American Idol - Jamie helps the Top 5 drag 5 songs out over one hour

I have to be honest. My attention was not totally in the Top 5 at the onset. Mrs. Channelup was out for dinner with her sister. I had the Red Sox game going on the computer, the Yankees and Mets games just a click away and was monitoring my fantasy baseball team. Notice a theme here? My focus was drifting until Jamie Foxx came out as the celebrity mentor. Nice job Idol. Nice job.

I got legit excited. Jamie Foxx is one of the few entertainers that, to me, can seemingly do no wrong. On In Living Color he was awesome, great in action movies, transcending as Ray Charles, and even though I don't particularly care for his music, I can't deny he has crazy talent. He also came across as a great mentor. Unlike other celebrities (Tarantino) Foxx appeared to be as excited as the contestants in coming up with strategies for quality performances.

That being said. This was an hour long show with 5 songs. From a programming standpoint that is simply not acceptable. This episode featured unending commercial breaks and I wish I had been watching it on DVR. I know the top 5 is an awkward number but they had to have figured some other way to get more songs or less commercials in this broadcast. What a shame. A shame because the performances tonight were amazing one right after the next.

If I had to give out grades they would look something like this

Kris - A
Alison - A
Matt - B
Kara - F (this hipster ghetto thing she does for certain contestants is nauseating)
Danny - A
Adam - A (I cant write anymore about this guy than I already have but I will say one more thing here. Either he is trying way harder than all the other contestants or the band is, or the producers are. Whatever way you slice it, his performances are a notch above)

Performance-wise this was a stellar night. One great performance after another. The rat pack theme seemed less awkward than things like Disco Night and all the contestants seemed to thrive. Jamie Foxx gave excellent insight into each performer and the judges even contained in their caddiness. All in all a great talent night of Idol dampened only by the general programming issues.

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