A&E's truly strange drama/mystery/thriller/horror series Bates Motel finished its first season last night, in typically bizarre and gruesome fashion. With the doldrums of summer television almost upon us, why not spend a couple weeks catching up with this masterfully wacky show?
It's over. After all of that pain and struggle, all that we have endured, it's done. Randy Jackson has left the show. Ha, mean. I'm just kidding, Randy. But yes, the twelfth American Idol competition came to a close last night, a surprisingly rousing and spirited finale to a season that's been anything but.
Candice beat Kree last night on the penultimate episode of this, our 109th season of American Idol. But can she win?
Everyone was pretty certain that Thursday night's Final 3 results would play out a certain way. But no! A real humdinger of a shocker came bouncing through the Idoldome, briefly reinvigorating a tiresome season. Well played, American Idol.
The annual Top 3 of American Idol is always such a big episode, crowded as it is with the home visits and the producers' choice song and, of course, that ever-present feeling of the season being almost over. It's a good episode, and a lot of the singing last night was quite good, too, if you can believe. Let's discuss.
One scene last night represented maybe the biggest change from page to screen that we've had so far, in this third season full of misdirection from the most exciting stretch of the books to the unpredictable adaptation by HBO. Or at least the oddest.
Well that's more like it. After last week's lamesville no-elimination cop out, Ryan Seacrest finally got to satisfy his insatiable bloodlust last night as a competitor was eliminated and the field was winnowed down to just three surviving souls.
Well, here we are again in the Final Four. It feels like we were just here. Oh, that's right, because we were. Because last week's dumdum elimination episode wasn't an elimination episode at all.
As far as useless episodes of American Idol go, and there is at least one a week, an elimination episode in which no one is eliminated ranks pretty high at the top of the list. Let's re-live the utter waste of everyone's time, shall we?
The final four! We've finally made it. How are your brackets doing? Since there are only four gals left, let's just go gal-by-gal.
More important than the whodunit are deeper and more thoughtful matters. It's an undeniably strange series, but between this and Top of the Lake, Sundance is having a knockout spring, giving us murder mysteries that say way more about life than they do about death.
Great Game of Thrones last night, huh? Yeah, it sure was good. But I'm afraid I have to put my annoying "guy who read the books" hat on and tell you one maybe possibly deflating thing about last night's excellent episode.
Will we miss Janelle? Probably not. It's hard to miss something that was barely there to begin with. What was Janelle, really?
Well, I believe I may owe America an apology.
Ryan Murphy and the rest of the Glee writers are seemingly determined to make at least one Very Special Episode for every current issue affecting America's teens. And so it glumly came as no surprise last night that Glee tackled the terrible and all too real issue of school shootings. Not surprising, but certainly not welcome, either.
Something was in the air on American Idol last night, some spirit of Idol seasons past that gave some of the contestants a little extra oomph, maybe even genuinely good, likable performances. Well, two, anyway. From the same person. But still.
As a fan of the books, one of the constant worries of watching Game of Thrones is wondering what scenes the writers will have to cut out in order to meet the timing and narrative needs of series television.
Last night, after trotting out Carrie Underwood in some misguided attempt to remind us why we watch Idol in the first place, the awful, terrible, vain and aggravating Lazaro survived — either to keep us watching before he gets bumped off next week, or because this is really where America's at right now. Voting for dreadful Lazaro.
Of the many silly ways that Fox and the show's producers have tried to shake up this season of American Idol, last night's was maybe the silliest. But we must press on, so let's do just that.
As is usually the case with a Justified finale, most of the season's plot threads were tied up, with a main villain vanquished, but one major note of uncertainty hung in the air.
The third episode of A&E's new thriller series Bates Motel aired last night and, man, is that show weird. A less affected Twin Peaks? An Oregon-based, incest-twinged Stephen King story?
One show's third season came to an end last night while another's began, but if we're trading gore for lore, that tradeoff might just work.
Top 8? More like Bottom... everything. I'm afraid it happened last night, folks. The point that comes in every American Idol season, but usually arrives a little bit later. This is typically a Top 5 problem. But this year, it came at eight.
A dark day dawned on DisneyWorld, because its beloved son was dead, tossed carelessly into a Hollywood dumpster, left to molder amid the skeletons of so many singtestants before him. What I am saying to you, dear readers, is that Paul Jolley is gone.
