Week 5 is here, and it’s time to narrow the playing field. The contestants have arrived in Hollywood, and we’re going to see just how well they can withstand the pressure, not just of being put into groups and singing, but even just being in Hollywood.

They will get an opportunity to see some sites, but the main goal for everyone is to make it through to the next round of the competition, and that means, the top 24. Let’s see what happened…

First things first…the girls. The guys get a day off for siteseeing, but this season, we didn’t really get a view of what they got to do. I don’t know if it’s because they tried to keep the show down to one hour or not, but we can only assume they had fun playing around in LA.

172 total people made it to Hollywood. We didn’t see Akron Watson, who passed the audition in San Antonio, but was then un-invited. They haven’t covered why yet, and perhaps won’t. But we did see Ashlyn Carr, who apparently was arrested for vandalism but still made it through.

Day 1:

The girls have 30 seconds to give their first performance, with no judge feedback. In groups of 6, they were then sent out onto the stage for judging. Big shocker here was the very first group of 6 were all sent home. It was a warning to the rest of the girls that the judges were looking for originality, and quality, and weren’t in a very good mood.

In the next group we had Perla Meneses, who was told that she had the personality but not the talent, so she was going to have to pick it up to stay in. Subsequent groups saw Baylie Brown moving to the next stage, while Ashlyn Carr was going home.

Day 1 ended with Nicole, who sang a song only because it was what her mother wanted her to sing - unfortunately, she wasn’t passionate about it and it showed. She went home. Mom came on stage to try to get the judges to give her another chance, but it was over.

56 girls went home after the first day.

Day 2:

Now it’s the guys’ turn to shine. Apparently America wants to see the girls more than the guys, because they devoted only about 8 minutes to the 34 guys who made it to the next round, including Matt Sato, who used a pink RAZR to call his mom and let her know he passed the first test. His mother apparently never tells him that she loves him, but she did this time.

92 total people now have to form into teams and prepare for the group day. This means picking from a list of 9 songs, and pairing up in groups. Several of the contestants had a hard time picking groups, and others found themselves in very dysfunctional teams.

The spent the rest of the night and into the next morning rehearsing back at the hotel.

Day 3 - Group Sing:

Tension mounts between friends, and a few comments are thrown around like “We are not gonna be friends after tomorrow.” It’s not a pretty prep to the group sing. Before the day even starts, Simon stands in front of everyone and tells them “Do not forget the words.” Turns out that is more than just a reminder. Nearly everyone who forgot words during their group sing was immediately told to go home, including Matt Sato, who then had to call his mom with the pink RAZR, and tell her he was coming home.

One team, who sang “How Deep Is Your Love”, got a standing ovation from Paula, and I think I personally compared them to NSYNC. They were total boy-band, complete with a beat boxer.

Baylie Brown, and the best friends were a team, and honestly, I don’t know what happened here. Baylie completely (and I mean totally and completely) forgot her words (and almost looked like she was drunk), and the other two catty girls (Antonella Barba and Amanda Coluccio) sailed through to the next round, despite me screaming at them. One of them even spent the majority of the night flirting with the boys instead of practicing. If you can’t take it seriously, get out.

At the end of Day 3, we’ve lost another 56 people.

Time for the Final Day.

Day 4:

The contestants have one last opportunity to sing for the judges, with no feedback. Photographs are taken of each of them, and the judges spend the rest of the day reviewing the pictures and the contestants, and putting them into three groups. Two that will move forward, and one that will go home.

All of the contestants are moved into 3 rooms of the hotel. The judges arrive in Room 1, and we find out that everyone is through to the next round.

Room 2, is also through to the next round. Which means that Room 3 is going home. The best friend team is split up (with the flirting useless one, Coluccio, going home), and the brother/sister team (Sanjaya and Shyamali Malakar) is also torn asunder.

Thus ends our first four days of Hollywood, with only 40 contestants moving on to the next phase of the competition. Unfortunately, the show moved so quickly, we were not provided with much information about who was in each room…so we have to wait until tomorrow to find out more details of who is in and who is out.

This sarcastic entry was posted on Tuesday, February 13th, 2007 at 9:51 pm and is filed under American Idol, Music, Television. You can follow any responses to this entry through the comments feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.