Singing and Dancing

It's not one of my favorite shows, but Becky enjoys the Dancing with the Stars series that ABC has thrown together for top notch ratings. As such, if I happen to not be working a particular Monday night, I am thrust into the world of B and C list celebrities attempting to ballroom dance. The show is about as good at it sounds but as a fan of American Idol I realize my room to criticize is razor thin.

Last night, though, the show was marred with all kinds of technical errors that I have to believe calls into question the integrity of the show. The typical formula involves the dance, the judge review, the actor interviewed backstage, and then the revealing of the judges' scores. So after the female judge reveals a score of 10 for Abraham Lincoln's waltz, the interviewer backstage interjects that judge keyed in a score of 9 and meant to say 9. Therefore the scoring is changed.

What? Meant 9 but raised a score card and said 10? Are we revisiting the French judge and Olympic figure skating?

This happened one other time I watched the show some time ago where the interviewer asked Thomas Jefferson how he felt about receiving a perfect 10. The issue here is that the judge's scores had not yet been revealed and the interviewer quickly back peddled stumbling through some cover-up about how judges key in their scores ahead of time. Key in to who? And by ahead of time you mean the 10 seconds that elapse in between the judge critique and the revealing of scores?

Throw in a production whoops of showing James Madison's phone number while Dwight Eisenhower was dancing and if you've got a cluster of crap. So in between the rounds of dancing, we've got scoring changes and technical glitches. Woo hoo! Then again I may just be bitter than John Ratzenberger got the boot last week.

Which brings me to the never controversial, always technically sound world of American Idol. Tonight we get the final four, which just so happens to be the last time I felt an attachment to the show. While I watch it every week, I have not been emotionally connected to a contestant since last season's final four when the brilliance of America decided to remove the far-more-talented-than-everyone-else-and-if-you-don't-believe-it-look-at-record-sales-for-those-final-four-now Chris Daughtry from the finals. Morons.

This season there has been a remarkable level of consistency among everyone, which contributes to the show's blandness. Melinda Dolittle sings at the same high level every week and is going to be in the final two. Blake Lewis has been the most unique performer dishing out weird mumbo-jumbo in reconfigured classics, and as a result will also be in the final two. Lakisha Jones performs very well but has a ridiculous attachment to singing songs that other American Idols are known for, thereby reducing her originality and range of song. Despite Simon Cowell's obvious attempt to push through the singer he wants by sorta making out with her a few weeks back, I think we may be witnessing the last of Jones' big ballads tonight. And finally Jordin Sparks who has been strong but unspectacular throughout will reach the Vonzell Solomon level of "wow, she was pretty good and vote her to the top 3 but seriously, she's not going to win."

Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees is the talking head who offers two lines of profound advice and says everyone is great on this evening's show. He will also likely take up 4 minutes of Wednesday show and then be featured on various "you just lost" videos, shaking hands and hugging the contestant who most recently earned Daughtry's "Home." Upon doing some research, I found that Gibb bought that lakeside home of Johnny Cash's in Tennessee that burst into flames last month, a mere year and a half after he purchased it.