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Sports See other Sports Articles Title: Taylor Hicks Wins Idol After “63.4 Million Votes Were Cast This Season”...More Than Any US President In History Has Received Hicks Wins Idol After “63.4M Votes Were Cast This Season”...More Than Any US President In History Has Received
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/25/art...er=rssuserland&emc=rss
The TV Watch Surprise (Well, Not Exactly)! 'American Idol' Finale Unfolds and Unfolds
By ALESSANDRA STANLEY Published: May 25, 2006
Nobel Prize winners are apprised in a quick telephone call. The Pulitzer committee sends telegrams.
It took two hours and a night of a thousand Crest WhiteStrips, a hundred costume-changes and at least a dozen false notes for Fox to declare Taylor Hicks the official winner of "American Idol" last night.
And all that finale padding made for a supersize letdown. Mr. Hicks was already the expected winner; Simon Cowell had declared him the obvious choice after the showdown on Tuesday with Katharine McPhee. When his name was announced, Mr. Hicks did his best to look stunned, and Ms. McPhee managed to look delighted.
"Idol" is a monster-size celebration of mediocrity that, astonishingly, has not lost its hold on viewers even in its fifth season, and even though so many copycat contest shows have sprung up in its wake. "Idol" is a bit like "Dallas" or even Coca-Cola, one of its main sponsors. Imitations, be they "Dynasty" and "Falcon Crest," or Pepsi and RC Cola, burnish the image of the original. However cheesy and overwrought, "Idol" is its own instant classic.
The final program was packed with valedictory performances by the also-rans, celebrity cameos and many flashbacks to the most deliciously awful auditions of the season (Dave Hoover, an excitable young man who sang Meat Loaf's "Bat Out of Hell," won a mock Golden Idol award, as did Michael Sandecki, who impersonated, horribly, a former "Idol" runner-up, Clay Aiken).
Possibly because Mr. Cowell is the producer of a new reality show, "Duets," which teams professional singers with less-than-gifted celebrities, this finale also showcased duets — Mary J. Blige and Elliott Yasmin, Toni Braxton and Mr. Hicks — before the winner was named and the loser was cut loose.
It's a variety show that parents and children watch together. And that explains why the contestants' doting, teary parents were showcased in cutaways and Burt Bacharach played the piano as the contestants performed a medley of the songwriter's greatest hits.
Dionne Warwick, who has an album and a tour to promote, also made a cameo, singing "Walk on By" while Ms. McPhee and others sang backup. Prince also sang, but did not share the stage with any "Idol" performers.
The finale stretched the multigenerational happening to a near-breaking point when it moved from 17-year-old Paris Bennett's singing "We're in This Love Together" with Al Jarreau to a lame comedy sketch in which Wolfgang Puck, the celebrity chef, introduced Kellie Pickler, the young candidate who couldn't identify calamari, to escargots and live lobster.
The host, Ryan Seacrest, said 63.4 million votes were cast this season, boasting, "That's more than any president in the history of our country has ever received."
But voting on "American Idol" is like voting for class president or homecoming queen. The choice has no effect whatsoever on the voters, freeing them to cast their ballots more than once and entirely by whim — to punish the prissy teacher's pet or reward the class nerd who shares math notes.
Last night, voters chose personality over poise. There was something almost unseemly about Ms. McPhee's lounge-crooner polish. Mr. Hicks looked more like an underdog, even when he was on top. And he played that to the hilt with his victory song, "Do I Make You Proud," assuring the audience that he was living the American Dream.
The beauty of "American Idol" is that voters are not stuck with the consequences of their choice for long. The Fox series is phenomenally successful in large part because the clock is reset every season. By night's end, both Ms. McPhee and Mr. Hicks already seemed like emeritus idols, lifted up on a cloud of promotional tie-ins and ushered out the door to make room for next season's favorites.
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