I guess that whole 'pizza bistro' job was a minus

David Hernandez certainly wasn't the worst singer in the final 12, and wasn't the worst singer last night (because Kristy Lee Cook sang). But he wasn't very good, and he wasn't good enough or distinctive enough to come anywhere close to winning, so I don't have much problem with him going tonight instead of two or three weeks from now. And I suppose that whole stripper thing couldn't have helped.

What I do have a problem with is how the producers made us listen to all of the bottom three's songs again. At least we know Kristy Lee Cook has a sense of humor, since she apologized, but wasn't it enough to suffer through the bootee's song? This is going to be a long spring.

While I didn't care for that change, I must admit I sort of liked the answering questions from the phones bit--particularly because they allowed someone to ask Simon and Ryan whether they'll just get it over with and go at it. They didn't really answer it, but at least it was asked. It seems like the producers are trying to make the Wednesday show into something approaching the old variety show that isn't on television anymore--we had comedy with Jim Carrey, music, a little talk about the show--and I suppose there are worse ways to spend an hour. As long as they're aren't too many highlight packages of the Idolettes going to movie premieres--oh, who am I kidding? They probably extended the results show to an hour this year just so they could promote every Fox movie coming out from now until 2010....

Speaking of Jim Carrey, does he even make live-action movies anymore? Where's he been? Is he dressing up as an elephant on national TV in order to get work?

And what was the deal with starting the show early tonight? My DVR recording started in the middle of Ryan's welcome. I know shows run over all the time now, but since when do shows start early? And with so many people using DVRs these days, why do networks do this? It just makes their viewers angry that they missed part of the show even though they set their recording for the time that the show was scheduled for. Why are you angering your customers, Fox?

A few more quick observations: Sanjaya returned and seemed to be cheering heartily for Kristy Lee Cook's country disaster. Does he want her to stick around so people will forget his disasters from last year?...Ryan asked Simon whether Syesha belonged in the bottom three, and Simon answered yes. Then Ryan referred to the "uncomfortable" moment they just had. Well, if that's such a problem, Ryan, why did you ask? What did you think Simon was going to say?...Paula said that there has never been a stronger bottom three. Really, Paula? You had one singer who had an awful performance, and two singers who had mediocre, at best, performances. And of the three, only one, Hernandez, had even had a performance in the semifinals that was at all memorable. Look, I'm not a big fan of season three, but Paula, don't you remember that night Fantasia, Latoya and Jennifer Hudson were in the final three? Um, that's so much stronger it's an insult to compare it to tonight. So they're returning to the Beatles next week because they had so many calls and e-mails about last night's show. Hmmm...why do I suspect that perhaps one of their "mentors" dropping out unexpectedly is the real reason? It seems odd to do the same theme two weeks in a row....Finally, although it was kind of random--since she sang a Beatles song, not a song from her album from last year, so I guess we can assume that's pretty much been deemed a failure--it was nice to see my season five love, Katharine McPhee, again. Loved the short dress. The singing was OK too....