We knocked 'em deader!

Willow ,'Lies My Parents Told Me'


Non-Fiction TV: I Reject Your Reality and Substitute My Own

This thread is for non-fiction TV, including but not limited to reality television (So You Think You Can Dance, Top Chef: Masters, Project Runway), documentaries (The History Channel, The Discovery Channel), and sundry (Expedition Africa, Mythbusters), et al. [NAFDA]


Amy - Mar 16, 2011 6:09:58 pm PDT #16374 of 23273
Because books.

If Mike Isabella wins this season, I may never watch again. Blech.


kat perez - Mar 16, 2011 6:11:33 pm PDT #16375 of 23273
"We have trust issues." Mylar

JLo manages to make a cheesy Stevie Nicks leopard print dress look sexy in a Xanadu kind of way. I hate IGB so of course I hate IGB: Japan Edition. What do I love though? Steven Tyler’s continued journey through the ladies department at Filene’s Basement. How many ruffled, patterned shirts do you think this fool actually has?

Ryan’s hair is out of control. We do not like. JLo’s hair is looking less sparkly this week, too. Like she needs some Prell or something.

Kids? Sigh. Wardrobe, hair and makeup people, please call your Narcotics Anonymous Sponsors. The program only works if you work it.

Songs from the year of your birth? Already? We usually don't get to this crappy theme until post-Top 10, no?

Naima/1984/What’s Love Got to Do With It/Tina Turner – I love her multi-culti Arrested Development family. But she did pick a good song. I absolutely think she could do well with this. Couch time with Jimmy IV? I can do without it. She’s always just two or three ticks under the pitch. I don’t know why that is. She gets better when she gets into the chorus, but I must admit she’s just in general not all that good. Beautiful girl. Buckets of charisma. But the voice is maybe not even good, just OK. I’m much more intrigued with why the wardrobe hos are so taken with shoulder duster earings this season or why she looks like she’s wearing little grey blocks of cement on her feet than anything she did with the song. Steven Tyler still loves her, and I do, too, but as Ms. Lopez brings up, she is consistently pitchy. Bring it, Jenny. Thank you, Randy. Under the pitch. Alright. We’re done with this one. You can roll with being off pitch and bad because it’s all about the feeling? Dismissed.


lisah - Mar 16, 2011 6:23:56 pm PDT #16376 of 23273
Punishingly Intricate

I'm tired of both of them.

SERIOUSLY!

I wonder if Isabella is still in DC? If he is, I'm going to go down there and kick his ass in the face! And I hate going to DC!


Amy - Mar 16, 2011 6:27:01 pm PDT #16377 of 23273
Because books.

kick his ass in the face!

Okay, I adore you.


kat perez - Mar 16, 2011 6:28:18 pm PDT #16378 of 23273
"We have trust issues." Mylar

Paul/1984/I Guess That’s Why They Call It the Blues/Elton John – This kid is the same age as Naima? Huh. He looks much older. Hard living or just the beard? You make the call. He was a gorgeous kid, though. The snippet of him in rehearsals made my ears bleed. He is going to be a nasally up in his nasal nightmare. And then he starts and it’s worse than I could have even imagined. Just . . . I don’t know. I feel like I’m being punked. Is he even singing notes? This is the worst thing I’ve heard on Idol since Camille did Goodbye Yellow Brick Road on this very same show. At least he’s not forgetting the words? That’s something, right? Right? No, that’s nothing because he is sucking so much ass that it might actually have been better if he had forgotten the word and just had to hum and stop bleating or whatever it was he thought he was doing which was in no way, shape or form singing. God. I’m so glad that stopped. JLo thinks that sounded good? She’s lost her damn mind. He didn’t overcome anything. And he sounded that bad last week. That’s not the cold. That’s just bad singing. And the Paul spin, Dawg? That’s just nasty bad, I guess. And Steven Tyler, I know you never watched this show before you first walked in with your jaunty scarves and funny hats, but we knew who William Hung was, too, just by the sound of his voice. Sanjaya, too. That didn’t make them good. Distinctive is not always a good thing.

Thia/1995/Colors of the Wind/Vanessa Williams – That’s not even a real birth year. This child is a fetus. Of course she still remembers all the words to the song she wrote when she was 6. That was yesterday. And the Pocahontas song? More Disney shit? Really? She must want to go home. That’s what it is. So, so bored. I’m so bored. What does this girl have? What are other people seeing that I’m not seeing. Because honestly with this performance? I don’t think she could even get a job as a performer at one of the theme parks. The band is totally overpowering her and . . . yep, I think I just fell asleep. Nice chain mail dress? You have on too much blush? Those are the good things I can think of about this performance. I’m gonna focus on Randy’s blue tweed jacket because at least that’s entertaining. She has no deeper, Dawg, because she’s only a minute old. Steven Tyler, she doesn’t know who she is. Because she’s only a minute old. I love that JLo is now like, “You know, we thought you were really good and you could shut it down singing. But now I’m thinking we were just on that crack. Prove me wrong and bring it if you can, but I don’t know if you can.” She can’t, JLo. Y’all made a bad choice putting her in the Top 13. Just admit and let her go.

