We scoured the earth (and the archives at various record companies for failed projects that showed vocal promise) to create the greatest assemblage of singing talent American Idol has ever seen! So what happened? After last year's virtual snooze-fest, how did a season that truly did give us perhaps the greatest depth of talent we've ever seen (an argument could be made for Season Five) give us such lackluster shows?

After Sanjaya-gate last year, the biggest controversy to come out this year was that finalist David Hernandez used to be a stripper and David Archuleta's dad might be a Mr. Meany-Pants. And we got to be pissed that Kristy Lee Cook outlasted the likes of Michael Johns. Not until we got to the finale of Davids did things get really intense.

%Gallery-16066%

In AOL's interview with Jason Yeager, the Branson performer struggled with how to interpret his elimination. On the one hand, he feels that the lack of screen time he got prior to America voting (said screen time being essentially zero minutes and zero seconds) hurt his ability to connect. On the other hand, his son's first words to him moments after his elimination were "I love you dad and I'm proud of you."

As usual, those contestants who get very little screen time do seem more prone to early eliminations (see Garrett Haley and Colton Berry), but Jason failed to connect with a contemporary audience with his overly dramatized cheesy performances. Those kinds of theatrics play very well to the midwest Branson, MO crowd, but not so much on the intimate stage and television cameras of the American Idol machine.

%Gallery-17836%

(S07E16) We're getting closer and closer to the Top 12, and more importantly closer to the end of thrice-weekly Idol. There were almost 31 million votes cast last night, but still not enough for four more contestants. This week, both the boys and girls were largely disappointing, with many of the top performers from last week fumbling, and only a few showing marked improvement.

A portion of that, I think, can be blamed on the theme weeks. For many of these kids, songs from the '60s and '70s represent songs they've never heard before in their lives. That's not fair to those contestants or the audience. If this is the season where we're supposed to get to know these singers better, why not let us have three weeks of getting to know the type of music they both enjoy and know they can sing well. Once you've found your Top 12, you can put those kids through the ringer with your theme weeks.

(S07E14) Tonight was a weird night for me as the boys who blew me away last week...well, kind of didn't. And the guys who barely squeaked by upped their game tremendously. It was like a mix-and-match of who was good and bad from last week and it made my brain hurt. Now I'm all kinds of confused and don't know who should go home anymore. There's still some easy fat to trim, but now I don't think it's nearly as obvious which six of these ten should make the Top 12. Good for them, but hard for us.

(S07E11) The continuing efforts by the Idol folks to make me happy are really appreciated, I want you guys to know that. Not only did they acknowledge that certain of tonight's contestants have had very little to no screen time thus far, but they went so far as to show us some early audition footage for them.

It may not seem like much, but that little bit shows us the contestant singing a couple different songs, maybe in differing styles. This gives us a more well-rounded basis on which to assess their performance here. Everyone has an off-week from time to time and it would be horrible for someone to have a bad night on the only night we see him/her if his/her other auditions were amazing.

Apparently, American Idol producer Nigel Lythgoe was pretty upset about my disdain at the lack of screen time his show has given to finalists Jason, Jason, Garrett and Luke so far because he's come out with an explanation of why some finalists don't get any screen time prior to the voting portion of the show.

His explanations include editorial "story" concerns and licensing issues with the songs contestants choose to sing. I have only two things to say to that: First, you can feel free to talk to me Nigel. You don't have to go through Reality TV Magazine. Call me, baby. We can work this out. Second, your explanation is complete crap and I don't buy it for an instant.

So are you, like me, pissed that we have no idea who Jasons Castro and Yeager are? Upset that we've never seen Luke Menard before we saw that he was in the Top 12. Well, if you're reading this then you're online. And if you're online, then you can run on over to AmericanIdol.com and see introductory videos of the entire Top 24, as well as a clip of the photo shoot that brought you our fantastic Top 24 gallery.

%Gallery-16066%

Now that we know who they are we can see how they've been cleaned up by FOX and photographed. And that crazy Top 24 promo photo featuring the contestants hiding behind Simon masks has been replaced with the above photo, minus the masks. Oh those wacky kids over at FOX. They're so creative!

%Gallery-16066%

(S07E10) Looks like Idol's getting an early start with the cheesy blatant endorsements. They opened this episode with an incredibly corny Jumper intro featuring Hayden Christensen and Ryan Seacrest. But tonight is all about about the chair and final judgment for the contestants. No more singing; no more chances to prove themselves. It's simply a matter of sitting down and hearing if they're in the Top 24 or headed home.

"Joe's Place" broke the story last week and there are plenty of sites who ran with it, so now the question becomes: how accurate is it? We're still a few weeks away from the official unveiling of the American Idol Top 24, but apparently the final selections were made this past week, and then Joe blabbed about it to the whole world. Did he get it right?

Considering there are names that no one would know unless they were on the inside; they are from auditions yet to air, it seems very possible that his list is at least partially accurate. I'm going to do two separate posts for boys and girls as I'm gathering up available online video, some pics and what we can find so far about these possible contestants. !SPOILER WARNING! after the jump. If you don't want to know, then don't go.

[UPDATE - Now updated and with additional audition video! - j/h]