American Idol season 5 has come to an end and the new American Idol champion has been crowned, Taylor Hicks. It was a very fun finale tonight and it is amazing how the finale of this show has become one of the biggest TV nights of the year. I was very excited for it and just kept counting the minutes to how long it was till the finale started. If you watched Idol Tonight, you saw how many big names were there attending the finale and walking the red carpet. They did not announce the percentage of votes that Taylor got which I would like to hear but I’ve got to believe that it was close. 63.4 million votes were received. I put my votes in for Katharine last night hoping to see her win but I knew both had a great chance of winning. The performance show on Tuesday night was really good. I thought Taylor definitely won round one. Katharine won round two. I think who won round three depended on who you liked and what song that you liked more. Me? I thought Katharine did as I liked her performance better. I did like both singles though. Katharine was just beaming as she sang her single. This was the first time that I can recall that they have done two separate singles for each finalist. Usually, they have them sing the same song. As far as the finale itself, it is always fun to see the finalists all get back together and sing. It was cool to see Chris perform tonight with Live. Live is a group that I’ve always liked. Ten years ago, our group of friends were wearing their album out with how much we listened to it. Every time I heard Chris sing, it just reminded me of how annoying that it was that he wasn’t competing in the finale. How funny were the segments with Kellie Pickler and Wolfgang Puck? Kellie’s reactions to the lobster were hilarious!! I can’t believe that she fell out of the chair. ha ha. It’s always fun to see which former Idol contestants show up and again if you watched Idol Tonight, there were a TON!! Carrie Underwood was there and performed with all of this year’s finalists to open the show and then later did Don’t Forget To Remember Me. What better way to start the show than with Carrie? Clay Aiken also showed up and performed with the guy from the auditions that said that he could sing better than Clay Aiken. That was a fun idea to get those together for a song. One thing I really want them to do in the future is do a surprise where they get all of the Idol winners and bring them out to sing a song. I think that would be a very fun thing if schedules worked out for everyone to appear. Rumors were flying earlier in the season that Prince was going to be on Idol this season and it must have finally worked out as he appeared on the finale. Was anyone else getting nervous looking at the clock and realizing that it was 8:55 and the results hadn’t started??!! I thought for sure that local affiliates all over the country weren’t going to get the memo and cut the Fox feed at 9:00 no matter what. The show ran about 3 minutes past its scheduled time. American Idol is now over for the season which now leads me to, now what??? I hadn’t really thought about next week’s TV until Kimberly Caldwell mentioned it on Idol Tonight saying she didn’t know what she was going to watch next Tuesday and Wednesday. Now, Idol is over and we have to find something else to do until it all starts again in January. Don’t forget if you have Fox Reality Channel or DirecTV to watch American Idol Extra as they will have a post finale show airing for the next several days. This was a very fun season and a congrats out to Taylor on winning American Idol. Taylor also became only the 3rd Idol winner to never be in the bottom group throughout the voting joining Carrie Underwood and Kelly Clarkson.
Lots of stars were seen at this week’s Idol finale week including: David Boreanaz, Ben Stiller, Christine Taylor, Mandy Moore, Christina Applegate, Taye Diggs, Camryn Manheim, Bo Derek, Billy Gibbons, Joey Fatone, Lance Bass, and many others. Former Idol contestants in attendance tonight that I did see were Carrie Underwood, Clay Aiken, Constantine Maroulis, Vonzelle Solomon, Anthony Federov, Justin Guarini, Carmen Rasmusen, Kimberly Caldwell, George Huff, Jon Peter Lewis, Jasmine Trias, Nadia Turner, LaToya London, and others.
The American Idol Season 5 CD is in stores and here is the lineup for it: “What About Love” – Melissa McGhee; “Superstition” – Bucky Covington; “I’m Every Woman” – Mandisa; “Wanted Dead Or Alive” – Chris Daughtry; “Father Figure” – Ace Young; “Takin’ It To The Streets” – Taylor Hicks; “Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I’m Yours)” – Lisa Tucker; “Walkin’ After Midnight” – Kellie Pickler; “Moody’s Mood For Love” – Elliott Yamin; “Think” – Katharine McPhee; “Midnight Train To Georgia” – Paris Bennett; “When I Fall In Love” – Kevin Covais. I did buy it and am really enjoying it. $10 at Circuit City for anyone interested in it.
Carrie Underwood had a huge night at the CMA’s. She was nominated for four awards and took home two. She won for best new female artist and for single of the year. Her performance of Jesus Take The Wheel was amazing and she got a huge standing ovation after as she was crying by the end of the song. Great moment and it was great to see her get that reaction. Congrats to Carrie!!
