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In a bizarre, 2-hour (+), gaudy-as-only-Fox-can-do-it finale, David Cook beat out David Archuleta for the title of Season 7 American Idol champ. Despite coming out of the last day of competition as the underdog (according to the judges at least), Cook won by a handy margin of 12 million votes. According to Mr. Seacrest and his handy teleprompter, over 97 million votes were cast…which is just staggering. Keep that number in mind when the election comes ’round in November…I think you’ll find the American enthusiasm for crowning a winner decreases considerably.

The show starts off with the two finalists facing each other in a way that makes me think the winner will be determined in an actual duel. But apparently that’s just Idol’s way of reminding us this is a competition. Huh.

Things get going as the Top 12 finalists sing while there counterparts from the last season of So You Think You Can Dance shimmy their way around the stage to Get Ready. Watching little David try to get past his nerves and keep the rhythm during this number was highly entertaining…all power to Archie, he managed to get through it without keeling over is a dead faint.

Then a moment I’d prayed to the TV Cheese Gods we would avoid this season…a Nickelback rendition. Missed it by THAT much! It’s a duet on Hero, which technically speaking is just a Chad Kroeger song…way to find a loophole in my begging, TV Cheese Gods. Since Cook has been painted with the “rocker” brush I guess it was only a matter of time until they saddled him with this. He does a good job but perhaps more impressively, Archie handles himself quite well - even if his part really is more back up to the main attraction.

I’m going to skip right over the sickeningly blatant, overly long promotion for Mike Myers’ new movie, The Love Guru. Dude…no matter how hard you try, it’s still going to bomb. Have you seen the trailer for that? Honestly! How did that even get passed the pitch stage of the process? Whatever. Kudos to the Davids for making it through that without throwing themselves under a shiny bus.

Syesha’s up next singing with the first musical guest star of the night, Seal. She looks way more relaxed and happy then she did for the rest of the entire season. Bad timing, lady! Jason Castro’s up next, revisiting arguably his best performance of the season, Hallelujah. Even the behemoth that is Fox couldn’t get Cohen (or indeed bring Buckley back) to sing backup on this one.

Back after the break in time to see each David win himself a *blatant product placement* Ford hybrid car. They’ve just handed you the means of your escape…run, boys, RUN! That way you don’t have to sit through the rest of this two-hour craziness like the rest of us.

Then it’s group sing time - first up are the ladies of the Top 12 to serenade us with a medley of Donna Summer’s hits. Carly and Brooke rock the house while Amanda looks like she’d rather be anywhere but there. Also, that girl couldn’t enunciate a word to save her life…what is she even singing? It ends with Syesha getting another awesome moment with the lady herself, Miss Donna Summer. Next we get a duet from the two “shocking eliminations” of the season, Carly and Michael. Yeah - I guess it was shocking if you were one of the two people who thought it would be anything other than a David v. David finale. Then it’s time for the guys of the Top 12 to get their musical number…and what have the producers chosen for them to sing? Bryan freakin’ Adams! I got ridiculously excited here, especially when Bryan came out to sing. What? Don’t judge me! Hey…Bo Bice digs Bryan Adams too…and anything Bo likes, I like too.

Dude…they have an American Idol ride at Disneyland. There are no words.

It’s David Cook’s turn for a guest-star duet and the producers have paired him with…ZZ Top. Really? I guess ZZ Top were the ones that couldn’t find an excuse. But strangely (as is often the case with Idol) it works and David looks quite psyched to be up there with them. Speaking of weird pairings…Brooke gets to sing with Graham Nash. I guess none of the big female singer-songwriters were home when Idol called? Man…Caller ID comes in so handy sometimes.

The Jonas Brothers are up next. Or at least I think it’s them…I couldn’t hear Ryan’s intro as he fell victim mid-sentence to that ever-growing and vicious entity known as the screaming teenage girl crowd. RIP Ryan…we’ll miss your unnatural tan and ability to make everything slightly awkward. The Bros. aren’t performing with any of the contestants which, call me cynical, but I believe they call this pandering to the demographic. Also…I feel old. They gave a great performance though so maybe I should check out what all these kids are yelling about.