Oh, good lord, tonight's been bad so far. And there are still 9 of them.


lisah - Mar 16, 2011 6:28:39 pm PDT #16379 of 23273
Punishingly Intricate

Likewise, Amy!


Lee - Mar 16, 2011 6:36:20 pm PDT #16380 of 23273
The feeling you get when your brain finally lets your heart get in its pants.

I wonder if Isabella is still in DC? If he is, I'm going to go down there and kick his ass in the face! And I hate going to DC!

OOOH, I could do this with you!


lisah - Mar 16, 2011 6:37:09 pm PDT #16381 of 23273
Punishingly Intricate

It is ON, Perkins!! (When are you in DC?! Or is planning still in the works?)


kat perez - Mar 16, 2011 6:41:16 pm PDT #16382 of 23273
"We have trust issues." Mylar

James/1989/I’ll Be There For You/Bon Jovi - Gokey 2.0 getting the pimp stool. Yick. And the blinky is back. I know he can’t help it, but that’s not my problem. The blinky has got to go. And he was a ham and a cheesball when young? The hell you say. It’s a wonder that he’s so authentic and retiring today. I love this Bon Jovi song and I think he will crush it. Goddammit. He’s so going to the finale. Sigh. Well, he started off completely off pitch. That made me a little happy. And he continued off pitch. Now I’m wondering if there’s something glitchy in the studio. Maybe they can’t hear themselves? Because every one has been off pitch tonight. And almost all of them under. And the scream was painful. That’s the worst he’s done in weeks on a song he should’ve killed. The judges will be all up his butt, and on the real it was better than anyone else so far tonight, but it wasn’t what you’d call good. Randy calls out the pitch problems. I hate this season so much for making me continually agree with the Dawg. And this fool is so cocky. Already. Cookie Monster didn't get to this level of cockiness until maybe top 5. Ugh. I just hate him. "Rich vein of inner crazy." I love it. That may be my favorite Tyler-ism ever. And it’s been wasted on Gokey 2.0.

Haley/1990/I’m Your Baby Tonight/Whitney Houston – Mom and dad are . . . wow. I see where she gets her fashion sense. Don’t know if the voice comes from there. The snippet of mom singing Black Velvet sounded good, though, so maybe. This is lone of my favorite Whitney songs of all time and from one of her best albums. She will need to work it out. This tune’s no joke. And she’s off pitch, too. And she’s never off pitch. Well, now I’m thinking maybe it’s something in the mix for broadcast. She was able to get it back in tune in a way the other kids have not been able to. By the end, she sounded really, really good, even though she did run out of breath on that break. JLo needs to lose that “baby” tic. It’s not even cute. Ryan getting the lipstick off of her chin? So cute. So, so cute. And of course he noticed. Of course. Randy needs to give up the “Get back in your box” message. It’s not her fault that he’s confused. Randy’s not all that smart. I agree with Steven Tyler that she does have that bluesy quality and it did come out a little on the end. On a night where no one else has really been on pitch, though, she for the most part hit all her notes, which makes her automatically the best.

Pia/1988/Where Do Broken Hearts Go/Whitney Houston – Dueling Whitneys. Interesting. And they’re doing the disco version, and she’s dressed like Thelma Houston which is appropriate, I suppose. This is a horrible, horrible arrangement of this song. I guess they decided she needed to do something more up tempo after so many ballads. But forget all that, because she sounds amazing. I was not knowing at all about this girl, but she can straight up blow. No pitch problems here. She sang her behind off on that tune. She hit every single note. It was hot. Even though the arrangement was awful. Amazing vocals every night. For real. She hasn’t missed yet. It’s so hard for girls to win Idol, but if things were based solely on vocals, she’d have a real shot.

