American Idol - Milwaukee, Wisconsin auditions

Some of the positive changes the show has made have started fading. This episode, they showed more rejects, and they even had a montage of people crying. Has the show lost its new classy streak? We sure hope not. We feel bad for the people crying. They have to go home and face everyone they know after crying on national TV, and not in a sexy Tim-Tebow-crying-after-that-one-UF-game kind of way either, but in a pathetic, “I misjudged my ability, went for my dreams, and got crushed” kind of way. Still, the contestant intros and stories feel less like the American Idol people are feeding them canned lines, and it’s starting to feel a lot more real, rather than cheesy and packaged. But did this episode really have to be two hours long?

Despite Steven Tyler’s disgusting habit of hitting on underage girls, he is quickly becoming one blogger's favorite judge. He is saving all of the best people! He favors the contestants with character. Remember last week when he saved the Broadway girl? We loved last night when he saved the sweet little 15-year-old girl, Emma Henry, who Randy thought was going to get eaten up in the competition. She probably WILL get eaten up. Reality TV is a cold competition, but we say let it happen. She will learn something, and you should at least give her a chance. If she doesn’t do well, she can always try again with a little more knowledge next time. And who knows? Maybe she will find some inner strength and do well this time. The point is, Steven Tyler appreciates that you have to be different and unique to stand out in the competition. The other judges are more into commercial pop. Steven is a crazy, horny old loon, but he fights for the contestants that snap him out of his laid-back, nutso rocker zone. Randy is trying to be the new Simon, but he’s overplaying it. He even hit a contestant in the face (albeit accidently). Leeard thinks his newfound mean streak is coming off as fake.

On the contestants: That first kid, Scott McCreery, has a voice that is pure country butter. Leeard, as the resident country music lover, thinks he's amazing. It elicited the remark "Hellfire, save matches, f--- a duck, and see what hatches” from Steven Tyler, which was nice, and just the sort of critique we have come to expect from this 62-year-old who squeals notes like he's onstage every half-hour or so.

The radio guy, Joe Repka (“I’m gonna shoot this straight to the moon!”), is seriously a combination of nearly every guy who has ever asked Ern out. Sadly, Ern is a major Oblivious Creep-magnet. But she laughed at this guy. The guys who ask Ern out take rejection just as well as this guy did too. They just keep on trying, never getting the hint. We also kind of liked Naima.

We disagreed with one of the yeses, Thia Megia, who sang “Chasing Pavements,” and was loud and on-key, so she got through. But she tried to sound soulful, and it sounded a little forced/unnatural. Also, did anyone else dislike how she was pronouncing some words? Bizarre. We liked the white house intern’s voice, but Leeard didn’t want to. When the Harvard-graduate intern (Molly Swenson) was talking, Leeard though, “Wow, she seems like an a-hole,” and then she didn’t have anyone with her at the audition. Also, she was in love with Barack Obama, who neither blogger voted for. (And it’s not about race or money or where he was born, it was just that he didn’t have the experience to back up his words, and the other guy did.) But we thought it was fun to have such a smart, accomplished contestant go through. And speaking of smarties, we both want to marry the accountant. (Note: Leeard obviously wins this competition since she's actually an accountant and Ern's first reaction when she saw him was "ew, an accountant"). He’s another favorite with an awesome voice. In fact, these two were probably the best contestant's last night.

We had a couple of dud contestants who were obviously not serious, including the Packers fan who sang “opera” Justin Beiber and the Civil War re-enactor. We loved Steven Tyler’s reaction to the Civil War guy. He pretended to approve of him. The guy, who was acting crazy to be funny, actually looked scared for a second when Tyler was talking about what he liked in the performance of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” He hadn’t expected approval. Ern laughed at that one woman who butchered "Loving You" and then reamed the judges for not putting her through because she was an overweight woman.

That Scott Dangerfield guy (who was J-Lo’s favorite) has the personality of a star, along with a decent voice. His charisma is more remarkable than his voice. Allie, the rabid Steven Tyler fan, should not have gotten through. But we are glad we didn’t have to watch her get her heart broken by her idol. And we like that J-Lo is looking for variety.

Of course, the water cooler moment of the night was the last contestant, Chris Medina, who sang The Script and had a fiancé who got in an accident months before their wedding and suffered brain damage because of it. Remember? He stayed with her and takes care of her, along with her mother. He said that if he made it to Hollywood, it would give his fiancé a reason to be happy. Leeard cried and Ern sucked it up, but it was a near-miss. So sweet and so sad. We hope this guy does well, because he had one of the best Idol Sob Stories of the show’s history.