Well, that was a little bit of a surprise. David Hernandez, not Kristy Lee Cook, left American Idol tonight after receiving the fewest viewer votes. Hooray?

It’s guest blogger Randy Salas here. Actually, after David (pictured) and Kristy were announced as being among the bottom three, along with Syesha Mercado — all as expected by many — I found myself rooting for Kristy to stick around a while longer. Her repeat performance tonight confirmed that her countrified “Eight Days a Week” was still a horrible miscalculation, but she did much better with it — more confident, less bug-eyed, stronger rhythmically. Cook also showed a flash with a few twangy lines from “All My Loving” in the opening medley. (That’s the song she should have chosen Tuesday.) David, on the other hand, sounded as Easy Cheese-y as ever with his Vegas-style rehash of “I Saw Her Standing There.”

It’s just as well that David left now, too. The recent controversy over his past as a male stripper — not a man who strips, but a stripper for men — threatened to spiral out of control with each passing week without a mention on the show. It’s like the Jim Carrey elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about.

As for Syesha, all I have to say is “Eh.” She clearly belonged in the bottom three, but this wasn’t her week to go. It will come soon, though.

One final thing: The show is making a Cook-like misstep by repeating the Beatles theme next week. Sure, the Fab Four’s music is timeless and popular, but AI could really use something fresh. After weeks featuring the music of the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, and then a return mostly to the ’60s with the Beatles, the show is in dire need of a contemporary jolt. Why not do something newer next week with a promise to revisit the Beatles later in the season?

What do you think? Did viewers make the right choice with David? Should it have been Kristy instead? Or someone else? And how do you feel about a Lennon-McCartney encore?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 12th, 2008 at 9:57 pm and is filed under American Idol. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.