Idol, Kelly Clarkson Album Review, Smallville, Lost, Survivor, & More - March 12, 2009

The top 13 performed on the big stage for the first time on this week’s American Idol. The theme of the week was Michael Jackson songs. Some contestants shined while others faded. A new twist was named this week as well. The judges are now able to veto. How does this work? Well, America will vote just like normal. The judges will have the power to use this veto only once until the top five where they can override America’s vote. This is a plan to eliminate the shock eliminations of people from years past such as Chris Daughtry among others. The decision also has to be unanimous by all the judges to save someone. I guess I don’t really have an opinion on this new twist. The competition can take major hits when a shock elimination happens which happens almost every year. It will add some drama to the show so I’m fine with it. The performances this week were fun for the most part. I still like who I’ve said that I like. I like Allison, Alexis, and Danny. Definitely pulling for them. Allison Iraheta sang a song that I knew was going to be a good pick when it was announced and that was “Give In To Me”. I always liked that song and her voice and style was well matched for it. Alexis Grace also picked out a song with a rock style and that was “Dirty Diana”. Danny Gokey broke out “PYT” and got a compliment from Paula saying that he was going straight to the finals. Adam Lambert was also major talk this week as he got some big praises from the judges for his rendition of “Black Or White”. Lil Rounds also got big praise and she had the task of going first as she put a different spin on “The Way You Make Me Feel”. One thing that I really like is that we have some major singers in this competition and personalities. I already have who I’d like to see be the top six or so but viewer voting can get crazy so we’ll see. There were other singers that were middle ground and others who were criticized for their song choice. On results night, the group was split into two. It was narrowed down to Megan Joy Corkrey and Jasmine Murray with Jasmine going home. In the second group, it was narrowed down to Anoop Desai and Jorge Nunez with Jorge going home. The judges did not vote to save either one of them. Kelly Clarkson returned to the Idol stage last night as well singing her new single. I will be talking about her album here momentarily. Seeing her on the Idol stage was fun. It was humorous with the talk of what Idol was going to do about the 866 number for contestant 13. Ryan Seacrest had some fun with that on his radio show this week.

Carrie Underwood's cover of "Home Sweet Home" is now available to download at iTunes. This is the farewell song that is going to be played every week on American Idol for the video package of when someone is sent home. The song is a big hit on iTunes and that was obvious after the results show aired last night. I kept trying to buy it and it was so jammed that I couldn't buy it until later in the night. The song was of course originally done by Motley Crue. Carrie does a very nice version of it and I have had it in my head all day. Speaking of Carrie, she will be performing on next week’s Wednesday episode of American Idol. The theme for next week will be Grand Ole Opry week. Randy Travis will be the mentor. Carrie and Randy will be performing “I Told You So” together.

I picked up Kelly Clarkson’s new album, All I Ever Wanted. Her first single from the album has had to grow on me. I wasn’t very crazy about it at all the first time that I heard it but I find myself liking it more in the last week. Her performance on Idol was really strong with it too and got me to give it more of a chance as well. There are a lot of songs on this album that should be released as singles. Very catchy and great sound to them. “Cry” and “Don’t Let Me Stop You” definitely have chart feel to them. “Cry” is a very good slow song that is one of my favorite songs on the album. Other favorites of mine include “Long Shot”, “Save You”, and “All I Ever Wanted”. This definitely sounds like a Kelly Clarkson album and she works her strengths with the rock sound along with her ballads. Overall, I really like the album a lot and am very happy to have picked it up. If you’re a Kelly Clarkson fan, give it a listen. You can test drive the album over at her official website, http://www.kellyofficial.com

