"American Idol": Colton Dixon exits, six singers remain
So, given that you can vote 50 times - yes, 50 - that might mean that a mere one million people voted. It might even mean that 500,000 people asked their best friend to vote 50 times even though they hadn't seen the show. Or 250,000 people asked their two BFFs to vote 50 times.
Still, if you believe those votes really make a difference, the vast hordes of BFFs turned against Colton Dixon, the pretty boy who somehow lost his way.
Pictures: "American Idol" Season 11
Complete Coverage: "American Idol"
Talking of losing one's way, there was another very special group number. The song was "Dancing in the Street." I fear no one was. Or, if they were, it was to get away from this group number.
First to undergo the Ryan Seacrest dim-the-lights treatment were Joshua Ledet and Hollie Cavanagh.
More importantly, what did Jimmy Iovine think? Without Iovine, this show would suffer greatly. He isn't pretty, but what he has to say is always incisive enough to leave a scar. Uncle Jimmy is very happy with Joshua. However, Cavanagh, he thought, would still be in the bottom three.
Ledet admitted that many people in his family suffer from anxiety, so much so that he almost hadn't got on the plane for the auditions. Which would have been a pity, as he has been a reassuringly pleasant presence.
Seacrest, bless him, tried to find the most manipulative way to tell Ledet he was safe. Cavanagh, on the other hand, was not. She didn't seem surprised. Then we had a glimpse of Taylor Hicks, who is also pleasant. He had a great announcement. He's doing Vegas this summer. So is Carrot Top.
Then Hicks introduced Kris Allen. He won Season Eight, which doesn't seem to have made him ridiculously famous. One suspects that when Kris Allen walks down a street, no one is aware that Kris Allen is walking down a street. He still has little identity, though he remains very pretty. I'm not really sure he was singing much, or that this performance would have assisted in some sort of comeback. But it did serve as a warning. Prettiness might be next to godliness, but it doesn't make fame all that much more possible.
Next to the gallows were Skylar Laine and Elise Testone. Iovine felt that Laine had delivered, but Testone was destined to her vacation home - the bottom three.
Laine is the best pure performer. She has that magical mixture of confidence and truth. Testone, on the other hand, said she felt she was criticized more than the others because she was older and she could take it.
Sadly, this sounded whiny and though many of the voters are, indeed, whiny little girls, the last thing they want to see on "Idol" is a true reflection of themselves. Indeed, they'd rather look at Kris Allen. For a little while.
They'd also like to look at a large stuffed zebra brought on stage by the very vibrant LMFAO, who managed to use several naughty words that were blanked by the purity-minded producers at Fox. Steven Tyler looked especially dulled by their performance. Perhaps he was appalled by their language.
So we were left with Phillip Phillips, Colton Dixon and Jessica Sanchez. When it came to Sanchez, Iovine apologized that he hadn't read these pages. Well, in a way. We have been trying to insist for some time now that Sanchez is trying to act older than she can safely imitate. Given that she is only 16 and very sweet, the act isn't working. Iovine finally admitted that he'd seen the light. He had allowed her to sing songs that were far too old for her. He was sorry. He would repent.
Of Dixon he was a little more succinct. "It was all wrong."
"It was completely wrong for me," he added. "The way he positioned himself, the way he sang, the way he moved." Yes, Jimmy. But Dixon's pretty.
"The look? I was stunned," Iovine continued. "It was somewhere between 1985 Billy Idol on MTV 'TRL' and Spiderman on Broadway." This did not bode well.
Phillips, though, was excellent in Iovine's eyes. He's pretty too.
Soon, the ever-solicitous Seacrest told Sanchez she was safe. She could barely walk back to safety - or in safety - in another pair of sky-high heels.
And then the guillotine moved closer to Dixon. He was told he was in the bottom three. Even more suddenly, Testone was told she was safe. Who could cope with this? The judges certainly couldn't. Randy Jackson claimed he had no idea if America had it right. Which, some might say, was nothing new.
And so Cavanagh and Dixon stood and hugged each other, desperate for salvation. It was Dixon who was decapitated. Perhaps the blood red streak he'd had inserted into his blond locks was prophetic after all.
"I need to apologize. I wasn't myself last night," he said. But perhaps he really had been. He's a nice boy. He looks more than a little like David Beckham. But all the hairdos in the world cannot mask the essential vulnerability of your act. Was he a little punk? Was he a little Broadway? Was he just another pretty boy desperate for some temporary adulation?
At least Jennifer Lopez was in tears. The producers, one suspected, were hissing with delight. It's quite evident that they feel a girl would make for a better winner, after five years of abjectly ordinary boys.
Dixon was on his knees during his farewell performance. Afterwards, he said he'd been trying too hard to get a standing ovation "that I didn't need."
He also said: "I know God is going to use me for other things, so I'm good." He's pretty. He's good. But he isn't quite pretty good.