The ratings are in for the Tuesday matchup of American Idol vs. the CMA Awards. It was like expected. Idol brought in a 17.7 rating while the CMA’s got a 5.4 rating. Fox also did well with the season finale of House as it got a 15.2. After Idol went off, the CMA’s jumped up to a 8.3 during the 8pm hour. At the 9pm hour, the CMA’s jumped up even more to a 9.0. Good strategy by the CMA’s and CBS though as Carrie Underwood kicked off the 8pm hour with her performance just as Idol went off. My immediate thought was great scheduling trying to grab those Idol fans immediately after the show went off. There was a very interesting story that came out in the last couple of days that relates to the ratings. When Idol producers were shopping American Idol around, nobody wanted to touch it including MTV, ABC, NBC, CBS, and not even UPN. Don’t you bet all those networks would like to have that decision back??!!
I saw this movie over the weekend that I have been wanting to see since I heard of the concept of it. I’m talking about My Date With Drew. I’ll set it up. This is not a scripted movie and is a completely real documentary. This average guy who has had a major crush on Drew Barrymore since he was a kid sets a goal to get a date with Drew Barrymore. He won $1100 on a game show and it was a Drew question that helped him win. He takes the money and makes that the budget for this documentary that he shoots with his friends on him trying to get a date with Drew Barrymore. He only has 30 days to get the date. Why? The reason is that he doesn’t own a videocamera and can’t afford one but uses some of the money to buy one at Circuit City but he doesn’t plan on keeping it. Circuit City of course has a return policy of 30 days so he has to get this date in 30 days before they have to return the camera to the store. The movie sees the guy named Brian and his friends figuring out anyway possible to make this date happen. They are out in Hollywood so they have some Hollywood connections but still have a tough time with it. I do have to say that Brian and all his friends are very likable which makes the movie even more fun to where you really start pulling for this to happen for the guy. I loved this documentary as this was such an original concept that I’ve never heard of being done before. When I heard the idea for this thing, I immediately thought ok I’ve got to see this thing. I highly recommend this movie. The way it is put together just looks like a bunch of friends taping stuff which is basically what it is. I found myself laughing out loud several times at things that would happen to them. The movie is an hour and a half. If you want to see more about the movie, go to the website: http://www.mydatewithdrew.com. I think the link for the trailer is down but maybe you can search around for a trailer on another site.
I have forgotten to talk about this for the past two weeks now. Have you seen the price for the new Playstation 3? WOW!!! It is going to cost 600 dollars!! It is going to be a Blu-Ray player which is big as that is one format of the high definition DVD’s and it will play PS3, PS2, and PS1 games but that is a lot to ask from people wanting to buy a new video game system. It is cheap for a Blu-Ray player however. Some people are saying that they are mad over the price but will buy it anyway while others are saying forget it. Lots of people have been waiting big time for PS3 but are now looking at maybe going with the X Box 360 or waiting for the new Nintendo Wii that got rave reviews a few weeks ago upon its preview. Not sure when the new Nintendo is being released but the right price may boost their sales even more than expected. Nintendo could be ready to make a huge move!!
I actually watched an episode of Law and Order last week. I was flipping around the channels and saw Brittany Snow from American Dreams guest starring on the show so I thought I would check it out. She did really good on it and I thought it was a good episode.
More has been coming out about the cancellation of Everwood. It sounds like it came down between that show and 7th Heaven. Everwood was going to be brought back and given the 7th Heaven timeslot but the ratings were so strong for 7th Heaven this season and especially for the finale that 7th Heaven ended up being kept. This meant the end for Everwood which has really gotten fans of the show all stirred up. I’ve never watched Everwood but I hear really good things about it.
What a NBA Playoffs!! This 2006 NBA Playoffs has been the best playoffs in many years. 3 of the 4 conference semifinals series went 7 games. It’s very clear that I want somebody out of the west to win the championship as I don’t like Detroit or Miami. If you’re missing the TNT broadcasts, you are missing great stuff in the studio as always. They now have a sound effect of a boat starting up when they do the “going fishing” pictures which if you don’t know is what they do every time a team is eliminated from the playoffs. Funny stuff. Also, the Bulls got the number 2 pick in the draft which I loved to hear. Hmm, if I’m the Bulls I might take that pick and make a phone call to Minnesota and try to work a trade with Kevin Garnett. The Bulls are a superstar away from making a playoff run. Garnett and Minnesota will likely go opposite ways soon after such a disappointing couple of seasons. He would look great in a Bulls uniform.
Not only is The Rock going to star in the movie “Spy Hunter” based off of the video game. He will also apparently star in the new video game of the movie that will come out this fall.
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