American Idol

It was the war of the Davids.   For almost the entire season, we had all assumed that David Archuleta was going to win American Idol.  He was the chosen one, the teenage wonder boy who American Idol had shamelessly pimped all season.  He acquired a phalanx of teenage fans across the nation, the text messaging crew.  He slowly found an ever increasing number of American Idol viewers turn against him, after performance after performance that sounded exactly the same.  It's not like he didn't deserve to be where he ended up, in the final two of American Idol.  It was that the too-much credit, the undue judges' praise, that angered the masses.  Still, the early season momentum of Archuleta seemed impossible to overcome for the other David.  It wasn't until the last few weeks when a noticeable shift occurred.  All of a sudden, it seemed like, yeah, maybe David Cook could win this thing.  Tonight, on the two hour American Idol finale, it actually happened.  David Cook won American Idol. 

So, those were the results.  The night, on a whole, was a star-studded event, with a ton of guest performances.  Here's a look at some of the highlights:

-David Cook and David Archuleta performed “Hero” by Nickelback to begin the show.

-Mike Myers, as his new character from The Love Guru, gave the Davids silly advice.  And, he shamelessly promoted his new movie.  This was probably a warm-up for next week's MTV Movie Awards, the ultimate venue for shameless promotion of new summer movies.

-Syesha Mercado sang “Waiting for You” with Seal.

-The Top 6 females performed a Donna Summer medley with Donna Summer.  The Top 6 men performed a Bryan Adams medley with Bryan Adams.  And, the entire Top 12 performed a George Michael medley with, you guessed it, George Michael. 

=Michael Johns sang a duet with Carly Smithson on “The Letter.”  It was really good.

-Brooke White sang “Teach Your Children” with Graham Nash.  It was my favorite performance of the night. 

-David Cook performed “Sharp Dressed Man” with ZZ Top.  Archuleta performed “Apologize” with One Republic. 

-Ben Stiller, Jack Black and Robert Downey Jr. act as the Pips in a fake Gladys Knight audition from 1972.  It was kind of funny.

-Jordin Sparks and Carrie Underwood both performed their latest singles.  Underwood was much better. 


In the end, David Cook won by 12 million votes.  There were 97.5 million total votes, and David Cook won 56 percent of that vote.  That may seem like a small victory, but it's not.  Before the final results were announced, Simon Cowell (rightly) apologized for the way he treated David Cook on last night's performance show. 

It makes one wonder: was Simon Cowell trying to galvanize the David Cook fans of the world with his disparaging comments last night?  It seems likely that Cowell would be privy to past weeks' voting information and, if he knew that Cook needed more votes, I wouldn't put it past him to try and manipulate the viewers with some reverse psychology. He'd told more than one talk show in the past week that he thought Cook was the better contestant.  Just something to think about.

Anyway, it was a well produced ending to an up and down season.  David Cook is a champion the public can be happy about.  Congratulations to him.  We'll be back tomorrow with a lot more American Idol coverage, so stay tuned.


John Kubicek's Analysis:

Oscar covered all the primary bases, but I have a few additional points to raise.

---The finale was infinitely more entertaining than both last night's performances and "Idol Gives Back," combined.

---Not only were Michael Johns and Carly Smithson eliminated too early, I'd go as far as to say they probably deserved to be in the final two more than the Davids.  This isn't to say that the Davids were bad, simply that Smithson and Johns pretty much stole the show every chance they got the spotlight during the finale.  Throughout the season, I questioned why the judges kept saying this was the most talented season yet, and now I think it's because they saw something we didn't.  Nearly every member of the Top 12 seemed to consistently underperform, based on the rare glimpses we saw of their true abilities.  For instance, in his few solos tonight, I loved Chikezie Eze and now wish we got to see more of him.  Brooke White was amazing as usual too.  However, I will say that I'd largely forgot that David Hernandez and Ramiele Malubay even existed, and their solos only reminded me why I must have forgotten them in the first place.

---What rendition of "Midnight Train to Georgia" was funnier: Stiller, Black and Downey, Jr., or the version from the pre-strike finale of 30 Rock?  If you said the former, it must be because you don't watch 30 Rock.

---Similarly, between this exposure and Eli Stone, George Michaels is having the best year of his career in probably the last 20 years.

---The Risky Business Guitar Hero commercials were silly, but I have to give it up for David Cook - he actually bothered to go with the briefs while Archuleta went for the safety of boxers.  Perhaps this was an age issue (showing a 17-year-old boy in tighty-whities would be in poor taste), but I'm sure Cook could've gone that route too.

---Who is funnier, Jimmy Kimmel or his girlfriend Sarah Silverman?  I might have to call it a draw, because they are truly the funniest couple around today.  I laughed at every single one of Kimmel's jokes, particularly the Sligh reference.

---I understand the desire to look for conspiracy theories about Simon purposefully shilling for Archuleta to encourage Cook supporters, but I don't buy it.  If you look at DialIdol (and since they predicted Cook to have 58 percent, their numbers must be pretty reliable), you'll see that Cook actually beat Archuleta head-to-head every week since the Top 6.  As such, I don't think the argument that Simon wanted it to be closer holds water, since if he played it straight down the middle, Cook probably would've won anyway.  Doing the math, Cook won by nearly 12 million votes, which is huge.  My theory is simply that Simon was drinking the Archuleta Kool-Aid.


Also Read
Finale Live Thoughts
John vs. Oscar: Finale Predictions Podcast
Finale Performance Rankings
Finale Performance Live Thoughts
Why David Cook Will Win
May the Best Man Lose
Best Performances of Season 7
Worst Performances of Season 7


-Oscar Dahl, BuddyTV Senior Writer
(Image Courtesy of FOX)