Shoebox: This is necessarily going to be a very short review, because Shoemom's Benedict hate has rapidly expanded to all other aspects of the show except the singing. ("Fast-forward past that [Ben/Zany/vid-bio/audience holding signs]. I hate all that stuff.") I think I've created a monster...

Then again, missing out on Zany isn't actually the end of the world or anything. Also, trying to keep from speculating where Ben - who is starting to look alarmingly like Dad, esp. in a sport shirt - found a tub of Orange Crush to marinate in was really starting to creep me out. Did L'Oreal give him his own special Big Box o'Skin Products? And then they got too busy to show him how to use it?

OK, anyway, Canadian Hits. Intro bio actually fairly cool. Singing...took awhile to get to the cool, but when it got there, schwing!

Joe Dwarf: And.... here we go! Finally, this sucker kicks into gear. An actual entertaining 90 minutes (ok, maybe 30 less the commercials, Ben 'n' Zany, and several of the singers but still).

Shoebox: Josh...OK, before we go on, I would just like this: Josh is even now rehearsing Try in his ever-expanding quest for a surefire no-fail vote-getting performance. on my permanent record, inasmuch as it's the only correct Idol prediction I ever had or ever will make. Which more or less sucks. Because that performance couldn't have gotten more ordinary if they'd dressed the set as a basement rec room, complete with karaoke player. Sleepsincar, this was your third chance to show me you deserved to be here. Strike three called, yer out.

Joe Dwarf: Josh plays it safe as every single judge points out. Because, ya know, Bryan Adams, Glass Tiger and Steppenwolf are such way out, whoAH! wacky!! choices. Sounds like a creditable bar-band imitator rendition through the verse, loses it on the chorus, blowing all the falsetto-ish high notes. He'll be safe though

Shoebox: Favourite judicial moment: Zack telling Josh that "It was nice...and nice and mediocre is all you need at this stage." A decent chunk of audience: "Yay! Cheer!"...Apparently Pavlov's Dawgs have a Canadian auxiliary.

Speaking of Zack...just so you know, man, the Cowell jokes are officially played out now, OK? Thanks.

Brandy. Sigh...it's getting to be so predictable. Children, check. The Lord, check. Feeling the love, check. Great voice smothered by insanely dreary song selection? Check. Gone soon? Check.

Joe Dwarf: Brandy sang some Deborah Cox joint I've never heard. Sorry, I'm a shitkicker white guy from Saskatoon, I don't do urban. I thought she was as good as she's ever been, I actually enjoyed it. Some judge or other thought she looked great - I thought the look could have been greatly improved with one of those lawn-clipping size hefty bags overtop the whole shebang. She'll probably survive.

Shoebox: Shane...hee. Hee hee hee. That was...hee hee...oh, dear. Me: "So...this is what would happen when Donny Osmond tried to rock out, huh?" Shoemom: "Yes." Hee. Glass Tiger! Heeeeeee.

Joe Dwarf: Somebody had to choke, so long amateur fly-boy. This was the identical mistake that Karen-Lee made last year - pick a song that everyone, and I mean everyone, is sick to death of, a song that has been so thoroughly beaten into the ground by radio overplay that people don't even hear it anymore when it's played, and then do nothing remarkable with it. As one of the judges pointed out, he ran out of breath and he wasn't even going for the glory notes.

Shoebox: Manoah: For the last time, woman, buy a freakin' bra! We need to show that outfit to the people still outraged by Jasmine-in-chains from AI3 Big Band Night; they'll feel so much better. Singing? Did not distract me from the outfit. Apparently "pro" in her case means "wedding singer". That dark, morose man in the back is L. Cohen, making a mental note to never, ever let his songs onto Idol again.

Joe Dwarf: You know that teacher, the one who always tried to relate to the students? The one that never quite got that no matter what she does, she's still older and in a postion of authority and therefore Uncool by definition? The one that slightly creeps out the parents with her desperate attempts to fit in with the kids? Manoah is that teacher. The cheesy finger-pointing and swanky denim outfit from Winners really didn't help her sell one of Cohen's most beloved songs. If Shane doesn't go, she will.

