Wednesday, April 25, 2007 at 6:56 am
Idolwatch: Inspiration Point
It's Idol Gives Back week on American Idol, and my reviews are posted. The plan to leverage the show's fan base (and advertisers) for charities in the U.S. and Africa is greatly appreciated. It's also greatly weird, in the context of a show that is, most weeks, a tough-nosed, cruel-to-be-kind competition. There was a strange dissonance, seeing Simon touring a poverty-stricken area of Kenya and saying, "This is just intolerable" and "This is quite literally hell on earth" in exactly the same tones he usually uses to disparage a bad Whitney cover. Perhaps self-conscious of how it would sound to rip into a contestant singing for charity, the judges all sounded a little like Paula Abdul last night. It made me wish Sanjaya were still around, to see Simon forced to be unsnarkily nice to him.
My bottom three this week: LaKisha, Blake and Chris (though that last one was a coin toss with Phil). Going home: LaKisha. But Blake is very, very vulnerable--and frankly, I may be in denial about his chances because (1) I like him and (2) I want to believe that America won't vote him off for singing that Godless pinko song Imagine. You may say I'm a dreamer.
About Tuned In
James Poniewozik writes TIME magazine's Tuned In column, about pop culture and society. Tuned In, the blog version, is about the stuff we used to call "TV," whether it's in your living room, on your computer or -- once the networks figure out the technology and line up the advertisers -- in your dreams themselves. Read more
RSS Feed
 |
Daily Email
Recent Posts
Tuned In - TIME.com Archives
Blogroll
- Aaron Barnhart’s TV Barn
- About Last Night
- Alan Sepinwall
- Arts & Letters Daily
- Blogher Career
- Brazen Careerist
- BuzzMachine
- Defamer
- Heather Havrilesky
- James Wolcott
- Matt Zoller Seitz
- Maureen Ryan
- Melanie McFarland
- Metafilter
- Peter Ames Carlin
- Popwatch
- Romenesko
- Television Without Pity
- Tim Goodman
- TV Guide blogs
- TV Newser
- TV Tattle
- Undercover Black Man
- Virginia Heffernan
- Zap2It’s TV Blog
More TIME Blogs
http://rss.time.com/web/time/rss/top/index.xml
- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
Top Photoessays and Slideshows
- Venice Floods
- 20th Century Britain in Pictures
- Pictures of the Week
- Mumbai Sifts Through the Rubble
- Two Days of Terror in Mumbai
- Over 100 Dead as Terrorist Attacks Overwhelm Mumbai
- Photos: The Kitsch of Thanksgiving
- Animated Movies: Not Just for Kids
- Photos: Anbar Sheiks Come Together
- Photos: Two Decades of Guns N' Roses
Wednesday, April 25, 2007 at 2:41 pm
You really don't like TV, do you? Or maybe you do, but you seem annoyed by just about everything that appears on it. Relax. TV's fun! A diversion! Totally irrelevant! Stupid even! But really not something to criticize in a pseudo-intellectual manner. You got yourself a good job. You watch TV and write about it. Lighten up, dude.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007 at 3:00 pm
Erin,
The Riches was AWESOME this Monday. Peace out.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007 at 3:36 pm
Funny Blake gets a rap for singing a song the way it should be sung understated and with sincerity whiles others wail through songs that no one knows and get praise. Blake and maybe Jordin are the only ones in Idol this year that have a chance to sell records.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007 at 3:48 pm
Bobble head is clearly the best on idol...she will do well on tour, in a jazz club or on broadway. Jordin is also a winner. Blake is o.k. and seems better than he really might be because the contestants are so dreadful. Lakisha peaked and now all I see is attitude. The others aren't even worth mentioning.
Sidenote: India boy got ripped by Simon and eventually all of them in their own way but the reality is they let this talentless jerk through to begin with so they created their own mess.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007 at 4:08 pm
"You really don't like TV, do you? Or maybe you do, but you seem annoyed by just about everything that appears on it. Relax. TV's fun! A diversion! Totally irrelevant! Stupid even! But really not something to criticize in a pseudo-intellectual manner. You got yourself a good job. You watch TV and write about it. Lighten up, dude."
actually, he is one of the best TV entertainment critics out there -- his criticisms are those of an intelligent fan.
(of course, we're still waiting for James' review of the new Bill Moyers piece....)
Wednesday, April 25, 2007 at 4:30 pm
Paul, I'm surprised you didn't ask earlier! I never got a screener of the Moyers special--which must have been an oversight because they've been pretty assiduous about sending Moyers specials in the past. Maybe it finished production late and so they only sent screeners to daily newspapers, but that's only a guess.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007 at 5:05 pm
ah, that would explain it. They probably hadn't finished adding in the "real TV news show office" background after interviewing Dan Rather in front of a blue screen in time to get the show out for a newsweekly.
You might want to send the folks at PBS a note telling them about this thing interwebs thing...and reviews can be done "on-line" right up to showtime! (Just what I'm sure you need, more screeners.)