We find this part of the competition normally fairly annoying, but this year, Fox did a majorly amateur job.

The general idea of the group competition is to let the people group up to compete for a chance at getting through.  What one would think is that everyone would want to cooperate and get down the basics to get through.  But instead, it generates a bunch of bickering and infighting.  Some viewers may find it enjoyable.  We find it childish and foolish.  Whoever choreographed this show should have been sent home along with those eliminated.

Their show focused on several drama queens, one of which was a she-man-boy, and doesn’t really let you see what you want to see.  We got some shocking eliminations, and we never even saw the performance that lost it for the person eliminated.  They build the contestants up in the auditions and show them as possible contenders then in the end, won’t give them their time of day when cut! For example, David Osmond was eliminated, which was a shock to the system.  But we never even got a chance to see him utter a single lyric.  Instead they focused on a group of frantic fruit bags that couldn’t seem to rehearse.

The bottom line came down to a quote from Simon though.  You forget the words, and you are gone.  So, a woman that was incredibly promising as a finalist, Emily Wynne-Hughes, got eliminated because after hours of practicing, she could not remember 30 seconds worth of lyrics.  And she is a pro!!

Bikini Girl, Katrina Darrell went home too.  She just couldn’t get out of bed.  Major prima donna, and major loser sacrificing a great chance.  But she got more camera time than most of the winners in the process.

75 people got through, way too many to cover in this article.  Fox did not provide the names of those that did get through, ran through only partial performances of most and spent half the time promoting the basket cases. Adam Lambert, Danny J Gokey, Jasmine Murray, Kristen McNamara, Taylor Vaifanua, Matt Breitzke, Michael Sarver, and Jamar Rogers are few of the names they named moving on to the next round. Was it a quick glimpse of  Anoop Desai we saw before the end credits? Jorge Nunez, Nick “Norman Gentle” Mitchell(!), Casey Carlson (Did she or didn’t she?!), Megan Corkrey and Jackie Tohn all made it and we didn’t hear a single line from any of them! Whatever happened to Kai Kalama, Michael Castro and Scott Macintyre?

Rose Flack is gone.  She too could not remember her 30 seconds of lyrics.

One thing you do learn is that if your group stinks, you can still get through by beating your partners.  So, in some instances, the strategy is to refuse to practice and then outperform your partners on the song.  The partners get eliminated, and you move on.  It is a risk, but it works for some.  Some pretty angry people got eliminated and realized that being stabbed in the back is part of this industry.