Grease Live: Week Three

The ratings for the show must be doing well. They’ve found a new way to stretch it out, by only featuring the Sandy wannabes this week. Next week, we’re only voting on the Danny contenders.

During the last week, the girls had to pair up with a guy to do a scene test to show their acting chops. Then, they took to the stage last night with the guys as backup dancers for all the world to judge. We saw clips of the acting sessions as the show went along, but you need to rely on the judges’ comments to figure out who’s capable of what. Acting isn’t an exciting thing to show off on live TV, as it turns out. Just singing and dancing.

The bottom four this week were Chad, Kevin (2 weeks in a row), Kate (my favorite), and Kathleen (her second week in a row, also.) They’ll be doing the sing-off — later in the show.

Things start, instead, with Ashley Spencer, who had “These Boots Are Made For Walking.” Her singing was strong, but I didn’t buy her overall act. There was something missing for me there to make it truly believable, even if only producer David Ian agrees with me.

Allie Scott got stuck with a Bjork song. That’s a fate worse than death. However, she made “It’s All So Quiet” work as a humorous thing. She had so much running around to do, it’s amazing she didn’t miss more notes or lose her breath. It was convincing, though, and the countdown to her top dropping reached zero just at the end of the song. Don’t worry – the top that fell was covering the top of her dress. Nothing was exposed.

Laura (“Small Town Sandy”) did “Fever,” which didn’t do anything for me at all. I’ve heard better on IDOL with this one. My problem may have just been with the music mix, I don’t know. The judges loved her, though. In fact, they voted unanimously on her as their favorite of the night at the end of the show.

Then, we had the sing-off. Kevin and Kate, we learned, got the least votes from the public. And the judges chose to vote them off. It’s the biggest travesty of this contest so far that Kate was let go in favor of weaker singers and dancers. Kathleen, the one who made it through, is the perpetual crier. They saved her because she acted emotionally in her scene during the week. UGH.

Kathleen (“Spiritual Sandy”) crashed and burned completely on “Let’s Hear It For the Boy.” She was constantly panting for breath. She missed half the notes. She was too emotional from the near-miss of elimination to bother competing with her song. I was embarrassed for her. If Kate had made it through, at least we would have had a decent singer on stage, capable of controlling her tears long enough to do the show.

I think the guys had it harder on the night than the girls. They had to learn six different dances. Maybe they didn’t need to memorize lyrics, but they still acted and danced and did a little background singing, I think, too.

Finally, Frankie Avalon came out to sing “Beauty School Dropout” with the ladies. He wore all white, except the tall heels of his shoes. Those were painted black to help hide them. I’m guessing he’s not much taller than 5’6″ in real life and needs all the help he can get to look taller next to the leggy girls he had to sing next to on the show. Isn’t it crazy the things you notice sometimes?

I would bet on Kathleen being in the bottom again next week. The judges can’t ignore three appearances in a row at the bottom of the stack. She’ll be next to do.

The unfortunate thing is that after her, we have four very talented and capable singers up on that stage. Everyone who leaves from here on out has a strong voice and decent dancing/action chops. It’s only going to get tougher.

This entry was posted on February 26th, 2007 and is filed under TV. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.