We're almost done with this season

One of the most memorable images of tonight's penultimate performance show of American Idol was when they showed former executive producer Nigel Lythgoe sitting in the audience watching the show. I criticized Nigel a lot on this blog over the last few years, but Nigel, all is forgiven. I know I sound like a broken record, but really--only two songs each for the final three for the first time ever because the judges can't shut up enough--and they can't stop commercializing the show enough--to get nine songs into a program. So no "Clive Davis choice" this year--or "producers choice" like it was last year, which at least prevents the sabotage we saw last year when Syesha Mercado got saddled with that song from the movie "Happy Feet", so there's at least one positive out of all of this. (Sorry for that run-on sentence.)

Anyway, I thought there was one memorable performance tonight and nothing particularly special in the other five performances.

Danny's first song--Why did Paula pick an obscure Terence Trent D'Arby song for Danny instead of, as Simon correctly said, a good song by Terence Trent D'Arby like "Sign Your Name" or Wishing Well"? Who knows? (And by the way, this show is giving me way too many flashbacks. Last week's results show had performances from Slash, the guitarist from the biggest rock band in the world during my college years, and Paula Abdul, the biggest female artist around during my college years. I can remember "Straight Up" being a big song during my freshman year and that song where she danced around with the cat in the video when I was at the beach after senior year. Or maybe it was the "Will You Marry Me?" song I'm thinking of. Anyway, Terence Trent D'Arby brought me back even farther--I remember dancing to "Wishing Well" at my senior prom. But moving on...)

Anyway, I didn't think this was all that great. Danny just seemed to shout the song to me--there was nothing about this performance that about 50 Idol contestants over the years couldn't have done.

Danny's second song--This was better, but a song like "You Are So Beautiful"--while a clever choice by Danny--is almost too easy. Since the song doesn't really go anywhere, Danny could pretty much do whatever he wanted to with the song--which I know Kara likes because switching up the melody turns her on to no end. But "stunning"? "Vocal master class"? Really? Nice performance, but I'm not downloading it from ITunes or anything.

Kris' first song--This was solid but nothing special. I was glad that Simon called Kara out because he's right--it is kind of ridiculous to give someone a song to sing and then get disappointed because they don't totally change the song. Of course, it's what Kara has wanted everyone to do all year, so it wasn't actually surprising--and I'm not sure why Simon waited until tonight to broach that subject--but at least it came up. As for Kara's bitchy "what do you know about interpreting a song," I'm not even going to go there.

Kris' second song--I loved this. This is what I like to see someone do on Idol--not change the melody of a song, but reinterpret the song in a different style or give it a different feel while staying true to what you like about the song. To take a hip-hop song and make it an acoustic-guitar based song was cool and enjoyable. This I could imagine downloading on ITunes.

Adam's first song--I still think Adam is the most talented and deserves to win the competition, but I love the song "One" and I didn't love this. It was fine for what it was, I just didn't really like the total change-up to a classic song. I didn't think it improved the song, it just gave Adam a chance to do his patented scream.

Adam's second song--A solid performance, but nothing particularly special.

So who's going home? I hope it's Danny, but I unfortunately think it will be Chris.

Finally, don't bore yourself watching a full hour of the results show tomorrow night. I recommend you DVR it and watch the Penguins-Capitals hockey game. You won't be disappointed.

LET'S GO CAPS!