Dreamgirl's nightmare: Stephanie slapped down
03/21/07 09:49 PM
By ED BARK
Stephanie Edwards has so much talent and potential. Oh well, so much for talent and potential.
It basically took one penetrating comment from judge Simon Cowell to send Edwards out the door and reduce the American Idol field to its annual post-show touring company of 10.
"I think you are losing your edge," he told her Tuesday after she only capably performed Dusty Springfield's "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me." "You are becoming far too old for yourself at the moment."
In a field already ripe with African-American divas, Edwards then stood next to pretty boy Chris Richardson Wednesday night as part of the show's surprise bottom two. She took the knockout punch and he'll answer the bell again next week. Neither deserved to be in that position.
Idol otherwise devoted too much time to extraneous matters. The three judges had no live comments at all, and might just as well have been cardboard cutouts with real-life glasses of Coke set before them.
Instead the show gave viewers twin performances from ad hoc "coaches" Peter Noone and Lulu, plus a little shtick from Brad Garrett. He sat with the 11 finalists to remind viewers that his aptly named sitcom, 'Til Death, would immediately follow Idol. Even so, host Ryan Seacrest couldn't quite remember its name.
"Coming up next, Brad Garrett's show," Seacrest said, closing Idol's curtain without giving Edwards even a whiff of a swan song. Last week's evictee, Brandon Rogers, at least was handed a microphone but never got a chance to use it.
This, of course, means that mega-maligned Sanjaya Malakar will be hair again next Tuesday. Howard Stern is urging his lockstep followers to keep voting for Malakar, as are several Web sites determined to push Idol off a cliff.
This sort of thing has happened before, and Malakar is still highly unlikely to crash the show's final six, or maybe even its final eight. But with each passing week, it gets just a little more scary.
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