Rants and Raves: Malaysian Idol 02-13, Airdate: 24/07/2005

(Image courtesy of malaysianidol.bluehyppo.com)

Nick’s picks: Adam (voter’s choice) & Lisa (Judges choice)

They opened the show tonight with our 2 hosts and I’m happy to say that Jien’s hair looked the best it has been in the past few weeks. The forehead is relatively clear of straggly hair but the guy really need to invest in better makeup as the forehead was as shiny as Aesar’s bald head. I wonder if that was the reason why his hair was pulled over the forehead these pass weeks. In any rate, he also needs to get a hair cut bad. It looked too unruly and uneven in places. Let’s see how his hair turn out next week.

After the recap of last Friday’s show, the judges were asked to list out their favorites. Roslan felt that out of the 6, Adam, Azam and Lisa performed better than the rest. Jee, who turned up in the judging tonight thankfully sans finger bandage, picked the same set of people which is not surprising since she has been agreeing with the other judges almost all the time. The one dissenting voice among the judges, Paul felt disappointed with last Friday’s performance and felt that Lisa was the only good performance of the night.

Judges picks:
Roslan : Adam, Azam, Lisa
Jee: Adam, Azam, Lisa
Paul: Lisa

We were reminded again that only 2 contestants will be selected to advance through to the next round from tonight’s show. One of the contestants will be selected by the voters and the other will be selected by the judges. When asked if it was a difficult choice to make, Paul mentioned that all the judges were unanimous in their choice that took only a few minutes to confer on among them. In selecting the judges choice, Roslan confirmed that the judges took into account the criteria of the things the judges were looking for in the next Malaysian Idol and what the public would like to see in their choice. Due to the nature of the show, the judges still needed to take into account what the public might be want to rally behind in a contestant when they choose their choice to advance to the next round.

The filler segment for tonight’s show basically consisted of the predictions from the live audience who attended the Wildcards show taping. A few of the people in the clips were familiar faces who regularly post in the BlueHyppo.com official Malaysian Idol fan-forum. Their predictions were very mixed across the board as to who from the Wildcards show would go through. Many had predicted that Lisa and Adam to go through as well as a few who wanted Azam to get through instead.

After the segment, Adam and Azam was called out to centerstage and were told that one of them have been selected as the judge’s choice to move to the next round. I was actually rooting for Adam so when he was called out with Azam, I was convinced that Adam would be selected by the judges. When Azam was announced as the judge’s choice instead, I was quite surprised as I was very sure that the judges wanted Adam to join the Top 11 instead of being sent back to the sofa with the other contestants.

For the voter’s choice, the remaining 4 contestants were called to the centerstage and have their performance comments read out to them by the hosts. Adam was not among the 4 that was called to come up so at this point I wondered if that was the end for him. After a slight pause, Cheryl announced that the result will be announced after the break. Different from the last time she tried this, it actually worked this time. The reason it worked this time, I think, was because every one of the 4 contestants they pulled out have more or less the same chance to be selected. It was a better hook to keep the audience guessing and wanting to stay tuned to the shows. Bravo, Cheryl and keep this in mind the next time you try to pull the patented “results after the break” shtick.

When we came back from the comercial, they started to cut down the contestants one by one. At this point I was thinking to myself that if I wanted to make this show more dramatic, I would cut the four out and announce that Adam, who was not called on to the stage, was the voter’s choice. Sure enough that was exactly what happened tonight. None of the 4 on centerstage, including Lisa who was my judges pick, got through and instead it was a shocked and tearful Adam who was the voter’s choice. The guy just broke down in tears after it was announced and rushed to embraced Azam who was still on the stage after his selection. They seemed to be very close and I think there is something more to this but for now I’m just happy that the guy made it through. I was almost certain that the judges would have picked Lisa to move on as well but I guess that the judges might want to even out the gender disparity in the Top 11 by picking Azam instead. Based on what I’ve seen so far, he has a lot to improve if he wants to stay longer in the show once the Spectaculars begin.

With the selection of Adam as the last person to join the Top 11 contestant, Malaysian Idol show was now ready to move on to the Spectaculars where the contestants will be given a different genre to select songs from every week and hopefully gather enough votes to stay in competition. When asked to comment about the Top 11, Roslan stated that he was satisfied with the combination of talent and personality in the group in this season’s show. Jee was of course also satisfied with the list of contestants selected to move on to the next round. Paul was also excited that for this season, there was not clear winner in the group yet as all the contestants were relatively on the same level of talent and performance quality and nobody stood out to make it a one-sided affair. He was looking forward to see these contestant fight it out to be the next Malaysian Idol.

Roslan summed it best at the end of the show tonight that the Malaysian Idol competition this season would be a more closely contestant one than it was last season. In their judges interviews a few weeks back, it was made clear that they were not looking for the next Jaclyn Victor this year but the best contestant from this group of 11 to became the next Malaysian Idol. In a way, I have to agree that this season’s show might be interesting to watch to see if anyone would be able to learn and experience enough to pull ahead from the crowd and stand out to be recognized as the Malaysian Idol.