Last night was Neil Diamond night on Idol (WOOHOO!) and each contestant got to sing two songs. The plan, originally, was that the judges wouldn’t comment on the first round of songs and instead give a more complete critique after the second song of both.

After everyone performed the first round, Ryan brought all the contestants out onto the stage and asked the judges what they thought.

Remember… At this point, they’ve only performed one song.

Video below…

(Video replaced with Youtube vid for easiness sake; if it disappears, I’ll make other plans)

I don’t know what was going on with her, but not only did she get wrong the number of songs, she had a complete set of harsh criticism to go along with the second song Castro never performed!

Wow. Just wow.

I could see if she just said “Oh, I meant my second critique, not the second song,” but she did herself no favors when she said, “I thought you sang twice!”

Cringeworthy.

Completely notwithstanding his deadpan delivery, he gets the damn thing completely wrong. What the hell was he looking at when this happened?

I’m a huge fan of Chris Cornell’s remake of Billie Jean and when I heard David Cook was going to be performing it last night, I groaned. I honestly expected him to ruin it. I couldn’t have been more wrong…

Utterly and completely brilliant.

Speaking of Idol, here are top remaining performances as I saw them in order of their awesomeness:

Brooke White: “Every Step You Take”

Michael Johns: “We Will Rock You / We Are The Champions”

Syesha Mercado: “If I Were Your Woman”

These four are so much better than the other six, it’ll be a miracle if they aren’t the final four. They really did prove why they’re top notch.

via Lost Remote

Dare I say it? Saturday Night Live has gone completely off the reservation and isn’t fellating Barack Obama?

These are my favorites. Did I miss any?

Full commercial here

I saw this on TMZ TV tonight and in the process completely disappointed my wife with the fact that I hadn’t already seen it… I figure there should be more people like me out there, so without further ado…

Oh yeah… CourtTV is dead. It has ceased to be. Or it least it will.

Four months after alerting media buyers that a re-branding was in store for Court TV, Turner executives on Wednesday officially announced that the network’s new moniker will be truTV, effective January 1.

As part of the re-branding initiative, the network will also be given a new look and an updated logo and will expand its lineup of original programming. According to Steve Koonin, president of Turner Entertainment Networks, and Marc Juris, the network’s general manager, the name change is meant to reflect the non-fiction themes that run through truTV’s trial coverage, as well as its prime-time roster of series such as Forensic Files and Haunting Evidence.

“[Our] success … can be attributed in a big way to the fact that we have built strong brands that resonate with viewers,” said Koonin. “With this new name, truTV joins its sister networks TNT, TBS and TCM [Turner Classic Movies] in establishing itself a solid, identifiable brand, paving the way for continued growth.”

24 hours of COPS reruns? Oh it’s tru, I tell you. It’s so tru.

I guess they stopped being primarily about the courts a long time ago, so this isn’t really a surprise, but damn if that isn’t an awful name.

via LR

Fox has apologized for Idol running over. It’s kind of weird, really, when you think about it, and TVGasm points out something I noticed also…

Fox has apologized for extending the American Idol finale by nine minutes, causing many DVR users to miss the announcement of the winner (though producers had no problem forcing viewers to sit through the show’s Golden Idol Awards presentations to some of the season’s weirder hopefuls, including modern minstrel Margaret Fowler. Incredibly, though the move was obviously some kind of ploy to pick up higher Nielsen numbers in the first minutes of the 10 o’clock hour, the network actually claimed it was out of their control, as if the tightly-plotted and heavily-padded two-hour show was some kind of sporting event.

They act like they had no control over it. How about next year, make the finale a 30 minute show, and devote the last 10 minutes to declaring the winner? That would be a good place to start if you ask me.

The finale was 2 hours of drivel followed by 10 minutes of declaring Jordin the winner. The show is about declaring Jordin the winner, and instead we had to sit through performances from Carrie Underwood, Taylor Hicks, a poor-sounding singer that vaguely resembled Kelly Clarkson, and some big fat black guy named Ruben who I think won a few years ago and may have an album out. Then, we had to suffer through the Golden Idol awards where they get all kinds of rejects out for the purposes of humiliating them one last time.

Could they not have cut any of that out to bring the show in on time?

Could the not have cut Melinda Doolittle performing with BeBe and CeCe Wynans? I mean, what relevance did that have? She was voted off a week ago!

What about the Sgt. Pepper clusterfuck? 15 minutes of drivel. Couldn’t they have cut that?

The problem with the finale wasn’t that they couldn’t bring it in on time. The problem is they packed it with more shit than 90% of the Idol fans in this country care about.

More ratings from TVGasm:

Oh yeah… Up against the finale of Lost, Idol simply smashes the crap out of it. Idol is doomed.
Can we stop the melodramatics about the demise of Idol? Let’s see how everyone else did year over year if that’s your point. Me? I’ll take a healthy thrashing of the competition as success.

Technorati Tags: american idol, ratings

Drudge breathlessly reported how Idol lost to Dancing With the Stars on Tuesday night. The only problem is, they didn’t. Here are the ratings for Tuesday via TVGasm (who runs them daily):

Not only did Dancing not win, but dancing didn’t compete against Idol, and Dancing didn’t garner a higher rating in the hours it was on.

Not even close.

So where the hell did Drudge get his numbers from?

Technorati Tags: drudge, ratings, tv, tvgasm

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Donald Trump, whose low-rated reality show “The Apprentice” was left off the new prime-time schedule unveiled this week by NBC, says the network can’t fire him — he quits.

