so who won? blahh

I forgot about the time differences and how it's over in other places already. Oh well.

I haven't seen who won, since it's not over in Wyoming yet. But I've read other places that it's done. I'll just wait.

she is effing huge.

Well, I get that her dad played in the NFL..so she's doomed in that way. But...yeah. She's cute in a Disney Channel kind of way. But...umm...yeah.

Is this Taylor guy like 50? He looks like a wedding singer in the form of an American Idol.

I'm glad that, after watching this show for the first time since its first season tonight..that I don't make this a regular habit. What tripe.

I was really hoping he would sing "When I'm 64"

I'd never seen this Jordin sing before. She looks pretty comfortable on stage, which is surprising for these folks usually. (Idol folk..they usually look uncomfortable. That Taylor sure did...)

I think she must've taken some lessons from the Jennifer Hudson school of poise.

so umm, who won? My fucking TIVO cut off the end of the show!!

How can having 30 people singing at one time all freelancing work well?

That Blake guy looks really, really..umm...gay?

We missed the last 2 minutes due to it running over. My wife is not happy.

Conspiracy Theory: The lost revenue from TV Networks due to TIVO giving viewers the ability to skip commercials have caused TV stations to routinely have their shows run long to mess up TIVO and other DVR devices to force viewers to watch the actual broadcast.

likewise

Wow, long show to browse through just to see Ryan standing there with Jordin and Blake and then have the recording stop. What a letdown.

It's such a ridiculously easy thing to fix too. For whatever reason Tivo refuses to put in a soft padding feature. The Microsoft DVR had it. If there isn't a conflict then just record 5 minutes before and 5 minutes after the show. If otehr shows are already scheduled then stick to the exact time block. Problem for the most part solved.

So really... you're going to not watch the show all season and then watch the finale that is COMPLETELY different than the rest of the show and knock the show, it's contestants, and anything else you can think of...

really?

Wait a minute...are you trying to tell me my crappy DTV DVR has a feature your TiVo doesn't? Or are you saying you can set it to do that, but you want it to do it automatically? I just set every one of my recordings to start 2 minutes early and end 5 or 10 minutes late. Especially with something like this, basically a live awards show, I knew it was going to run over and had it set to record until 10:15. We caught up to live TV by 9:45, though, so it wasn't necessary.

Went to dinner for my daughter's birthday, so forgot all about it. I was glad I had a season pass thingy setup, but boy did I screw up for not knowing the 2 hour fluff show would go overtime. They lull you in with cutting the departing singers off to finish in time all season long, then wham! they get you at the finale.

But the end was the least interesting part of an pretty uninteresting show. Honestly, there wasn't anything to it - they announced she won, she sang, credits rolled. Pretty anti-climatic, really. I'm glad we recorded it and got to fly through Clive Davis, Tony Bennett, Green Day (I don't like them anyway, but that song was interminably long and boring)...what else? The show was pretty boring. The "awards" part of it was terrible. That big bird-looking chick was annoying the first time and worse this time. I would have paid money to see the serial killer guy from Seattle, but I think he was boiling some heads and couldn't make the show.

I'll post more comments if I think of any, but a few things come to mind at the moment:

1. When the girls sang before Gladys Knight came out, Haley looked like she was still trying to win votes with sex appeal. She was practically grinding on one of the other girls, and the other girl (I think Stephanie) looked really uncomfortable.

2. The old Big Bird lady's kiss on Ryan cracked me up. Jeez, I used to want to be a TV show host when I was a kid, but that moment made me glad that I didn't pursue that career. Gah.

3. Constantine Maroulis looks really, really creepy. I kept seeing him in the crowd, and he was giving me chills. I thought he was just gonna go nuts and start killing people at any second.

4. Seeing Gwen Stefani in "performance mode" last night reminded me of how good she looked when she had a more "normal" appearance. Jeez, she looked about 10 years older when she was all made up on the stage last night. I understand that that's her shtick, but she is such a pretty woman, and the stage look ruins it. She doesn't look bad on stage, but she's just prettier than that in reality.

5. Hey, Gina. Good to see you again. Really good to see you again. :cool:

Yeah, Gwen Stefani, that was the other one we FF through.