Shoebox: Jason. Blows kisses to the audience. Calls Sass "baby". Is singing Cuts Like a Knife - the song about how his lover is hurting him like, well, you know - while wearing one of the biggest, goofiest "Hey! Looky me! Aren't I just tooooo cool!!!" smiles I have ever seen. I thought you had to literally share genetic material with Wayne Newton to achieve this level of cheeze. It's a complete mystery to me how Zack can't see through this guy. Stays, though. [sigh].

Joe Dwarf: Jason is proof positive the crack dealer hits the judge's tables during commercial breaks. What on god's green earth do they see in this guy? If you close your eyes, you hear a pretty good cover-band version of a Bryan Adams song. Even if you buy that we are looking for that level of performance in a contest like this, when you open your eyes, you just see a stinking pile of Velveeta with a side of smarm.

Shoebox: Kalan. One of the few vid-bios I managed to wrest away from Shoemom. The sight of that perm bobbing among a buffalo herd was one of the more entertainingly surreal moments of the night. Here in the present...Good on ya, Hobbit Boi. This is why I love this kid to death, unfortunate hair and all - because he in turn loves the music. The audience, the TV cameras, the chance to become Idol - nothing mattered to him during that performance except the sheer joy of rocking it out. OK, yes, it's Born to Be Wild, not La Traviata...but hey, it coulda been Glass Tiger. (Hee.) Stays, possibly forever.

Joe Dwarf: I want to hate this kid, I really do, but when you sing Born To Be Wild straight and make it work, you gotta get the respect. The title is his to lose.

Shoebox: Theresa sings Good Mother. That particular song has particularly intense emotional meaning to me...meaning she better damn well nail it. She did. Somehow, she created a performance that was both exquisitely faithful to the original and wholly her own. As great as Kalan is, she's the real artistic find of this competition. Stays, hopefully into a Top 2 I will enjoy for a change.

Joe Dwarf: She's really in the wrong competition. The tones and emotion she puts into this song (and anything else she sings) don't translate as well across the TV as a more forceful performance, plus I hesitate to see what happens if BMG gets hold of her. Not to worry, she'll place 3rd or 4th and go on to a long career ala Jann - acclaimed records, reasonable sales. My favourite performance, and the judge's too apparently although that sort of overpraise is more harmful than good to contestants I feel. Safe as houses.

Shoebox: Kaleb...is growing on me, at a really alarming rate. Enjoyed the clips of him rapping in the vid-bio, too (I slipped this one past Shoemom by claiming I "wanted to get a better handle on this guy". Didn't really, though.) Like Kalan, he's quite simply all about the music...albeit where Kalan demonstrated some minor stage presence while not singing, Kaleb, um, didn't. But hey, he took the mid-1990's equivalent of the Titanic Song and made me want to hear the next line. Stays.

Joe Dwarf: Kaleb performs a song I loathe and makes me interested. I hate the style he works in, so the fact that I am entertained makes me think he's pretty damn good - does that make sense?

Shoebox: Elena. Does Alanis, and pretty well, too, all things considered.I never heard that song before, and now I want to. (Shoemom, on the other hand, is meh: "She's a Disney singer - you know, there should be trees in the background and stuff.") Also, I seriously wanna know where she got that top. Best female outfit of the night. A comfortable Stays.

Joe Dwarf: Elena pulled a pretty damn good performance out of her ass. Started out a little too music-theatrey but she managed to inject a little bit of dirt into it and save it. Probably the best thing I've seen her do. She'll stay for sure.

Shoebox: Jacob...oh, dear, is Shoemom mad at him. One does not mess with Paul Anka. If she believed in voodoo dolls, he'd be feeling smart pains right about where he dropped that quarter right now. Me...I still HATE what he does. But I am now willing to concede he does it very, very well. Stays (albeit how long he can pull off that act before the Wrath of the Dufflets - and their grammas - comes down upon him is a decidedly open question).

Joe Dwarf: That was extremely entertaining, but I'm wondering how long he'll be able to keep up the weekly gimmick. He's probably the weakest singer in the group and eventually that will bite him on the ass... who am I kidding, he'll cruise into the top 3 based on the same sort of wacky support JPL had, only with way more talent on his side.

