Some REALLY quick Idol thoughts and some other randomness

I actually thought about doing one of my old school recaps for American Idol last night, just to celebrate my return to the blog...and then I saw that it was two hours long. No WAY am I watching these people for two hours, much less recapping it.

So, some very quick thoughts, bearing in mind that I watched most of Scotty and Lauren's songs on fast-forward...

- Scotty is going to win.
- Haley is going home tonight, even though she is my favorite contestant left on the show by a WIDE margin. It's not even that she's all that great, but at least she's interesting. Lauren and Scotty just go out and do the EXACT same thing every single week, and why wouldn't they? The show has removed the constraints of doing different genres every week, and the judges certainly aren't giving them any sort of constructive criticism that would encourage them to try something new.
- Kudos to Haley for popping right back up after her faceplant...I think she only missed two words.
- How badly did the judges sabotage Haley with the Judges Choice round? Scotty gets to sing a country ballad by Kenny Rogers (and the only good thing about it was that I got to answer back his line of "I'll never know just what she sees in me" with "ME AND YOU BOTH, BUDDY!" every time. ZING!!). Lauren got to sing a country ballad by LeeAnn Womack.

As for Haley...they give her a song that A) is WAY too low for her in the verses, and B) has some content that, even after some judicious editing in the first verse, includes lyrics that are going to turn off a large part of an Idol audience that has always skewed conservative. "Is she perverted like me?" "Every time I scratch my nails down someone else's back I hope you feel it".

It was just the wrong song...for her, for this show, and it especially gives her no shot of winning any votes from the apparent throngs of people who are voting for the other two.

Whatever. That was too many words to waste on this show at this point. Just know that Haley is going home tonight, and next week's finale will likely be the first one in 7 years that I haven't been in front of my television for.

- Remember my last post when I bemoaned the fact that network television has lost the ability to develop any new shows outside of reality television? The always awesome Linda Holmes at the NPR Monkey See blog expands on the point...here is the scorecard for shows that were presented at last years upfronts:

ABC: ZERO shows still on the air...every single new show was cancelled within one season.
NBC: ZERO shows still on the air...every single new show was cancelled within one season.
FOX: Exactly ONE show still on the air...one out of three.
CBS: They were the big winner, with THREE out of their five new shows still on the air.

Total: Out of 20 new shows last year, exactly FOUR are still on the air...one year later.

Yeah...they have to find a better way of running this business. This year, there are over FORTY NEW SHOWS that were presented at the network upfronts (some of them midseason, starting in January). Maybe that's the answer...just increase the pool to a massive size and you get a better chance of some sticking. The problem with that? That means there were TONS of shows cancelled to make room, and some of those may have been quality shows that just didn't get a chance to find their footing. Like Chicago Code, for instance, which celebrated its cancellation with its best and most Shawn Ryan-y episode of the season this week. Grrrr....

By the way...go read the rest of that article. As usual with anything Linda writes, it's worth your time.

- Top 5 dramas CURRENTLY AIRING, in order: Game of Thrones, Friday Night Lights, Chuck, The Killing, The Chicago Code.

This one was tougher, because so many of the best shows aren't currently airing. If I were to include ALL shows, even those not on the air, the Top 10 list might look something like:

1) Mad Men
2) Breaking Bad (this might actually be a 1a)
3) Game of Thrones
4) Fringe
5) Friday Night Lights
6) Justified
7) Boardwalk Empire
8) Chuck
9) Sons of Anarchy
10) Walking Dead

With True Blood, Glee, The Killing, and Chicago Code just missing the cut.

Man, I feel like I'm forgetting something here...do let me know in the comments if you feel I have made a grievous error, won't you?

I wasn't going to do a Top 5 reality show post because I didn't think I watched enough Reality TV to come up with one...but I'm embarassed to find that I might could actually do a Top 10. That will be coming...next time!

Thanks for reading, and please feel free to comment...I love engaging in TV conversations!