The real estate mogul issued a statement on Friday saying he has informed the U.S. television network he is “moving on from ‘The Apprentice’ to a major new TV venture,” though he declined to elaborate.

There was no immediate comment from NBC.

But his announcement appeared to end any lingering doubt that “The Apprentice,” which turned the self-styled tycoon into a television star and popularized the catch phrase, “You’re fired,” would be banished from NBC’s airwaves next season.

Wow. That’s surprising.

I really enjoyed this season. I thought it was interesting, and for once I thought there were a lot of good potential candidates. I guess NBC needs to make room for another Sci Fi drama or some other predictable show (No, I’m not talking about Heroes; I’m thinking more along the lines of Deal or No Deal).

I find it hard to believe that The Apprentice had a ratings problem this season, and if it did, I find it hard to blame Trump’s show itself for it. It was on at 10:00 on a Sunday. If that isn’t a graveyard slot, I don’t know what is. It’s quite a self-fulfilling prophecy. NBC demonstrates little faith in the show’s ratings, moves it to a graveyard, gets the low ratings one would expect, and then doesn’t put the show on the following season’s primetime schedule, and the show is off.

Not the way I would’ve hoped the Apprentice would end. I have a feeling someone will pick it up, though. That is, if Donald isn’t too busy with his new “venture.”

Technorati Tags: trump, the apprentice, donald trump, nbc

Jordin Sparks, the angelic-voiced singer who’s likely to win American Idol this season barring a complete collapse in the last few weeks is (gasp) a Christian! And not just one of those John Kerry Rudy Giuliani “I support a right to abortion while I carry my rosary to a Catholic church on Sunday!” types. She actually sings with Christian bands and tours and even has come out against abortion.

I’d say that’s the total package…

As if I didn’t love her enough already…

Technorati Tags: jordin sparks, american idol

Saw this on Hot Air and I felt compelled to share it with you all…

Click to play…

I don’t know… I didn’t really find her that attractive when she was on the show, but I’d still check it out…

via TVgasm

Technorati Tags: kristine lefebvre, apprentice, playboy

Wow… 20 years of the Simpsons. TVGasm has a short paragraph about it, but I thought the most interesting part of the paragraph was the juxtaposition of the original characters and what they became…

Pretty impressive. From bumpers for Tracey Ullman (blech) to one of the longest-running shows in TV history. Not bad for a crudely drawn crass stereotypical American family, huh?

Technorati Tags: simpsons, 20th, funny, cool

Sounds interesting, at the very least…

CBS has booked China as the location for the next edition of “Survivor,” and locked in premiere dates for two key summer reality shows — including Mark Burnett’s “Pirate Master.”

Production of U.S. entertainment projects in mainland China had been rare, due to logistical and government restrictions. But with a growing economy, China has begun a more open policy, including its active wooing to host the 2008 Beijing Olympics. While bigscreen features, such as the 2006 “The Painted Veil,” forged new ground by filming completely in China, CBS’s lensing of an entire series is a precedent for an American network.

The China setting should also boost “Survivor’s” appeal to overseas auds. Skein airs in numerous countries around the world.

The move to China for the 15th edition takes the skein away from an island setting for the first time since the 11th installment, set in Guatemala.

I still want to see Survivor: Antarctica, but hey, this won’t be too bad. China has some rough jungles and some pretty nasty desert. Should be interesting to see where they drop the contestants at the beginning.

Technorati Tags: china, survivor, television

Do Emeril and Bobby–who, whatever you think of their shows–BUILT that fucking network, deserve to be pimped out with such casual disregard? Does anyone deserve to run the Gauntlet of Shame that was the “red carpet”, forced to waddle past the California Raisins and Tony the Tiger and a bunch of other corporate Big Heads? The overmuscled fuckwit from DINNER SLIGHTLY DIFFICULT delivered the best line: something like “This is the greatest night “ever!” If that was his greatest night ever, I suspect he would say the same thing while being publicly butt-slammed by the San Diego Chicken.

Apparently the Food Network awards didn’t please him. I’m not surprised. I’ve heard a few interviews with him where he rags on the Food Network and their move away from cooking and chefs to big blinging personalities.

Well-written column and worth a read if you’re interested in food and gourmet cuisine.

via Serious Eats

Technorati Tags: food network, food, anthony bourdain

”I think that we suffer from Jennifer Hudson- and Chris Daughtry-itis, which is people who didn’t win getting great careers and now a lot of the contestants believing it absolutely doesn’t matter,” he says. ”Sometimes there’s part of me thinking, You genuinely couldn’t care less what we’ve got to say; everything’s going to go your own way now.” And some of the Top 8 contestants confirm the attitude. Chris Richardson, who’s been on the edge of elimination more than once, tells Entertainment Weekly in the same article: ‘You don’t have to win it. To me I’ve already won, being in the top 10 and going on tour (this summer).”

I think it’s really starting to show this season, too. I appreciate Simon’s honesty, but I find it a tad disingenuous considering the top 10 will most likely end up with contracts on his label anyway. Wanna end the problem? 2 year no-compete clause and don’t sign anyone but the winner.

I won’t hold my breath.

Technorati Tags: american idol

A bunch of you have asked me whether ABC.com will post the remaining episodes of Six Degrees now that the show is officially cancelled. I had a feeling they would, and that feeling has been confirmed: An ABC spokeswoman tells me episodes will go online starting April 27. Look for a new installment every Friday for five weeks.

Excellent! I mean, watching them online doesn’t thrill me but at least I get to see how the story ends.

via Pop Candy

Technorati Tags: six degrees, television