Idol in NYC

Thank goodness - two full hours of Idol tonight. And once again, the producers rewarded us with some of the best and worst singers ever. No one really in between - just really good or really bad. (which brings up a great game - can you guess whether they'll be good or bad before they open their mouths? It's harder than you think...)

I was right about the first contestant of the night - Ian was, in fact, the same guy who auditioned over the summer for So You Think You Can Dance?. And, sadly, he is a worse singer than he is a dancer. But good for us, it was such a "great" audition that he needed to be escorted out of the room. Fantastic start to the night.

There were lots of really horrible auditions tonight. And the producers did a great job editing them. Not only did they show Ian walking around introducing himself as the next American Idol, they played the soap opera music over Ashanti's pleas to go to Hollywood. They also gave Sarah, who knows she can't sing, way more airtime then you would guess (and trust me, I'm thankful for it). Seacrest was also in rare form tonight - he's really perfected the art of saying nothing. The best was Isadora...after she read his palm (and did you see the look on his face?) and really ruined a perfectly good song, he asked her how she thought day 2 went. When she tried to explain that it was day 3, he just looked at the cameras and commented on how that summed it all up. Great job Ryan.

There were also a lot of really good singers tonight. I really liked Jenry (the hunky guy in the polo shirt), Chris (the green shirt guy who looks like Justin Timberlake), Jory (the world traveler), and Antonella (who auditioned with her best friend...sure to be good for some drama later in the show). I was also really glad to see Nicholas (who made it to the Hollywood round last year, but bowed out) back this season - I loved him last year, so I hope he can get it together in Hollywood this year.