Lindsey Cardinale
runs out of chances

All the ‘Idol’ buzz for this week has centered around the departure of Mario Vazquez, an early favorite who abruptly left the show for “personal reasons” that apparently aren’t pressing enough to keep him from going on any talk show that will have him and coyly refusing to actually talk about it.

The producers decided that the best way to acknowledge his departure while keeping the focus on the singers still in the competition was to do a little sleight-of-hand trick. Ryan Seacrest began Wednesday’s show with a little bit of dry humor, describing how everyone was calling him and asking for the inside scoop: “Why? What was the reason ... (dramatic pause) that the judges were so hard on the contestants last night?”

That was one of the only bits of drama in a show that was eminently predictable. The buzz throughout the semifinal rounds were that all the men were really good and some of the women were just average. This week was the first time the genders have competed head to head, and the audience sent a strong signal that the men are indeed safe for a while and the bottom tier of women shouldn’t be sending out their dry-cleaning to anywhere but a same-day establishment.

Lindsey Cardinale was in obvious trouble after struggling in the semifinals and again on Tuesday night, and became the first finalist eliminated. But in what had to be great news for the six men in the competition, Cardinale was joined in the bottom three by the only two teenage women left in the game, Mikalah Gordon and Jessica Sierra.

Gordon was no surprise, since she’s struggling to rediscover the magic she showed in earlier stages. But when Sierra — who two weeks ago gave what Simon called “without question the best female performance we’ve heard so far” — winds up ranked below a guy who’s already been voted off once, it says that the young ladies haven’t done a great job of selling themselves to the audience.

Teenage sensations like Avril Lavigne and Ashlee Simpson manage to sell millions of records. Evidently, however, either their fans don’t watch American Idol, or if they do, they recognize that this year’s young Britney wannabes are a long way from having that kind of a presence.

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