Too early, but not a surprise

Considering they set aside a half hour for something that could be accomplished in thirty seconds, it is strange how often they run out of time on the American Idol results show. Not only did we not get to hear Stephanie Edwards sing us out (and considering that it didn't even appear they handed her a microphone for it, are they phasing that part of the show or were just so behind on time they didn't even bother), but Ryan never even asked the judges what they thought of her ouster.

That might have been interesting, because, well, just for selfish reasons I would have liked to have seen if any of them would have agreed with what I've been saying for the last couple weeks about Stephanie. (But who am I kidding--Randy would have said something unintelligible, Paula would have held back tears, and Ryan would have cut off Simon before he got to his point.) While it is clear that Stephanie was a better singer than probably at least half the remaining contestants, the initial promise she displayed that first week singing "How Come You Don't Call Me Anymore?" was never really fulfilled because her subsequent song choices were all slow to mid-tempo songs (despite whatever Randy was listening to in calling her a great up tempo singer) and often complicated melodies that were hard to sing along or warm up to as a viewer. Then, last night, she just sung poorly, and she couldn't crawl out of the hole she had started to dig the last couple of weeks. In a competition where three other singers--Melinda, LaKisha and Jordin--were all better than her in singing slower songs, combined with the fact that she didn't show any versatility, she was bound to be the odd woman out sooner rather than later.

My other assorted observations: So Ryan is asking for corporate donations for the Idol charity event next month? That's nice, but as I said a couple weeks ago, could we hear about donations from Fox and 19 Entertainment before we go soliciting random companies on TV? Lulu sounded pretty good singing a song she made a hit, what, 40 years ago? Peter Noone wasn't bad either, and I was able to add a third song to my "Oh, I know that song but I didn't know Herman's Hermits'" collection.

So why only a bottom two tonight? I suppose it could have been a time issue, but since this is Idol, there's got to be some kind of conspiracy theory reason as well. I just can't figure it out. Was the third from the bottom singer someone we'd be surprised to see there or not? And if it was someone we'd be surprised to see there, then one would think Idol would have revealed him or her--to encourage people to vote for that person to save him. So maybe they don't want him saved--could it have been Sanjaya? Just a theory....