Smallville returned tonight with new episodes and I really enjoyed it. I just kept wondering how they were going to reverse things to get back to where we were and then got the answer. Clark was threatened by the returning Linda Lake who threatened to expose his secret in the newspaper. Clark decided to take matters into his own hands and tell his secret on his own. He gave Lois the story and revealed his secret to her. I liked this as I’ve always wondered how she would deal with things if she knew. She had his back through the whole thing. As expected, things went crazy. He was treated like a hero and his friends were getting all kinds of attention for being associated with him. However, things turned out like they often do in real life and that is that a hero has to be torn down unfortunately. He was framed and chased down along with Chloe. Chloe ended up finding out some more big information when talking to Davis. She found out that Davis was Doomsday and sent the info to Lois. Lois was knocked out that point as Clark battled Linda. Clark did find a solution on what to do to solve this whole thing and that was to use the time travel ring that was given to him by The Legion. He would use it to go back in time two days to also stop Linda from doing her story. The story baffling me to this episode was when Lois got the message and tried to tell Clark what Chloe had just said. Clark went ahead and put the ring on and time traveled. Wouldn’t you wait five seconds to hear what she had to say??!! I really did like the story of Clark and Lois in this episode cause she really had his back through the whole thing and was disappointed that he wasn’t going to tell her the secret again when he time traveled. I just thought about this but we sure do have a lot of TV time traveling lately!! Lois waiting for Clark only for him not to show was sad at the end. They are doing a good job of building up their romance. Well, Linda wanted Doomsday and she got him. She was finished off by him. Good episode tonight.

Moving on to tonight’s Survivor. The secret alliance continues to roll so far. Although, some tribe members are getting concerned that something is going on. Taj and Stephen made their way to the tree mail site and found the hidden immunity idol so now both sides of the secret alliance have their idols. Sierra went to Brendan and she had a funny reaction to him on when he planned on telling her about this alliance. He revealed to her that he had their hidden idol. Jalapao won the reward challenge and they sent Brendan to exile island once again. Brendan was able to take someone and he spared Taj to take Stephan. That was strategy of course so they could talk. It does seem that Stephan isn’t into this secret alliance as much as the others are. He is happy about it but just not convinced that it is going to work. The immunity challenge was a rough one and resulted in JT losing part of his tooth. It wasn’t enough to help get the win as Timbira won immunity. Spencer struggled during the challenge and had a target on his back. However, that was almost not a problem cause Taj went off after getting back from camp out of frustration over the loss. Spencer ended up being voted out on a 5-1 vote. Other thoughts on tonight’s episode. Timbira is definitely keeping an eye on Brendan cause they are talking about him socializing with the other tribe at exile island. Coach is already noticing that he is in trouble if they merge cause Brendan has numbers then. Speaking of Coach, the moment of him miscalling the storm was funny especially with Erinn’s commentary. Jeff Probst stepping into the challenge to save the tooth. Jeff cared about it more than TJ appeared to. He needs to thank Jeff for that!!

I didn't comment on Lost last week so I'll get it in here this week. I liked the episode and the payoff was at the end. I loved the reunion of the Oceanic Six members with Sawyer. Perfect with Kate and Sawyer!! This was right after he had just told his new love, Juliet, about how he was once in love but couldn’t even remember what her face looked like. Minutes later in the episode, it was, oh yeah, now I remember. It should be pointed out that it has been three years since the Oceanic Six left on the island as well. With the time traveling happening, I had wondered if the Oceanic Six members would return soon after they disappeared. Time traveling is over as Locke did fix the island. However, the island is now stuck back in time decades earlier during the Dharma Initiative. I’m not sure if they are in a safer or unsafer time period than what they were.

It was nice to see John Glover return to TV this week on Heroes. He played the father of Sylar. That was definitely the best storyline of the episode. Glover is an incredible actor and he played the role well. I am beginning to think that maybe it is the Nathan Petrelli character that is bugging me about Heroes. I just think that character has gotten to be so boring. It doesn’t help that the show is centered around him right now. Maybe since he has been exposed as one of “them” now, things will pick up. By the way, Heroes has been picked up for next season by NBC.
Summer Glau guest starred as herself on this week’s Big Bang Theory. The guys were on a train with her as she sat not far from them. Sheldon of course had his own thing going but the other guys were all competing for going to talk to her. The one that did the best was of course Raj who had went to get alcohol cause he can’t talk to women without it. Things went well until Wolowitz found out that it was non alcoholic that he was drinking. Raj was sabotaged by Wolowitz and then Wolowitz stepped in and proceeded to annoy Summer to no end. Leonard? Well, Leonard finally stepped in and got his chance but right before Summer reached her stop.

