Shocking night on ‘American Idol’

A few weeks ago, Simon Cowell said Mandisa was the best singer in the “American Idol” competition. On Wednesday night, she became the fourth of the 12 finalists eliminated.

That might say something about Simon’s sense of talent, except that he tends to say that three or four different people are the best singers, or the clear choice to win the competition, or something else that he can use to look like a genius should that person actually make it to the final week. It might say something about Mandisa, except that she didn’t sing poorly Tuesday night and bid farewell with the same class she’s shown throughout the competition.

Mostly, what it says is that “American Idol” is a tough show to predict, because it depends on the audience’s willingness to pick up the phone.

As Ryan Seacrest reminds everyone every week, viewers have to vote. What he doesn’t say is that it’s up to the contestants to give the audience some incentive to do so. When that doesn’t happen, and fewer people pick up their phones than normal, chance plays a much greater part in the results.

For the second week in a row, none of the singers did anything to stand out. One night after the performances, it was tough to remember which songs were even sung. Anyone who hadn’t voted before wasn’t going to start this week, and even those who had their favorites picked out didn’t get much to inspire devotion.

That proved fatal to Mandisa, which is a shame. She’s 29 years old, and has fewer chances of hitting it big in the music world than some rivals. She’s been one of the favorites since her audition, and the judges love her, but a questionable song choice last week and a fair performance on Tuesday was enough to knock her out of the competition.

Spotlight of shame is spread around
That’s typical of the "Idol" season so far. While Mandisa’s the first to go who once seemed to have a legitimate shot at winning it all (Melissa McGhee, Kevin Covais and Lisa Tucker were long shots at best), the bottom three have been tough to predict all season. No week, however, had as surprising a trio as this one.

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Usually, once a singer finds themselves among the bottom trio of vote-getters once, it’s a sign that they need to be phoning the local bars to beg for stage time by the end of the month. Sometimes, a contender winds up in the bottom three for some random reason and doesn’t go back until the end of the competition, but that’s relatively uncommon.

But this season's finals are just four weeks old, and  only three singers haven’t had to stand in the spotlight of shame: Chris Daughtry, Taylor Hicks and Kellie Pickler. This week, Seacrest divided the nine remaining finalists into three groups of three, and that trio was the first to get sent to safety. No big shock there; they’re the three Simon Cowell named as his picks to be the final three singers in the competition. He’s also talked up Katharine McPhee, meaning that a full 50% of the remaining contestants can be considered his picks to win.

The second trio included Paris Bennett and Elliott Yamin, who joined Mandisa in the bottom group for the first time. That left Ace Young, McPhee and Bucky Covington safe this time around, despite the fact that Young and McPhee were in that group last week and Covington clearly is only avoiding disaster by secretly devising a computer program that votes thousands of times a minute. He might look and sound like a run-of-the-mill singer who can be found in every bar in North Carolina, but he must be doing something right to stay in it as long as he has. 

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