Cast: Jennifer Lopez, Randy Jackson, Steven Tyler, Ryan Seacrest
Network: Fox, airs Wednesdays and Thursdays
Original Telecast: February 23, 2010

We get it, AMERICAN IDOL.

You have access to the Beatles catalog.

We know. You’ve only shoved it down our throats year-after-year and letting us hear some of our favorite songs of all time get butchered again and again.

Yet, instead of taking a different tact and maybe doing a nice U2 night or an Aerosmith night (I mean come on you have Steven Tyler sitting right there), or a Chicago night, or even a freaking Metallica night, we once again get the Beatles.

Oh but it is in Las Vegas. Yeah, big deal. Not like we are seeing any of the sights or the hotels or the backdrops other than the lead-ins from the commercials.

To make matters worse, we have a freaking four-hour long IDOL week. Really? I mean I understand if we were in Hollywood Week with loads of freaking contestants that you need to wade through, but at this point with the number of people at 61 we do not need four hours. Two hours would be just fine in order to get a good enough impression of how the judges are narrowing the field down to 24.

Especially this is the case if indeed they are not going to give us the option of voting on the contestants when they are at 24 like they have promised this year. If they were going to give us the option of voting for our favorites maybe yes but not if we are just going to get a Top-12 out of the deal.

I have been a fan of the Hollywood Week because it was a really good look at the process unlike we have ever seen before, but we are past that now and we need to get to the point where the fans are taking an active interest in the show and fast. Again, I have no problem with the fact they are giving us some of the looks at the contestants, but damn at this point let’s get to the finish line.

However, given this aspect is here. I do like that they did mostly duets in the process. That really makes things different and I thought that this is one way they could spice it up as well and even in Top-12 portion have a duet where the lowest rated duet goes home (yes both of them). I thought that this was actually maybe the best Beatles performances we have seen from the show, maybe ever. I’m sure a lot of it was in the editing as we got more about Ashley’s marriage than we did some of the performances because it makes good TV or whatever.

I also liked that we got to see a whole bunch of talent that we have not seen much of up until this point. We have seen a lot of the people that continue to occupy the spotlight of the cameras in this round but at least we got a glimmer of some of the other people that may make it to the Top-24. Which is important because we literally got nothing of Lee Dewyze from last year and he ended up blowing people away in the Top-12 and winning the whole thing.

Considering we have seen nothing but butchered performances prior to this, it was a refreshing change. Now again, it could be in the editing process and if they did live it may come off completely different but for what we see they really nailed it a lot of them.

Not all the performances were that great and the judges let them know but at least we got to see more of the talent which is better than what we have seen in the past from the show that focused more on the freaks, geeks and losers than it did the talent. And for a talent show, that is saying something.

One of the things that will be interesting to see is how the judges actually do during the live competition. If you remember, Ellen Degeneres last year was pretty damn good during the edited portions of the show but when it came time to deliver it live, she became an uber Paula Abdul. She was so nice that she really couldn’t give a decent review. While J.Lo and Steven Tyler have seemed to be pretty good so far, the real mettle of how they will do is upcoming and I hope they don’t disappoint.

So who made it into the Top-24? Well, we really don’t know. Because another bone of contention with me and this episode is that they revealed only five of the Top-24. You have to tune in tomorrow to find out who else makes it.

But they did reveal five of the Top-24: Naima Adedapo, Haley Reinhart, Ashton Jones, Clint Jun Gamboa and Paul McDonald.

That means we say goodbye to: Molly DeWolf, Carson Higgins, Ashley Sullivan, Caleb Hawley, Hollie Cavanagh, LaKeisha Lewis, Alex Ryan and DeAndre Brackensick.

Who else makes it and who else goes home? We’ll see what happens tomorrow.

CLICK HERE for more reviews of AMERICAN IDOL – Season 10

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