Amanda Overmyer: In Memoriam

Is there anything more excruciating than watching American Idol's elimination episodes? The phoned-in questions! The phoned-in attempts to stretch out the Idol ad inventory by pummeling the audience with medleys, rehashing the things that everyone already saw, and endlessly previewing "Idol Gives Back"! While there are some useful moments on these episodes--like finding out that Dolly Parton, Neil Diamond, Mariah Carey, and, uh, Andrew Lloyd Webber will be serving as mentors this season--all the business done within could be done in way, way less than an hour. But that's an old complaint. Here's a new one: Amanda Overmyer went home in lieu of Kristy Lee Cook, who skated by on her "only countryish artist in the whole group" charm for the second straight week, despite being one of the weakest performers from the whole top 24, let alone the finalists.

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