This Time It's Personal on Idol

Last week the foot fetishists and Asian mafia, couldn't save huffy, puffy Paul Kim. The other three to go were Rudy, Nicole and Amy and the most revealing thing about all of their departures was that their farewell performances were even more annoying than their first ones. Fantasia also came back, singing some song from The Color Purple, and looking constipated the whole time.

This week the boys had something to prove, after barely bothering to show up last week. And there was at least a glimmer of hope of a potential star in this week's male performances. The theme this week was dedications, which got some of our contestants a little too emotional, making me roll my eyes. I liked AJ Tabaldo the best. I don't even remember him last week, but this week, he got some snap in him, and sang "Feeling Good" in a pretty good performance. But his dancing had aspects of a weird burlesque act that looked like it should be in a Chippendale's training video. I did like the waving arms though; that was kind of cute. All he needs now is some leg warmers. At least his singing was good, and I had completely forgotten about this song. Typical American Idol though has already started to kill this song since dogwalker Leslie sang this exact same song the next day.

The worst guy was a toss-up between Most-Likely-To-Beat-It-Sanjaya Malakar and Brandon "Buckwheat" Rogers. I have to throw Brandon under the bus. Sanjaya was at least memorable (in a bad way) for the ridiculousness of his Gayle King hair, Michael Jackson outfit and fucking whispering a really lame song. Note to Sanjaya: having an "old soul" does not mean you have good taste.

But if Brandon wants to hammer into our heads why he was a background singer all this time, he couldn't be doing a better job. He just put us all to sleep with his tepid and embarrassingly boring singing of "Time After Time." Plus he whispers into the mic like a phone sex operator.

Before I get to the girls, I have to comment on Fox's subliminal messages to us to watch Jeff Foxworthy's new gameshow by panning to Jeff Foxworthy in the Idol audience 5 times every two minutes and relentlessly showing us ads for his new show 500 times the entire night. Subtle, guys.

After opening a huge can of whoop ass last week, the girls turned all weepy and sobby this week from their dedications. Jordin, who can't spell her own name, got a free Get Out of Jail card, when the judges failed to call her out on her off-key singing, and instead gave her some coos and puppy dog eyes and excused her sorry-ass wobbly performance.

Lakisha sang one of the greatest songs ever, "Midnight Train to Georgia." She was a'right, but not as good as when Paris sang it last year. I still haven't joined the Lakisha train. Melinda still remains my favorite, although I didn't think her performance this week was as much fun as last week. And now I'm beginning to notice her weird mannerisms and geez, Melinda, a little humility is refreshing, but your banter with Ryan sounded really forced. Of course, Ryan probably put you up to it.

The one problem that pervades American Idol is that no matter what season, all the girls get the Whitney/Celine syndrome. Now Whitney, I can excuse, because she's got some pretty kick ass songs and Whitney's become so much more fun now that she's become Crazy Whitney (although not nearly as much fun as Crazy Britney). But what Simon says is true, you are ALWAYS going to be compared to the original and so you better have some big pipes to bring it. Sabrina and Haley got the Whitney-drome, and kind of did okay. Haley was a little strange and I thought her head was going to explode like wind-up doll wound up too much.

Poor Antonella, though, got Celineitis. My main question is though who the hell wants to sing like Celine anyway? Why in the world did Antonella say "This song is more me." I'm too perplexed by that statement (am I supposed to see her as a creepy 60 year old French Canadian bear's concubine?) to make a snarky remark.

Well, I was late with this week's Idol reviews, and we all know what happened. I'm sad that the guy I voted for got kicked off. In any case, my votes for this week:

Best Guy: AJ Tabaldo. He's the best flipping-the-collar-as-if-ish gay guy on the show.

Worst Guy: Brandon Rogers. Did he actually try to blame his grandmother for his lame-o performance?

Best Girl: Melinda Doolittle again. Hmmm. You have a vocalist coach and a stylist? Makes me rethink your humble image. You're a professional. Still so far, you haven't sung one bad note.

Worst Girl: Antonella Barba again. Your pot shot comment at Simon about Jennifer Hudson was really lame and your rolling eyes didn't get you any points from me either.