Then it’s time to reflect on the worst auditions and singers of the season. It’s as craptacular as it is every year (although this time one of them sings live accompanied by a marching band). I always tune this part out though…so I don’t know who he is or why Randy and Paula feel the need to get up and dance with him. He looks sort of like Prince…or maybe Prince’s little brother? Hookay.

Then it’s Archie’s turn for the spotlight as he duets on Apologise with OneRepublic. I know this song has been overplayed to death, but I still love it…so I love this. Good job, Archie.

Jordin Sparks, the Season 6 winner, makes her way to the stage to perform her latest song…which I hate to say, is boring as all get out. Or maybe it’s good…her dress is so shiny I might’ve been hypnotised into not caring very much. I was hoping she’d do No Air again but alas, Chris Brown was in the T.Dot last night so she had to go it alone.

Now for my favourite moment of the evening…which is sadly another blatant promotional plug for an upcoming movie, Tropic Thunder. I’m insanely excited about this movie so when I saw the bit was Ben Stiller, Jack Black and Robert Downey Jr. acting as the Pips to the awesome Gladys, I went a bit mental. On subsequent viewings, it’s not as funny as I first thought…but seeing Jack Black and Ben Stiller ham it up while Robert Downey Jr. outperforms them both while looking both embarrassed and amused is worth more than one look.

Then more pimping of the show…this time via Carrie Underwood (wearing the oddest outfit yet) singing yet another one of her hits. See, viewing audience? American Idol winners can be successful! We are relevant! Yes…yes, we get it. We’re already watching - stop trying so hard.

How long is this show? I feel like I’m missing out on years of my life. Oh but look, more group sings! Just what we needed. This one is of the full Top 12 singing a medley of George Michael’s greatest hits. It’s worth it to see David Hernandez (out erstwhile tabloid-outed stripper) sing that line about being naked in Father Figure. Hee. I didn’t know Idol could do meta…well played. Then, and I’m actually excited for this, George Michael himself sings. Interesting to note that at this point, Paula truly loses it (which is saying a lot) and even Simon is up out of his chair and applauding. That is the power of the George.

And now we’ve finally reached the end of this. Ryan stands center stage with the Davids and asks the judges for some final words. Randy says his usual mix of contradictory and irrelevant nonsense, then Paula follows that up with some encouraging words sandwiched in between her special brand of crazy, and then Simon does something I’ve never seen him do before unless coerced. He apologises to David Cook (who up until last night had been his clear favourite) for his harsh judging of Cookie the night before which Cowell himself thought “bordered on disrespectful”. Wow…everybody get in your bunker…the end of the world is nigh. Simon also takes the time to cover his butt and say he thinks they’re both awesome and deserving of the title.

The moment has come…America (and those of us with VOIP phonelines) has voted…and the winner is… Apparently the show was running overtime so anyone who PVR’d this monsterous baby had it cut out right before the announcement…which, OUCH. Thank god for time shifting. It’s David Cook (which you knew already).

The talented Archie takes it like a complete professional (and doesn’t pass out as I worried he might) and Cook just looks completely stunned. He doubles-over on stage and takes quite a long time to gather himself. He pulls it together enough to sing the “winning song” which doesn’t suck as much as it has in the past - although I believe I caught a highly suspect line about a “magic rainbow” in there somewhere. Simon is emoting more than I’ve ever seen him and happily hugging/dancing with Paula. I think the meds finally kicked in. Cook brings out the other 11 contestants to stand with him…which is a classy move, I must say. At least I think it’s the other 11…that confetti is kinda blinding me to reality. We close out on Cook’s brother Andrew yelling at the camera “that’s my brother!” and crying…which is when I lost it. Everybody just looked so darn happy and gosh darn it, he earned that win! What? Stop judging me! Not a bad way to end a roller-coaster of a season…

Congrats to the Cookie - here’s hoping he goes the way of Underwood and Clarkson and not Hicks. I think the odds are in his favour to make it…that kid’s got talent!

For those who watched…were you happy with the results? Who did you want to win?

So that’s it…another season done. Bring on the Canadian Idol!

Photographs Courtesy Getty Images

Posted on Thursday, May 22nd, 2008 at 1:33 pm by Emma and is filed under We <3 TV.

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