'Idol' Results 05/09: In which 'Stayin' Alive' proves to be an ironic song choice

The following is a minute-by-minute recap of Wednesday (May 9) night's particularly boring American Idol results show.

9:00 p.m. ET Now this is the Dice-K the Red Sox paid all that money for. Who needs Clemens? Oh. Wait. Idol. Excuse me.

9:01 p.m. American Idol is a precisely calibrated machine and the fact that the judges are sitting in atypical Randy-Simon-Paula formation is enough to destroy my equilibrium. Simon mimics Paula's beloved happy seal-clap. Paula mimics Simon's traditional happy boob-rub. Ryan says something completely inappropriate about one of their breasts, but I can't tell who should be insulted. I'm going with Jessica Alba. The judges agree that tonight is Anything Can Happen night. Is there a reason why Ryan spends a minute praising Simon's contributions to Tuesday show? Is it because last night's inexplicably rushed hour left Simon without time to say anything?

9:03 p.m. Barry Gibb's bizarre Sean Connery impression means it's time for me to watch a few minutes of baseball rather than reliving Tuesday.

9:06 p.m. This is the problem with Ryan's man-on-the-street time-waster. Sometimes you get amusing, off-the-cuff comments from the hoi polloi, other times you're just an over-tanned letch wandering through the Farmer's Market asking people how deep their love happens to be. Ick. I do like the indefinably foreign woman who says LaKisha gives her "goose bumplets," as well as the very cute and very deluded little child who predicts that the Lakers are going to win it all this season. I wonder why Ryan keeps making it sound like Pink is going to be appearing live, when pretty much everybody knows by this point that this is just the performance we didn't have time to see with Idol Gives Back?

9:11 p.m. Are they taking Ashley the Crying Girl on the Idol Tour this summer? That's what the promo seems to imply. Come see Sanjaya's Hair! Blake's Beatboxing! Chris' Dulcet Nasal Tones! Haley's Short-Shorts! And Ashley the Crying Girl!  They could just bring her out in a cage each week. That would make for an amusing "How I Spent My Summer Vacation" essay next fall.

9:14 p.m. They may be bending the time-space continuum to bring her to us, but Pink looks great. I suspect this is one of those times, though, that I should be glad I don't have a high-def TV?

9:21 p.m. Sometimes you get four singers whose voices are compatible. Sometimes you get this season's Idol Final Four. Sorry, Ford. The week's commercial, set to "You Really Got Me Going," is awful. Sandwiched in the midst of three women with far superior voices, Blake's tinny pipes stand out noticeably. "Some of your best work, guys," Ryan dead-pans.

9:22 p.m. Which Idol singer went to Africa and lip-synched to dying children for Idol Gives Back? If you know, you can win $10,000 for yourself. I'll repeat, she went to Africa to help Idol raise money for starving kids and that knowledge will win somebody a large chunk of lucre to keep. I'm trying to think about whether or not this juxtaposition is ironic, or just vaguely disgusting. Maybe a Hurricane Katrina victim will win.

9:23 p.m. Individually they couldn't sing Barry Gibb last night. Maybe the trick was uniting all of their awfulness into one huge ball of suck? Nope. The week's group-sing medley proves that neither last night's unremarkable performances nor the Ford commercial were flukes. The Idol musical director has been stymied by the challenge of arranging songs for three women and one male. I don't know if I'm more embarrassed by the technical gaffe that starts the group sing or Blake's atonal, quickly covered, verses. Probably the latter, since Melinda has opportunities to make amends.

9:28 p.m. I have to warn DreamWorks that I'm now officially sick of Shrek the Third.

9:31 p.m. During the commercial break, LaKisha was having a conversation with herself about how important it is to remember her words if she goes home. Jordin says it was hard to rehearse two songs in less than a week. Blake avoids talking back to Simon. LaKisha says she had a tough day yesterday. Melinda goes into her Uriah Heep "I'm so very 'umble" routine. Whoa. Could these four be any duller? Is there an iota of humor or personality in the whole quartet? And what 25-year-old man thinks that the tuxedo t-shirt is a cool fashion choice? Or is that just another example of Blake being contemporary and original?

9:33 p.m. Those lucky Idol contestants. They got to go see another movie. What movie? Fantastic Four: Rise of the CGI Blur. Fantastic Four? Get it? Because the movie is about The Fantastic Four and they're the Idol Fantastic Four? They get to meet the director, which must be just wicked exiting for them. Based on the clip, the dialogue in this sequel will be every bit as fantastic as in the original. At least they didn't have to pay to see it. Tellingly, the members of the Idol Fantastic Four don't even leave the Fox screening room gushing about the movie, but do you know who does? Jessica Alba! She says it's great and wonderful and that the movie is opening on my birthday. Then Ryan slobbers over Jessica.

9:36 p.m. It's time to play Better Know Your Idols. Blake, LaKisha and Melinda are all only children. Jordin has a brother. Blake had a funny smile. LaKisha and Melinda used to have 'fro problems. Blake and Jordin had behavioral problems. Shockingly, Melinda was well behaved and ever-so-'umble. This is, for all of them, the fulfillment of a dream, just in case you didn't know. LaKisha cries. Jordin cries. I snore.

9:43 p.m. Oh. We're eliminating somebody tonight? OK. Jordin is safe. She flaps her hands as if she didn't expect it, or as if, freed from her Idol pressures for the evening, she'd just as soon fly away home.

9:46 p.m. Barry Gibb, looking old and a bit uncomfortable, reprises the Jordin Sparks classic "To Love Somebody." Bill Maher, also looking old and a bit uncomfortable, is the most enthusiastic person in the room.

9:54 p.m. Melinda is also safe, leaving Blake and LaKisha in the spotlight. Randy says they each had tough nights and finds different ways of saying he doesn't know. Simon speculates that LaKisha's going home. Randy, who wouldn't venture a guess himself, boo's Simon's willingness to express an opinion. Paula, words already cracking, tells them that they're both tremendous.

9:55 p.m. Over 45 million votes were cast. The teenage girls have worked their magic and Blake is safe. Is this the first time we've seen LaKisha's audition footage? Interesting. One of the keys to her success was the shock factor of her first-week rendition of "And I Am Telling You." Would she have lasted this long if we had known that was coming?

9:59 p.m. I'm reminded that we saw LaKisha's audition rendition of "Think," but not the footage of her early Dreamgirls cover, footage that pops up in her exit montage.

Thoughts on this week's results? Were you able to stay awake through the results show? And where does this Top Three stack up with previous Idol trios?

And check out Zap2it's Complete American Idol Coverage.

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