Now this is hilarious. You may know that How I Met Your Mother mentions website jokes from time to time and they actually do put the websites up online. A couple are http://www.barneysvideoresume.com/ and http://www.tedmosbyisajerk.com I just found out about this but you can now add Robin Sparkles as a friend on My Space. Great stuff. Here is the link to check it out. http://www.myspace.com/robinsparkles

Movie box office numbers for last weekend. 1. Watchmen $55.2 million. 2. Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes To Jail - $8.5 million. 3. Taken - $7.3 million. 4. Slumdog Millionaire - $6.8 million. 5. Paul Blart: Mall Cop - $4.1 million. 6. He’s Just Not That Into You - $4 million. 7. Coraline - $3.2 million. 8. Confessions Of A Shopaholic - $3.1 million. 9. Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience - $2.8 million. 10. Fired Up! - $2.4 million.

The Blind U-Turn was introduced on this week’s Amazing Race. Yeah, I liked this twist. This means that you can do that to another team and it isn’t revealed who did it to them. There are so many people that are afraid to use the U-Turn or the Yield cause of the fact that it puts a target on you. Luke and Margie decided to use it and used it on Amanda and Kris. It ended up being Amanda and Kris’s elimination cause they were at the back of the pack anyway. The plan by Luke and Margie was also to use it on them to help their friends, Jaime and Cara. I thought for sure that this would be a non elimination leg but it wasn’t. Christie and Jodi went right to the top of the standings with their performance in this leg of the race. Here are the current standings: 1. Christie and Jodi. 2. Kisha and Jen. 3. Tammy and Victor. 4. Luke and Margie. 5. Cara and Jaime. 6. Mel and Mike. 7. Michael and Mark. 8. Amanda and Kris (Eliminated).

Dancing With The Stars opened up its new season with a huge audience on Monday night. The show had its highest opening rating ever as it had 22.8 million viewers. Lots of buzz about Bachelor rejectee, Melissa Rycroft, being a surprise contestant on the show. I don’t watch The Bachelor but I know enough that people are fired up over that finale!! Two weeks later and people are still furious.

I got this info to pass along about a new show on Travel Channel called, Dhani Tackles The Globe. Here is the info on the show. "Dhani Jones will need more than shoulder pads where he's going. This NFL linebacker and Renaissance man is about to embark on a global sports odyssey that will take him anywhere with a scoreboard. By trying his hand at beloved national pastimes from around the globe, Dhani explores the way sports help to define culture. As a top athlete, Dhani will be able to demonstrate the thrills and challenges of each game by playing it himself. Off the field, Dhani immerses himself fully in each city, getting the locals' take on the best places to eat, drink, shop and sleep. Throughout his travels, Dhani finds the love of sports to be universal, providing common ground wherever he lands." The show premieres on Monday, March 16th at 8pm central time. For more info, head over to the website at: http://www.travelchannel.com/TV_Shows/Dhani_Jones

Great idea by Live With Regis and Kelly to do live trivia calls for their contest. Regis and Kelly have been calling people at home live on the air with the contestants not having any clue that
their card entry has been picked. It has provided for some great laughs this week.

TV on DVD releases for Tuesday, March 17. Barney Miller (Season Three), Ghost Hunters (Season Four – Part Two), Head Case (Season One), JAG (Season Eight), Married With Children (Season Ten), Mr. Belvedere (Seasons One and Two), The Nanny (Season Three).

TV Line Of The Week: From Heroes.
“You want a fight? Is that what you were expecting? Son kills his father? Epic battle. That’s a myth.” - John Glover as Sylar’s dad talking to Sylar. If you’re a Smallville fan, you can really appreciate that line.

You Tube Video Of The Week: Bizkit The Sleep Walking Dog.


I wish each and every one of you a great weekend!! Take care and God bless!!