This is how TV spinoffs get made: introduce a new character into a predictable environment, allow his or her wacky behavior to dominate the story line, even at the expense of series regulars, and then, with interest piqued, build a new show atop their shoulders. Think “Frasier” from “Cheers,” “Private Practice” from “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Daria” from “Beavis and Butt-head.”
Read more from Jon Caramanica on the 10th season of “American Idol.”
Maybe we’ll be able to add to that list whatever manic sci-fi variety show will.i.am was inadvertently auditioning for on Wednesday’s “American Idol.” Seated next to the macher Jimmy Iovine for the duration of the rehearsal process, he was fantastically odd, speaking gibberish to the “Idol” contestants, to Iovine and to himself in a display of disruption that never would have flown in the Simon Cowell era.
Also, what a glow will.i.am has! Who’s his facialist?
It’s unclear if he was in fact helpful to any of the contestants in his third consecutive week on the show; at least a couple of the singers (Scotty, Haley) looked confused, or maybe perturbed, by his interjections. To Jacob, who performed Michale Jackson
’s “Man in the Mirror,” he said something about the Himalayas, the Atlantic Ocean and exploding heads; it was a compliment. He advised Stefano, who sang Percy Sledge’s “When a Man Loves a Woman,” to check his voicemail midsong, or something of the sort. To Haley, will.i.am was halfway coherent. “The lens is a person. It’s not a camera,” he told her. “That’s the boyfriend that messed your head up.” Though judging by the angles producers used during her performance of Janis Joplin’s “Piece of My Heart,” the cameras were breaking up with her before she got to break up with them.But while will.i.am made great TV, his presence didn’t add up to much for the contestants. There was no boom, no boom and no pow in this week’s performances, which were perfectly good, sometimes great, but in no way alien. (Except for Paul, who appeared to be inhabited by a being with actual vim during his performance of Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues.”) The two most frenzied “Idol” aspirants, Casey (“Have You Ever Seen the Rain
?”) and James (“While My Guitar Gently Weeps
”), opted for gentler material, to their detriment. Lauren continued to hit big notes, though she doesn’t know how to color them in fully. Jacob was great, but so was Haley, to general disinterest.The week’s theme was the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which was introduced with a segment in which Steven Tyler
attempted to make out with outfits which had belonged to Paul McCartney and Elton John, and then with a bust of his own screaming head. Maybe he’d seen the will.i.am footage and knew he needed to keep up.The best of the night was Scotty, whose Elvis
impression rivals his Josh Turner impression. He was also uncommonly gestural on “That’s All Right
,” which led Jennifer Lopez to ask Scotty if he “watched rap,” which in turn led to Ryan Seacrest’s asking Scotty whether he was a fan of Pitbull. That will be the strangest post-performance sequence of the season, no doubt.It was rivaled, though, by the last 90 seconds of the show, which revealed what happens when “Idol” finishes ahead of schedule for once: Ryan Seacrest fills time chatting emptily with the judges, while onstage, the contestants dance as if it were a hoedown, revealing that not one of them has rhythm.
View the original article here
No comments:
Post a Comment