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I am giddy.  Giddy, giddy, giddy.  I still stand by my statements yesterday that an Archuleta win would not have disappointed me because I think he needed it more, career-wise, but I’m not sure how else I’m supposed to feel after my very favorite contestant since the Top 24 began (yes, I’m admitting it!  I even loved him when he had the comb-forward!) won other than giddy.

 And I hate to stoop so low as this, but I also have to share my revelation.  Um, David Cook is super-hot.  The swagger, the confidence, the demonstrations of humility and kindness, the clear intelligence — these all contribute to it, but on top of that the progression of this guy’s “look” over the course of the season has been impressive.  Seeing him up there performing “Sharp-Dressed Man” with ZZ Top was fitting — dude looks sharp.

Let’s get to the bigger picture here.  I thought overall this was a pretty fantastic finale.  I was truly dreading having to sit through 2 hours of filler before getting to the main event, but honestly there was so much good stuff packed in there that I was a little startled when it came time to announce the winner.  Let’s get some of the painful stuff out of the way first: the opening Top 12 group performance of “Get Ready” was awful.  Bad costumes, embarrassing dance moves, silly song choice.  I was concerned for what was to come.  Also painful was the Mike Myers sketch promoting his new movie (and I refuse to even promote it further to my 7 readers by mentioning its title here), which involved some agonizing dialogue about David Archuleta becoming a big boy and making a poopy in his pants.  Archie’s always bugged me, but that was incredibly tasteless and disrespectful in this context.  And then Mike Myers came out on stage and make some stupid joke about shamelessly promoting his movie, as if that somehow negates the fact that he is shamelessly promoting his movie.  Didn’t Jim Carrey do the exact same thing last year?  So tacky.  Later there was another movie promo featuring Ben Stiller, Jack Black, and Robert Downey, Jr., playing Pips to an old Gladys Knight clip.  It was silly and went on too long, but those three guys could perform the phone book and I’d be happy!  Robert Downey, Jr., looking incredibly earnest while doing it was icing on the cake.  Let’s keep this guy doing comedy, okay?  Maybe it’ll keep ‘im clean, and we want him to stick around.  Another low point was the typical “terrible auditions” montage, rounded off by a USC Marching Band-accompanied performance by one of those dreadful auditioners.  Pointless.  They could’ve given Kristy Lee or one of the sort-of-higher-up-eliminated-contestants another performance slot here.

I’m sure I’m forgetting a few things, but that pretty sums up the “awful.”  In the “blah” category was Jordin Sparks, singing while wearing an unfortunate gold dress shaped like one of the outfits Amy Poehler wears on SNL while lampooning Dakota Fanning.  Her voice is pretty but the song was dull, and I’ve honestly never really been bowled over by her stage presence.  Her promo of the American Idol whatever-it-is at Disney World or Disneyland was probably irritating, but I paid no attention.

Whew.  The good stuff, the good stuff!  I enjoyed the Davids’ first duet (”Hero” or something?  I didn’t know the song.).  I thought their voices complemented each other really nicely and I was kind of charmed by the whole thing.  And Cook definitely proved he knows how to sing with someone and not just nextto them.  Later, Syesha performed with Seal and looked surprisingly comfortable for what must have been an intense situation.  Jason Castro got a solo song, and sang his semi-finals cover of “Hallelujah” and it was even better this time — and frankly I hope it reminded people why he lasted so long in this competition to begin with, since of late he’d really been getting lambasted by fans and media.  And, oh yeah, if this recording career thing doesn’t work out for him, there’s easily a future in being an “edgy” model.  He is one beautiful young man.

Michael Johns and Carly Smithson sang “The Letter” together (paired ostensibly as the two biggest “shocking eliminations” of the season, with which I cannot disagree), and it was a song much more appropriate for his voice than for hers.  They looked great up there together, but I admit it was the first time I’ve actually understood the “screams too much” criticism of Carly, who’s always been one of my favorite contestants.

Brooke White sang “Teach Your Children” with Graham Nash, and looked comfortable and happy, and sounded great.  It’s a sappy song (almost as sappy as the “children learning!” montage screened in the background), but it’s perfect for her and it was nice to see her just performing instead of having an anxiety meltdown under all the pressure.

David Archuleta’s song was with One [something — help me out here?], a band I’ve never heard of but as soon as they launched into “Apologize,” I realized I’ve heard the song a thousand times.  I think it’s the type of song that often underscores things like Grey’s Anatomy or CSI commercials.  And you know what?  This really worked for the kid.  Maybe in a few years he could actually find a niche doing this type of music.  (As soon as Hollywood has jaded him sufficiently out of his “Oh gosh, aw shucks” attitude.  But please, not until then.)

As mentioned before, David Cook got to perform with ZZ Top which, in my book, is just about as cool as it gets.  Sure, David might’ve preferred Nickelback, but I think this helps cement him as something more original than some might’ve originally thought — more of a meeting of emo and classic rock than just a good Creed adapter.