So there are plenty of reasons for Idol to give up its Beatles-night theme. But they keep doing it. Because it's easy and somewhere a light snow of money falls on Paul McCartney. Oh, well. Let's talk about who did what.
Last night Sundance unveiled the new Jane Campion-directed miniseries and A&E debuted its big new Hitchcock-inspired series. Both promised to get make for an chillier evening — even as we out here in the real world look toward spring.
Thrashing around amid all the rumble of serious prestige Sunday television — Mad Men, Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead even — is a strange and wily little Showtime series called Shameless that, now almost three full seasons in, I am just starting to love.
And then there were nine. Only nine! We have miraculously reached the single-digits phase of America's longest and most punishing singing competition, and that is something to celebrate.
Last night America's top ten sang their goopy guts out on American Idol, the last place in America where cheesy is champion. Sure, Nicki Minaj was late, but who's really looking good in the race to who will probably, maybe, definitely win?
Congratulations, America. You have arrived at base camp two of your ascent to the top of Ryan Seacrest's Magic Mystery Mountain.
Welcome to the top 20! Well, OK, last night was the second night of the Top 20, but I was out sick yesterday so I didn't get a chance to write about the girls. Now, to paraphrase Ryan Seacrest, let's get to the boys!
The latest in the network's tough-mom thrillers — a confusing two-hour premiere centered on the Russian mob in San Francisco — feels more like a fill-in distraction than anything else. Which is exactly what Sunday night doesn't need right now.
Last night the second group of boys had their turn, opening their song holes and letting mellifluous sound come pouring out like gravy.
Round three of SUDDEN DEATH, the Idol brain trust's leanest, meanest invention since Clay Aiken with a hangover.
There were hints of invention and humor throughout the Academy Awards on Sunday, but all told the show was remarkable only in its moments of jaw-droppingly bad jokes from the off-putting and unsteady host — and in its agonizing waste of time.
Like the girls before them, ten of the top twenty boys were brought before the judges last night, five of them to be raised up to the gleaming Valhalla of the semifinals stage, the other five to be cast into the gloomy oblivion of Tartarus.
Sudden death hits the Strip, and it's not so revolutionary as sad and wonderful — mostly sad, but still: We're getting to know everyone before the real competition begins.
Though we'd already been through so much on Downton Abbey this season — death, threat of poverty, wrongful imprisonment, thwarted love, cruel betrayal — the show had one last grim surprise for us last night.
Goodbye Hollywood! Idol's grueling second round of auditions ended last night, with twenty men and twenty women being chosen to march bravely to the front lines, where all but one of them will be shot to shreds and blown to smithereens.
We may all hate lists, but sometimes they are necessary. Here's a list of things from last night's Idol that we observed.
After all the swag and hot beatz and rockin' dudes on the Grammys last night, it was strange to jump right into a whopping two-hour episode of Downton Abbey, but they made it worth our time, didn't they?
Finally we've arrived back in Hollywood, city of dreams and possibility. Yes, American Idol has entered the second phase of the season, when all the golden ticketed people descend on California like singing bugs.
Well, it's back. NBC's much-maligned high stakes gamble of a series Smash returned for a second season last night, supposedly repaired after a backstage debacle of a first season, and was, ratings-wise, an unqualified disaster. At a certain point, one has to wonder: Should NBC just throw in the towel?
The CW has always struggled with creating real people. And yet somehow, on a show about the young Carrie Bradshaw, of all things, they pulled it off — and kept it up. And that has made The Carrie Diaries, surprisingly, one of the best new things on TV.
Lost amid last night's Super Bowl hoopla was another episode of the increasingly moribund Downton Abbey, a show that needs to pick itself up out of the mud and get to some greener pastures right quick.
In which Hollywood awaits, but not before puppets and ailments and bear hugs and — oh, yeah — a guest appearance by the ancient burl-witch Steven Tyler.
Oh, Idol! We are almost to the good part. Yes, last night we were gloriously informed that this week is the last of the auditions episodes, that long and frustrating Idol stretch when it feels like we are running in place.
So, that was the big terrible Downton Abbey event that those in the U.K., and those Stateside who pirated the show early, have been gasping about for a few months.
Last night Ryan Seacrest got on his big, bejeweled fanboat and whirred on down to the bayou. American Idol was headed to Louisiana!
Last night the Idol wagon headed to Charlotte, bringing that sleepy Bank of America town its first bit of joy since the Hornets packed up and flew off. Though, sadly, it wasn't much joy.
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