popular thinking

IDLE IDOL WATCHING, THE WEDNESDAY REVIEW: CBS may have had the official March Madness, and NBC may have let Donald Trump be Trump once more, but the nation's musical majority tuned in to Fox last night to see how American Idol would recover from its latest snafu.
Nielsen counted 27.5 million Idol watchers for Tuesday's botched contest, while 20.6 million sat through Wednesday's glorified encore.
Last night, the top-rated show didn't provide us with any special upsets. Mikalah Gordon barely survived last week's vote, so her exit last night didn't shock anyone.
But first, we endured a look back at the show we all saw twice already, plus a group performance of "He Ain't Heavy (He's My Brother)'' (coming to a tour stop near you this summer, whether we want it or not), and a Ford truck ad that wisely featured the contestants instead of alleged hit-and-run driver/judge Paula Abdul.
Host Ryan Seacrest claimed Wednesday night's revote garnered an incredible 31 million votes, besting last week's vote total of about 30 million (no problems specific to Ohio or Florida reported, as far as we know).
Seacrest called this "one of the craziest weeks in Idol history."
After the breaks and the melodramatic dramatic pauses, it all came down to Nadia Turner and Mikalah. Anthony Federov only lasted a minute in the bottom three before returning to safety among the top 10 finalists.
Turner lost votes by ditching her Justin Guarini hairstyle for a mad Mohawk and 1980s garb to warble through Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time.''
But it was 17-year-old Mikalah, the youngest Idol finalist, who heard that her "journey ended here'' last night from a sympathetic Seacrest.

(popular thinking notes: Has sympathetic Seacrest permanently replaced snarky Seacrest? You remember, the host with the most snark from the first semifinals episodes who'd spring surprises on the singers with a sudden spin move and the barking of "you're out!" Talk about your backpedaling.)

Mikalah treated us to one last speech showcasing her Babs-meets-Fran-Drescher
impersonation before closing out the show with yet another attempt at Taylor
Dayne's "Love Will Lead You Back.''

At least The OC seemed to be back in stride, after a half-season lost in the wilderness of whacked out plot twists...also, NBC's version of The Office, not half as cruddy as imagined.

Related: Every revote counts on ‘Idol’ (Boston Herald)