MANILA, Philippines?Now that the 2009 season of ?American Idol? has whittled its thousands of contestants down to 36 semi-finalists, we can similarly step up our coverage of the world?s most popular TV show on its eighth trot around the entertainment park.
This early, we can say that this season?s bets are, with some glaring exceptions, the longrunning talent search show?s most promising. Early standouts in our view include Adam Lambert, Jasmine Murray, Lil Rounds, Stephen Fowler, Matt Giraud plus Jackie Tohn. They have both unique voices and/or good looks, plus incipient stellar shine and charisma.
Winnowing process
All of those assets will serve them well as the show continues its rigorous winnowing process, all the way up to its next big landmark, the selection of its Final 12.
Who will make that cut? Past experience tells us that, on ?American Idol,? talent is by no means everything, because overnight stardom is awarded not just to the genuinely gifted, but also to those talents who excite viewers enough to make them vote for them.
So, the Final 12 will need to also be especially giving and true to themselves, because viewers embrace genuineness and lack of slickness.
Past editions
Having pointed out all that, however, we must now focus on the 2009 show?s biggest bummer: Where have all the Asian-American semi-finalists gone?! Past editions of ?AI? featured some standout Asian-American singers (mostly Fil-Ams), but the current edition features no oriental performers at all. What happened?
Another negative development is the show?s inclusion of some ditzy or even ?crazy? semi-finalists, who appear to have been added to the mix of survivors mainly for their ?entertainment? value. Prime example of these ditzy talents are Tatiana Nicole Del Toro and Nick Mitchell, also known as Norman Gentle.
?Huh? That?s right, Mitchell has a loopy alter-ego in Gentle, who swishes up a storm and bowls both jurors and viewers over with his gay antics.
As for Tatiana, she screams and shrieks all over the place, raising the show?s excitement level all by her lonesome. Trouble is, the hyper behavior is clearly engaged in for effect, so its ?fun? appeal quickly palls.
More positively, ?AI? has included two talents who ?represent? the American working class, oil rig worker Michael Sarver and welder Matt Breitzke. This move ?democratizes? the talent search even more, and it also adds a hefty dash of family values, since both men are young working dads. (Also uniquely affecting is the inclusion of blind semi-finalist, Scott MacIntyre. ?More ?human drama? coming up!)
More controversially, the 36 semi-finalists have been divvied up into three batches of 12, each competing separately and sending three finalists into the Final 12. This is potentially controversial, because the three groups may not be equal in strength, so the finalists they send forward may not be uniformly the best of the lot.
Strong batch
For instance, the first batch of 12 to compete was particularly strong. It was made up of Anoop Desai, Tohn, Fowler, Sarver, Ricky Braddy, Anne Marie Boskovich, Alexis Grace, Casey Carlson, Danny Gokey, Stevie Wright, Brent Keith and Del Toro.
Thus, some of the talents eliminated from this batch may have been better than the members of the other batches who could make it to the Final 12.
Well, if that did happen, all wouldn?t be lost. To fill the remaining slots in the Final 12, the show?s judges will select three ?wild-card? bets from the ?rejects.? So, there?s still some hope that the Final 12 could be the strongest that the show shall have fielded to date.
As it turned out, the first batch?s three finalist ?survivors? were Grace, Gokey and Sarver. Nine more to go! ?But, sigh, not a single Fil-Asian in the prized bunch. Will this mean lower viewership figures in Asia for ?AI??
