Game Show NewsNet

April 14, 2005 -- Part two

The Week That Was...

On "American Idol"...
Thank goodness we left the Classic Musicals week behind, and moved to a (radio voice on) mix of the 70s and 80s (radio voice off) in "Songs from the Year You Were Born" week. There really weren't any BAD performances this week...though there were painful moments.

I mentioned in Part One of this column that I was going to be agreeing with Simon Cowell this week. Apparently America agreed with him too: he only had negative comments for three performers on Tuesday...and what do you know...those three are the bottom three for the week (Bo, Nadia, and Scott).

For the record, in the unofficial GSNN "Idol" rankings that appear in this column each week, those three were three of my bottom four. More on that, and where I agree with Simon, in a minute.

But first, the strongest performances of the night came from a surprisingly-consistent Anwar Robinson (singing 1979's "I'll Never Love This Way Again"), Constantine Maroulis (belting out 1975's "Bohemian Rhapsody"), and Carrie Underwood (who, even though she sang three different verses in one verse, still did well with 1983's "Love Is a Battlefield," even while being sick.

The weakest came from Scott Savol (who would've won the week if it hadn't been for the low notes in 1976's "She's Gone," which he just couldn't hit) and Nadia Turner (singing the little-known 1977 song "When I Dream").

So here are the rankings through week five. Note, as always, these rankings are my opinion only and are as subjective as each of our votes.

		*Rankings*
Contestant	Point Total	This Wk	Overall	Previous
Constantine Maroulis	14	2	1	1
Carrie Underwood	17	3	2	2
Anwar Robinson	18	1	3	5
Vonzell Solomon	19	T-5	4	3
Bo Bice	22	4	5	6
Anthony Fedorov	29	T-5	6	9
Nadia Turner	29	8	7	7
Scott Savol	31	7	8	8

Remember in this space last week, I mentioned the three with star quality, none of whom were like the others? Constantine. Carrie. Vonzell. All safe. All strong.

And here's where I agree with Simon Cowell: if Nadia could have sung her Week 1 (60s week) song again, "You Don't Have To Say You Love Me," which she sang at tonight's results show, she would not be going home. She was awesome on that the first time, and was awesome on it again just before leaving.

And Gordon's "Chaos Theory" strikes again. Even though Constantine has somewhat left the Land of Rock...he's still in the same audience group as Bo. And as Constantine's star has been rising fast (in our rankings, 11th-4th-6th-3rd-1st-1st), Bo's has fallen (in our rankings, 1st-1st-4th-5th-6th-5th).

On "The Apprentice"...
Has anyone else joined me in thinking that this season is the equivalent of the "Survivor: Africa" season? In other words, predictable? I'm not entirely sure there really can be a winner given the group that is left. But we'll see if someone can step up to the plate.

On "Survivor"...
But this season's "Survivor" is definitely not like "Survivor: Africa." As expected, there was not a tribal merge and now Ulong is a tribe of one. It would seem Stephenie will be gone this week, tribal merge or not. There seem to be indications that there might not be a merge. Either way, if the jury is a seven-member jury as usual...Stephenie has made the jury. Wouldn't that be something...to be member of a jury against people you spent just a few days with at the beginning of the game?

On "The Amazing Race"...
All I'll say is I LOVE the way this week's show ended. Just awesome.

Odds and Ends...
And finally...a couple remaining thoughts.

* Best wishes to "Nashville Star" host LeAnn Rimes. Rimes has a busted blood vessel in a vocal cord following her recent illness...and has had to bow out of her hosting duties as a result. It's unclear whether this week's guest host Sara Evans (who did a good job hosting, by the way) will be on next week's show as well. USA Network's press release says that Rimes will be back for the series finale in just two weeks, but I'd be shocked if she's back well enough to do the entire finale by then. We'll see.

By the way, part of the Nashville Star summer tour will be a three-show set in Niagara Falls, Ontario. Geez.

* And congrats to Jeopardy! steamroller Dan Melia, who became the first quarterfinalist in the Ultimate tournament, in a game that wasn't even close.

See you next week.