Constantine looks like he's ready to be the Kato Kaelin of this generation. No discernible talent, just a hanger-on, looking to mooch off of anyone he can.

I laughed really hard at this.

And then I had visions of Big Bird lady going to town on you...and then laughed even more.

Frickin' Rangers fans!!! :mad: :mad: :mad:

Marty Brodeur would have laughed too.

Of course, Jacques Lemaire wouldn't. That guy is stoneface.

No kidding... :)

Too bad they gave her a freakin' potato sack to wear in that one group song... :(


Oh, and for someone who "has gained it all back, with interest" (or something to that affect), Kelly Clarkson looked pretty damn good last night...especially during the Beatles thing except for her silly hop-hop-hop dancing/

No no Tivo can do that as well. That is called hard padding though. You define a certain amount of time before and/or after you want it to record. Other DVRs (UltimateTV and Replay at least) have a soft padding feature in which if it doesn't cause a conflict it automatically records a few minutes before and after for you. To avoid these type of problems. It is soft padding thoguh because if you have two other shows recording in the next hour it will cut off when scheduled instead of pushing a few extra minutes.

I don't know where my wife read this, but she told me that Blake had wanted to wear a "Vote for Jordin" shirt during some part of the finale. The producers shot that idea down. I can understand where the producers are coming from, as they'd like to present performers who want to win. Still, I thought Blake looked genuinely happy for Jordin when they announced her as the winner, and I can believe that he would've preferred for things to turn out as they did, on a personal and professional level.

In the past, I've really only enjoyed the show during the first few episodes, with all the bad singers and junk. This year, I enjoyed it pretty much all the way through. The only lull for me was the two weeks during which they cut from 20 contestants to 12. Once they got to that top 12 though, I was into it. That's saying a lot, considering that I don't watch much television at all.

You could tell he either didn't want to win or knew he wasn't going to win when he deferred the coin toss to her. If you want to win, you go last. He gave her the choice, and she chose wisely. I was a little put off by how he didn't really want to win, but then again, I'm not the one who'd be stuck singing This Is My Now.

I'm with Pumpy...this is the first time I've ever watched the show from beginning to end, and I really enjoyed it. I'm sure I'll be back in front of the tube every Tuesday and Wednesday starting next January for season seven...

Interesting view. I thought he wanted to win (a million dollars is plenty of motivation.) I saw his deferring the coin toss as a tactic. He appears to be a very nice guy by doing that and maybe garners some more votes.

Haley would be a lot hotter is she stopped making those goofy doublestop faces

I think it was more of strategic move designed to make sure he didn't win, frankly. Even reading the comments from over the weekend, he seemed to be going out of his way to talk about how she was one of the two (along with Gina) who he thought would make the finals from the start. Whether he was being objective and honestly believed she should win over him and that's why he was doing all of that, I don't know. But I think he benefits from not winning, and he had to know that.

It's the Marie Osmond in her. As Randy Jackson knows, "Girl can't help it."

And Sanjaya tries to extend his fifteen minutes... :rolleyes:

Dola-

Speaking of Sanjaya, I LOVED that they got the crying girl back in the audience for the finale...and that she was freakin' crying AGAIN.

NEW YORK (AP) -- The best days may still be ahead for Jordin Sparks, but the same may not be said for "American Idol."

The 30.7 million people who watched Sparks win on Wednesday was a sharp drop from the 36.4 million people who saw Taylor Hicks in last year's finale, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Industry observers said chances are that the 2006 season will stand as the peak for audience interest.

A lackluster pool of contestants, the general malaise among viewers this spring and the simple laws of TV gravity are all factors.

"People are getting tired of it," said Marc Berman, an analyst for Media Week Online. "I know I am."

Mind you, most TV shows would kill for this kind of "bad news." The Fox phenomenon was still TV's most popular program this season. Barring a major surprise, it likely will be again next year. (Watch Jordin Sparks talk about her thrill )

Fox executives cautioned against counting "Idol" out. For the season as a whole, "American Idol" ratings will be slightly down or even identical to last year, when DVR viewing is taken into account. To some degree interest is driving by the personalities involved, and a whole new cast of characters join next spring, said Fox's Scott Grogin.

