“American Idol’s” Season 8 showed its fangs, severing a major artery for the first time in the final rounds as Angel of Death Ryan Seacrest paid a house call on Alexis Grace on Wednesday night, removing her from the competition. Coming after the nonshocking eliminations last week of two second-tier contestants, Jorge Nuñez and Jasmine Murray, Grace’s fall from “Idol” took the competition to a much-higher-stakes level for those who remain.
The 21-year-old pixie-like contestant from Memphis, Tenn., earned an early legion of supporters with the surprising combination of her size (just under 5 feet) and powerful vocals. Grace was also one of a crop of young and/or single mothers, endearing herself to viewers with the commitment to her infant daughter.
One of only three female contestants to make it through to the finals on viewers’ votes, Grace was talked of in many quarters as one who had the potential to take the “Idol” crown. But the last two weeks were not kind to the singer, as she delivered performances that earned mildly favorable reviews from the judges.
In most seasons, mildly favorable reviews would be ample to see a singer through at this early stage, as each night would typically see a bounty of belly flops, providing easy choices for winnowing the field. However, showing the early strength of this year’s field, this season has seen very few outright failures in the performance episodes, leaving the merely decent exposed to the whims of the electorate.
The judges seemed to seriously consider using their one “save” of the season on Grace, saying that they were open to keeping her after it was revealed she was the low vote-getter. As she began singing in a final appeal, however, reprising her rendition of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene,” the judges put their heads together and by the time the song was half over, they pulled apart, their decision made. When Grace finished, Simon Cowell delivered the news that her song had been “good, but not good enough.”
The remaining 10 contestants will perform this summer on the Idols Live tour and earn the sizable paydays that come with those slots.
Grace's elimination leaves the tour with a lopsided seven to three male/female ratio, a byproduct of the producers' decision not to mandate gender balance in the top 12 (or 13). It has long been a gripe of "Idol's" female contestants that the show's electorate is unfairly skewed against them; the theory being that the voting pool, which is heavily dominated by adolescent girls, is more likely to send their votes to crush-object male contestants.
This phenomenon seemed especially true last year, when Jason Castro, David Cook, Michael Johns and, of course, David Archuleta achieved heartthrob status, drawing legions of screaming female fans. One finalist from last season told me of mail delivery time, when the gentlemen above would receive stacks of letters; the ladies still remaining each lucky to receive one or two.
Whether the deficit of female contestants left in the top 10 means that the remaining ones will have less competition for votes or whether the few survivors will be picked off each week remains to be seen. Before they so blithely mistreat their female warriors, I would like the draw the attention of the electorate to one little fact: the post-"Idol" careers of its female champions (Clarkson, Barrino, Underwood, Sparks) have been nearly universally successful, while the careers of the gentlemen winners (Studdard, Hicks, Cook) have been hit or miss at best, with at this moment only David Cook showing the potential for real long-term, superstar staying power.
