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Access Atlanta > American Idol Buzz > Archives > 2008 > February > 13
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
2/13: The final 24 & better ratings
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The spoiler 24 was 100% correct! (I apologize that this blog has become really strange—sometimes, I post and the commenting doesn’t work!)
They showed only a handful of the rejected this year. Overall, it looks like a solid 24 without a Sanjaya in sight!
We have:
Carly Smithson Hennessy. Yes, the pimped her story out AGAIN (minus the MCA deal, of course). And she cries and cries and cries — in happiness.
David Cook. I’m not that impressed but he’s one of this year’s rocker dudes.
They show a few poorer performances and rejects (Brandon Green, Amanda Hawkins, Buck Smith)
David Archuleta The judges love him and the 16 year old will get the teen vote.
Kristy Lee Cook Miss “Amazing Grace” makes it. She is absolutely adorable. She definitely has the looks. Does she have the ability to tough it out consistently in the vocal department?
Brooke White The sweet Mormon gal gets the thumbs up.
Danny Noriega He strikes me as overrated and a bit overconfident, too. But he’s through.
Three quickies that haven’t gotten much, if any, airtime: Jason Castro, Luke Menard and Atlanta’s Alexandrea Lushington.
Ramielle Maulbay This cute-as-a-button Asian gal with the soulful voice gets through.
Shawn Barrowes is out. (We saw him briefly yesterday). Lorena Pinot, too, is out. Drew Poppelreiter, who we’ve never seen before. He’s a southern boy, that’s for sure. Natasha Block is a goner.
Michael Johns, also known as Michael Lee, makes it through after a strong week. He’s definitely an early favorite. And being a former Atlantan, I will certainly be talking to him in the coming week, along with Alex.
Syesha Mercado, who is this year’s Nadia Turner/LaToya London type, is a sparkling personality with a great voice. I’m looking forward to hearing more from her.
Robbie Carrico is yet another rocker type and he seems like he has the skills based on what limited moments we’ve heard so far.
Garrett Haley is going on. Who is he? Kady Malloy gets a second or two of airtime. She as an early favorite but the “Idol” producers ignored her in Hollywood. Chikezie Ezie makes it, too. Amy Davis, Alaina Whitaker and Jason “we’ve never seen him before” Yeager get yesses, too.
Asia’h Epperson, one of my favorite female singers, is in the top 24. Go Asia’h!
David Hernandez, another one of my favorites, actually didn’t get a unanimous decision. “You’re going to work a heck of a lot harder to have a remote chance of winning,” Simon inexplicably said. What’s that about, Simon? Of course, we only heard one of his auditions. He may not have been as good the other times. I can’t wait to hear him next week!
Josiah Leming, a bit surprisingly, gets the boot. His last performance probably killed him. Poor guy. “I had a bad second audition,” he said. They wring every tear out of him.
They pit the final two guys. There’s geeky Kyle Ensley vs. Colton Berry. Another surprise: Kyle loses. And Simon liked him. I liked him, too. Simon said strongly how disappointed he is that Kyle was not in the final 12 guys. Shame.
Then it’s the two ladies: professional singer Cardin McKinney vs. professional model Joanne Borgella. Joanne makes it through though my DVR cut it off early.
So now it’s time to handicap.
In other news, “Idol” ratings were off 15 to 20 percent every episode year over year until last Wednesday, when the dropoff was a narrower 5 percent.
There was even better news last night, when the show drew almost 30 million, based on preliminary numbers. This is only a 3 percent fall from a year ago, the narrowest gap yet. And honestly, it was probably one of the best Hollywood episodes “Idol” has ever done so kudos to everyone involved.
Relatively speaking, “Idol” has done a much better job developing the potential characters we are going to see in the final 24. Last year at this point, we knew much less about most of the contestants.