The Top 6 Gals did a Donna Summer medley, which was cute (and hilarious in the case of Amanda Overmyer’s look of misery — gotta love ‘er), and then were joined my Ms. Summer herself (was anyone else a little mortified by the way the Davids escorted her onto the stage — as if she were an elderly lady about to collapse?), and man does that woman still have pipes.  The Top 6 Guys medley was Bryan Adams, which I’ll shamelessly admit gave me great joy.  “Summer of ‘69″ is really one of those great all-time anthems.  Bryan Adams performed a new song and looked kind of gruff.

Carrie Underwood sang her new song, which I’d just heard for the first time earlier yesterday, and sounded spectacular as always.  But sweet Jesus, what was she wearing?  I could only surmise that since the song is about waking up the morning after drunkenly marrying a stranger in Vegas that the ensemble was supposed to be some sort of amalgamation of both the tacky Las Vegas bride and the tacky Las Vegas groom.  I have no idea, but good lord do her legs go on for miles.  I am green with envy.

I’m going a bit out of sequence here, so I apologize.  I’m just trying to make sure I address the final group number and guest star at the time that lends it appropriate weight, because it was heavy indeed.

Oh wait!  Jimmy Kimmel did a little comedy bit about the host and judges, and completely neglected to even mention Randy Jackson’s name.  Perhaps the producers will notice this and let him move on next season.  Possibly to something molten hot, dawg, or maybe to something just a’ight, something in the zone, or something involving phone books.

And finally, in what I can truly say is the only group medley number I have ever actually loved, the Top 12 performed a George Michael medley.  The gals started with “Faith,” the boys moved in with “Father Figure” (I’m sure much will be said about Mr. Hernandez getting the “to be warm and NAKED” line, which I loved and it looked like he did, too — good for him!), and then the gang all sang together for “Freedom” and sounded and looked wonderful.  These songs never fail to get a visceral reaction from me, they are just so good… and as good now as they have always been.  And then came George himself.  The gang left the stage and he got a complete solo by himself, singing “Praying for Time.”  Someone who knows his work better than I do can tell me — it seemed like he might’ve reworked some of the lyrics to update their relevance, and if that’s true, well done.  I thought the sunglasses were silly, but, the man commands that stage.  He just stood there and sang.  Sang a song that doesn’t have much of a hook, isn’t particularly dynamic, and might be unfamiliar to many, but you could’ve heard a pin drop.  Absolutely beautiful.  I admit I got a little choked up.  Something did seem a hair off, though, and he acknowledged later that he has a cold.  Making it all even more amazing.  And you know what?  Good for Idol.  This season (and odd that it’d be this one, since it’s been kind of heavy on the religious overtones) they put on more than one obviously-gay and proud contestant without trying to downplay it, they seriously reduced the “haha you’re gay I’m gay” banter between Ryan and Simon, and then headline the grand finale spectacular with not just a out-and-sorta-quiet squeaky-clean gay performer, but a legendary gay icon complete with a background of scandalous and sordid sexual misadventures.  So I say good for them.  And maybe they’re finally understanding a huge chunk of their demographic.

I wrote research papers in grad school shorter than this, so I will move on to the big announcement.  Just beforehand, Simon offered up an apology to David Cook for being “disrespectful” to his solid performances the night before, emphasized how kind and sincere both contestants were, and said for the first time he really doesn’t care who wins because they’re both wonderful.  In his usual classy way, David Cook accepted his winning moment gracefully by first diverting the attention and applause to his runner-up, David Archuleta.  And then he broke down.  And my giddiness began.  You could tell the judges were elated, and Cookie used the Lord’s name in vain more than once to deal with how overwhelmed he was.  Cut to his crying brother, and I fall apart on cue.  Oh yeah and they put his mother up on stage with him and he just collapsed in her arms.  This was the best winning moment on AI in a while — the winner tends to look somewhat unsurprised and also maintain “pretty” while launching into the dreadful final song.  Even though I’m sure Cook knew how bad that “Time of My Life” song (really?  that’s a new song?  someone thought that title hadn’t been used?) was, he actually really, really meant every word as he sang it.  More class from Cook - he made the rest of Top 12 get on stage with him for his final moment.

I know ratings were down this season, but I really believe this was one of the best seasons yet.  A tight competition to the end (sure, we knew who the finale would have, but did we REALLY know who’d win?), a real assortment of styles and genres, some actual musicians (4 of the top 5 were contestants who’d played instruments on the show), some types of performers you’d really never have expected before to see on this show.  There was more of an emphasis on making a song your own and far less emphasis on melisma.  I think ratings were down for three major reasons — ratings are down all over television, it’s the seventh season so it’s losing its excitement (not to mention the last handful of winners have not exactly gone on to great things), and the diversity of the contestants made it less about viewers constantly changing their minds about which Mariah Carey-esque vocal runs were their favorite that week (in other words, if you like Jason Castro’s style, you’re not going to watch the next week and decide that, really, Ramiele is better).  I do think, though, that if they continue to go in this direction and also if their alumni produce work that lends them more credibility (and I am 100% confident that David Cook will) that they can cultivate new audiences and do just fine for themselves in the future.

I’ll stop there (I’m sorry, there was a lot crammed into that show).  What say you?

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