Hernandez Stripped

. . . of his hopes of becoming this year's American Idol.

Anyhow, I should probably stop making predictions, although, in my defense, Kristi Lee Cook did make it to the bottom three, and deservedly so. But man, I really thought it would be her. Personally, I think her performance was far worse than David Hernandez's, although, after seeing the clip again, I'll concede it was pretty lame. I'm assuming that there are just far more country-music fans out there voting for Idol than there are leather daddies who frequent gay strip clubs.

Everyone (meaning Paula) keeps harping about how this is the strongest final 12 Idol has ever had, and while I usually take that for the usual AI BS, I think this year I actually have to agree. There's not a Sanjaya or a Chicken Little in the bunch.

On to the show:

I can't be the only one who finds the group-sing opening numbers to be excrutiating, and last night's was even worse than usual. I've seen shows on cruise ships, and this is exactly what they're like. But only with more liquor involved.

Pan to the crowd, and . . . hey, is that Sanjaya? Quick, call security in case he tries to hop onstage and sing something.

In between the dopey car ad and Jim Carrey endlessly plugging his new movie, we also got to see reprises of three of Tuesday's four worst performances (David Archuleta being the fourth, but The Chosen One clearly has enough fans to survive the bottom three).

Speaking of The Chosen One, Entertainment Tonight is reporting that the reason behind his on-stage implosion this week was his over-controlling father, who tore a strip off him after a recording session that wasn't to his liking. Meanwhile, reports are emerging that the guy has a nasty temper, and used to berate and yell at David when he was a 12-year-old Star Search contestant: http://www.etonline.com/news/2008/03/59501/index.html

Lots of fluff and filler. Blah, blah, blah, a clip of Ryan's homoerotic banter with eye-rolling Simon, phone calls from fans — including one desperately deluded wannabe who's auditioned seven times and wants to try No. 8 over the phone. And what advice can Simon give this guy? Whatever it was, it was nicer than anything I could have come up with.

No surprises in the final three. Although, if it were indeed based solely on the performances, I think my final three would have been Kristi Lee, Ramiele and David Archuleta, because seriously, that was some crappy-assed singing. Very telling that the clip selected was the bit where he forgot the lyrics.

And now they have a new song from Ruben Studdard to play out the rejects, some lah-di-dah crap about celebrating me home or something while we look back on their journey, 'cause it's all about the journey. Right, I'm sure Hernandez is going to be doing some serious celebrating on his way home and back to his old job, which involved hairy guys wearing dog collars stuffing dollar bills in his g-string. Then again, I suppose "celebrate me home" is nicer than saying "Get lost, loser," although the ultimate meaning is pretty much the same. Glad to hear from ol' Ruben though — and wasn't it nice of Taylor Hicks to cover Rube's shift at Home Depot so he could go record the song?

The best news of the night, though, was that we'll be getting more Beatles songs next week. Hopefully the singers who screwed up on song choices this week (you know who you are David and Amanda) will select better tunes next time around.