This year's finale compares to the 30.3 million who watched in 2005, and 28.8 million in 2004. The showdown between Clay Aiken and Ruben Studdard in 2003 attracted 38 million viewers, Nielsen said.

For the first half of this season, ratings outstripped last year. When water-cooler favorite Sanjaya Malakar was voted off in April, much of the interest left with him.

"The competition down at the end didn't have the excitement that it had in years past," said Tim Brooks, author of "The Complete Directory to Prime-Time Network and Cable Television." "It's kind of a rehash to viewers."

Producers have tweaked the show each year to keep it fresh, this season adding a songwriters' contest and charity drive for those starving in Africa. In past years, famous musicians were brought in to work with the singers.

The long hiatus each year has also kept interest keen. "American Idol" won't be back for new episodes until next January.

However, producers have agreed to make a spinoff for Fox, a band contest instead of one for individual singers, that will air Fridays in the fall.

While Berman said it's likely to fail in the same way that "American Juniors" did, the spinoff still represents a risk in diluting the brand.

"I would steer clear of it," he said.

Two things about that article that worry me: (1) they're already expecting the band show to fail, which I was afraid of; and (2) since Sanjaya was so popular, we're likely going to see more contestants like him, and eventually the show is going to be populated with freak shows and other outrageous/controversial personalities to try to gain back audience who don't want to watch purely for the singing competition of it.

can't they just make it a little shorter? to me it goes on for far too long maybe causing that dullness at the end.

I couldn't tell who looked happier when they announced the winner, Jordin or Blake. That guy was so relieved to hear he didn't win. Probably because he didn't want to record that abomination of a song the winner has to record.

1) The band show? It's too difficult to judge a band based on 90 seconds. And the audition process would be unwieldy.

2) They control the casting. If they want freak shows, they will cast freak shows. If they want singers, they will cast singers. With 100,000 auditioning, and reports of many extraordinary singers not even getting past the first table, they can have exactly the show they want.

I think they lose audience because they run too many commercials and they mis-manage the results shows. I wouldn't be surprised to see a huge decline next year as well over the Idol Gives Back borefest and non-elimination show.

I started losing interest once they got to the final four. I was fine with any of them winning and so didn't really have a rooting interest to make me follow along, especially since I'm not going to buy anything they put out anyway.

I definitely agree with this. I thought it was ridiculous that they had to speed through the performances nearly every week, not really giving much in the way of background of the contestants or allowing Simon to talk for more than 10 seconds most of the time because of time constraints. And then for the results shows, they changed from the 30-minute shows to a full hour, and jam-packed that hour with garbage. It's the most popular show on TV - you'd think that, like WstS, when they need an extra 15-45 minutes to properly showcase the talent, they could squeeze it in their crappy schedule.

I remember Jordin mentioning on one of the recent shows that she didn't make it as far as she hoped for in LA. I wonder if she even got past the first table - that certainly seemed to be the implication to me. Interesting that the eventual winner was close to being kicked out of the competition before it started.

Fixed that for ya

I've always said that my interest in the show is inversely proportional to how many contestants are left. The show is definitely too long - they should probably do a top 8 or something along those lines. After about the first 2-3 weeks of top 12-10 competition, we already know who has no shot. No sense in bringing them back week after week.

The point, though, is that they may feel forced to have more freak shows to sustain the viewership levels of years' past. Until now, they've largely been content with letting the freak shows' rule the auditions. But Sanjaya's popularity, combined with the lower ratings, may change that.

I also thought the themes this year kind of sucked. I really miss how they would do actual decades and such in the past. This year was just the same sort of mishmash every week thematically IMO. Give me a 40's week again dammit!

What they've done is tried to tie-in artists to the show too much this year. Between the artist-specific themes and the taped performances of artists having nothing to do with AI on the results show, they lost a lot of momentum. They didn't even have the typical "pick a song from the current charts" week this season, did they? Talk about losing sight of the forest for the trees. No, instead we'd rather have Melinda sing 30- and 40-year old songs for 10 weeks.