Scotty/1993/Can I Trust You With My Heart/Travis Tritt – He was a chunky monkey. Hee! Love mom. And they’re so game, singing that Josh Turner song. They're fun. I just realised that with this theme, hey’ve found a way to give him yet another week to sing country music. Diabolical. Maybe they’re just going to do personal themes all season (Billboard Top 100, Songs of the 2000s, etc.) until this fool just wins. Anyway, he’s doing a really nice job with this song, as he should. But this show is not Country Star. This is American Idol. La Underwood didn’t become who she was until she tore the house down with Alone. Even the Pickle and Bucky Covington went outside of their comfort zones. This kids is just boring me. And the judges just keep giving him nonsense critiques. “Just keep doing you.” “Keep learning, keep growing.” Just nonsense and hot air and no one wants to tell him that he seems to have taken a wrong turn on his way to CMT to try out for Country Star. Miranda Lambert came out of that show and she won a Grammy this year. But she knew enough not to go on American Idol. He should’ve followed in her footsteps.

Karen/1989/Love Will Lead You Back/Taylor Dane – Why do they always subtitle the latinos? Karen’s mom doesn’t have perfect English, but you can understand her. She doesn’t need subtitles. Taylor Dane has a huge voice. Wow. I don’t believe at all that this girl has a big belter’s voice like Taylor Dane. I can’t see this ending well. The crazy Star Trek dress is bad enough, but when you pair the suede thigh high boots with it, well, it just goes to the Star Trek porn parody place. And she’s fine pitchwise. But her voice is so thin and reedy. She just does not have enough power behind her voice to sing this song. And it’s so old fashioned and just not relevant right now. Steven Tyler gives her the ethnic what-it-is-ness, but I don’t see it. And JLo basically tells her that she didn’t have the voice for this song and shouldn’t have picked it. Which is true. (JLo has such frustrating flashes of being a really great judge that it just irks me when she turns into an idiot like she did with Scotty) Moral of this story? Know your limits. These kids should get that tattooed on their eyelids. It was better than last week, but anything was bound to be better than last week. And yet still? Not good.


kat perez - Mar 16, 2011 7:37:47 pm PDT #16383 of 23273
"We have trust issues." Mylar

Tamyra and Mary Murphy? How random.

Casey/1991/Smells Like Teen Spirit/Nirvana – The parents are awesome. Love them. Love him. Love them and him. Why would people not get Nirvana? Jimmy IV, you mystify me. I think he’ll do well with Nirvana. Kurt Cobain had a really nice voice, quiet as it’s kept. The first part was good but the “Hellos” were painfully out of pitch. And he’s just taking advantage of the fact that people think rock and roll is just screaming on the back half of this song because all he did was just scream. But rock and roll is not just screaming. Thank goodness, JLo. Thank you for calling this fool out on screaming through the entire back half of this song. The judges can’t even front. He’s fearless? Try being a good singer for a change or else I can’t keep on liking you.

Lauren/1995/I’m the Only One/Melissa Etheridge – That flu she has? I have had that flu. That flu is nothing nice. I thought I was going to die. I damn sure couldn’t have gotten up and sung on a TV show. Props to her, because that flu is really, really nothing to play with. This is a great song, but I’m sure this kid has no idea what it’s about, so even if she technically sings it well, it won’t be good. This song worked so well for Melissa Etheridge because she infused it with pain and passion and longing so that it reached out of the radio and ripped your throat out. And she sounds like ass, but given that she has the flu, she sounds amazing. I kind of can’t believe she’s even up there singing. And as I thought, she’s clueless as to what the song is actually about. I wonder if she even knows she’s singing this song about another woman? The song would normally suit her voice if her voice wasn’t chewed up from the flu. And given what she was working with, she actually did a good job. Not as good as the judges made out, but overall, it was well done.

I am so scared that Jacob got the pimp slot.

Jacob/1987/Alone/Heart – Is he the oldest in the competition? Jacob’s mom is better than great. She’s great great. And he chose this song? Alone? Oh, no he di’in’t. In the footsteps of giants. Forget living up to Carrie. I doubt he can even live up to Allison’s version in the semi-final round. And right from the jump? Under the pitch. And up there in his purple shirt and doing that gospel bounce? He looks ridonkulous. And he’s off. So sharp and off off off off. How do I get you to stop singing? How about that? Y’all, you know it’s been a bad week when this crap gets the pimp slot. That was terrible. What a horrible way to end the night. It was just bad. Dawg, no one can be “genius” when he or she goes that sharp all the way through the middle of a song. The judges tried to pump this fool up, but just no.

Great this week:

Nobody

Very good this week:

Pia, Stefano

Good this week:

James, Haley, Scotty

Not that Great this Week but will get by on their fan bases:

Naima, Casey, Lauren

Bad this week but will get by on their fan bases:

Thia, Jacob

Just Plain Bad and in danger of going home:

Karen, Paul

I think Karen will go home this week even though she wasn’t actually the worst. That would be Paul or Thia.

And Lee as the former Idol guest tomorrow? Well, let’s just make sure that the entire week’s worth of Idol shows are shitty then, why don’t we?