be the star she was destined to be.

Unfortunately, that story disappeared once everyone jumped on the "what the fuck is Sanjaya still doing on the show" bandwagon. It's a fickle world on "Idol," and when you're not the center of attention, your days are numbered.

But she just kept on being great, with each theme, which each mentor, with each and every note. There was absolutely nothing wrong with anything she did, and that's just not what "Idol" audiences like. They like a roller coaster. They like bad weeks from which you can recover, allowing that your fans give you that chance with enough votes. Both Jordin Sparks and Blake Lewis (this season's final two) have had bad weeks, and each have actually had awful weeks. But all this does is serve to ignite a match and start a fire underneath their collective and respective fan bases, hoping that they can come back strong. And they have. Not as strongly as Melinda, but enough to create a story.

Melinda is now free to make a great album away from the controlling hands of 19 Entertainment, who pretty much entirely owns these people for the duration of recording and promoting their first album. It's worked for Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood (still the only two "Idol" winners to really become more than that), but it's interesting to listen to Clay Aiken and Taylor Hicks talk about how much their creative spirit had been crushed by the company. Now Melinda can do whatever the fuck she wants, and just like I'm itching to pick up Paris Bennett's debut album, I will be the first in line to pick up Mindy Doo's triumphant debut. Fuck that idea that she's not marketable (she isn't as much as Jordin or Blake, but she's still got a lot going on), and fuck that idea that nobody cares. A great voice will always find its way to the top, even if it takes years.

I bid you adieu Melinda. And if Jordin Sparks doesn't win "Idol," I may return for more insane bloggage. That girl's got some pipes.