Results Show

Shoebox: Major progress to report on the Jacob-vs-Shoemom front:

(Glancing over my shoulder at newpaper photo) "He is really good...it's just..."

Pause.

"He did do that well last night. It's not that."

Pause.

"Y'know, what he needs to do, is lose that thing on his lip. Without that, he'd be really..."

Long pause.

"...appealing, y'know."

Me...I caught myself happily anticipating his costume for British Invasion night. So I guess the HATE is in abeyance for now. But it stands ready to flare up again at a moment's notice.

Ahhh...the sweet, sweet feeling of heading into a results show knowing all your favourites are safe (except - I may as well admit it now - Kaleb, but even his going won't mess up my world much.) It's a new experience. The only thing I'm really still afraid of is that the group sing will turn out to be Ain't No Mountain High Enough.

Going through the recap video: I just about died when Manoah was up there telling Benedict all about How Much This Song Means to Me. Earth to Manoah: When you're singing a lovely slow, soft, deep spiritual that (theoretically) means a lot to you and you still can't get that connexion across to the audience...there's a problem. Oh, and the bra-less thing continues to bug. I mean, she spent so much time making sure every other square inch of her was totally perky!, you wouldn't have thought she'd missed that little detail.

Yes, Kaleb hit a painful note at the end there. I would hate him more - word, also, to whomever mentioned the dead flat scary eyes when he's not performing, I can never quite get past them - if I didn't have this recurring feeling during his performances he's a true R&B genius and thus allowances must be made. Did I mention I used to own Boyz II Men CDs?

Theresa's family are deep into accordions? Well, at least now we know she isn't faking the cheery wholesomeness. That whole vid-bio was like a Ukranian Ozzie & Harriet episode.

Group sing. Severely dopey song. Everyone tackles it gamely (Kaleb, a little desperately) but Manoah continues to come off like a karaoke Anne Murray, and Shane just doesn't come off at all.

Dear lord...Zany actually made me giggle tonight (the "paint a rainbow" crack). So...the Apocalypse is right around the corner, yes?

The mansion is ...bigger...than last year. I thought the excitement over the robes a trifle unsettling too (uh, they don't have terrycloth in Halifax?) However the whoops of boys-will-be-boys joy at the sight of the game room were fun. Jacob with a camcorder was also a moment of undeniable Dork Cute.

Kalan gets his own room? They make a point of filming it, that he gets his own room? Ooooookay. In TPTB's defense, it did look like a pretty small room. But still. Has this ever happened before?

Very emotional night. Last year, nobody - OK, save possibly Tyler - started actually sobbing until three or four shows in. This year, sploosh! (Jason, stop kissing people. And making the guys hold hands. They don't want to, OK?) Elena was seriously close to losing control...until Kalan put his arm around her, that is. Yep, I think Hobbit Boi's picking up on the joys and delights of favourite status real quick.

Manoah is ever so damned perky! in defeat. You just know she was mentally rehearsing her speech about How Much This Journey Meant to Me.

Shane resolutely keeps going - kind of like the Energizer Bunny, only less charming - with the "What, me terrible? Little ol'me?" schtick. By the time he's done I'm well and truly miserable that Josh is getting turfed ahead of him. Is Shane really this clueless, d'y'suppose, or is he trying to out-Clay Clay?

Neither Kalan nor Theresa nor Jacob look particularly shocked and amazed to be safe (and, as an aside, Theresa looks v. pretty). Kaleb, on the other hand...I wonder what'll happen when he does get kicked off.

Elena is also safe from at least one idiotic Asian sterotype: Nobody will ever, ever accuse her of being inscrutable. My like for her is growing again.

Joe Dwarf: Funniest moment of the night? Brandy, saying "it ain't over 'til it's over". Uh, honey-bunches? It's over.

Shoebox: I was actually working up a decent pang or two of regret during the singout - Sass was right (!), she was holding back last night - but then I imagined a future of "inspirational" ballads and Gary Beals flashbacks, and I got better real quick.