david hernandez-related stories
Posted May 27th 2008 1:03PM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: OpEd, American Idol, Judges, Contestants, Alumni, Host, Predictions and Trends, News and Gossip
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.
Continue reading AI7 Report Card: The season that was
Posted Mar 14th 2008 5:24PM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: OpEd, American Idol, Contestants, Alumni, Performances, News and Gossip
David Hernandez was always a bit of a wild card for me. He was handsome but fairly nondescript and forgettable. He had a nice enough voice but again how memorable was he. Then, the internet blew up with the story about his having worked as a male stripper prior to
American Idol and suddenly he was arguably the most recognized face on the show ... and abs ... and chest ...
In AOL's coverage of the exit
interview with David Hernandez, he emphatically stated that he doesn't believe that his past vocation had anything to do with his sudden vacation (see what I did there?). He blames it solely on song choice. He should also put some of that blame on his bad performance of said song. And on that horrible running through the crowd thing he did. Did that work out for Chris Slight last year, David? No. Unless you're Taylor Hicks you can't pull that off.
Continue reading AI OD: A farewell to David Hernandez - VIDEOS
Posted Mar 14th 2008 8:09AM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: OpEd, American Idol, Contestants, Alumni, Predictions and Trends, News and Gossip
Well, the final results are in from AOL's Idol Poll, running from the end of the competition on Tuesday to the "Results Show" on Wednesday. While there's not a great deal of deviation from
the preliminary results we reported on Wednesday, it's interesting that David Hernandez actually went up slightly in their rankings, from 9th to 8th, before ultimately getting eliminated. They were way off on this one. What's the margin of error, I wonder.
The only other change of any significance was Carly dropping from the #2 slot all the way down to #4, allowing David Cook and Brooke to each move up a slot. This I can understand as both of them had really good nights. But what's up with all the Syesha haters? The final tally is "after the break."
Continue reading AI Poll final results, AOL users got it even more wrong
Posted Mar 13th 2008 3:30PM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: OpEd, American Idol, Alumni, News and Gossip
Hello and welcome to a new weekly feature here on TV Squad. As this is the year in which
American Idol is focusing more on current and past contestants, I thought we should do no less. So each week, as one more
Idol hopeful is eliminated from the competition, we'll take a look back at contestants past who were eliminated in the same week. We'll examine how they did on the show and what they've been up to since their elimination.
This week: 12th place finishers, featuring Vanessa Olivarez (Season 2), Leah LaBelle (Season 3), Lindsey Cardinale (Season 4), Melissa McGhee (Season 5) and Brandon Rogers (Season 6). Season 1 broke at the Top 10 so we don't have 11th and 12th place finishers to examine.
Continue reading AI Aftermath: 12th place finishers - VIDEOS
Posted Mar 12th 2008 11:00PM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: American Idol, Reviewcaps, Contestants, Episode Reviews
(S07E21) 
For the first in a season full of hour-long
American Idol results show, I'll give
Idol credit for filling it pretty well. It was nice to see past runner-up Katharine McPhee perform on the
Idol stage again, as well as the video footage of the
Idols reacting to their sudden fame. What they need to do is turn the Results show into more of a classic variety show. And keep those past
Idol contestants coming, too.
American Idol has been around long enough now that it has it's own legacy and tradition, so keep honoring that.
As for the results, while the person who left wasn't necessarily the consensus choice, it was someone that I'm perfectly alright with seeing leave at this early stage. In fact, I could have lost the whole "Bottom Three" tonight and not lost any sleep over it.
Continue reading American Idol: Top 11 Revealed
Posted Mar 12th 2008 2:40PM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: American Idol, Contestants, Predictions and Trends
What a difference a day makes. After the surprising performances on last night's
Top 12 performance show,
AOL's American Idol poll has shown some significant shifts. While David Archuleta has been a strong favorite across most polls, I don't think anyone can argue that last night he had a pretty dramatic misstep, forgetting lyrics and generally turning in a pretty bad performance.
The question is, will the David A. faithful continue to flock behind their golden boy, or is one bad performance enough to knock him off the top perch. And what about Chikezie, who turned in his strongest performance of the competition so far. Was it enough to bring him up in America's hearts? I've got two sets of poll results for you. The first from the week prior to last night's show, and the second after last night's performance.
Continue reading America ranks the Top 12 (after they performed)
Posted Mar 11th 2008 11:45PM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: American Idol, Reviewcaps, Contestants, Performances, Episode Reviews
(S07E20) After what went down last week, I'd be scared to death to perform first. On the girls' side, Asia'h performed first, followed by Kady. For the boys, it was Luke up first followed by David Archuleta and then Danny. So, other than David, all four eliminated contestants sang first on their respective performance shows. Do we forget so quickly, America? Maybe a whole night of Beatles classics will make it all a bit more memorable for you.
Continue reading American Idol: Top 12 Perform
Posted Mar 11th 2008 2:19PM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: American Idol, Contestants, Predictions and Trends, News and Gossip
TVGuide.com ran a poll
ranking the Top 12 American Idol finalists. While you can click on the link to check out the full list, and their percentages, I have to ask if it's really as cut and dry as that list makes it out to be. A couple of years ago, Taylor Hicks was an early fan favorite, never appearing in the bottom and always polling high like this, but even he didn't garner nearly half of all votes like a certain
Star Search winner.
Is it that people really like David Archuelta to win or that they think it's inevitable he will win? I know some people I've talked to that say they figure he'll win at the same time saying they don't think he should. What do you think? Do you think David Archuleta has already won, basically, and it's all going to come down to who can come in second?
Continue reading Ranking the Top 12 Idols
Posted Mar 7th 2008 1:25PM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: American Idol, Contestants, News and Gossip
You want to see some crackerjack reporting? Check this out. The kids over at
Entertainment Weekly managed to get a hold of
American Idol's most controversial figure (I guess). And like Woodward and Bernstein they weren't going to back down until Top 12 Finalist
David Hernandez responded to reports that he was a stripper in a mostly male club. Boy, did they get the goods!
At first, David didn't want to open up, evading their inquiries with "Honestly, I'm here to sing." But they wouldn't stop, pounding him relentlessly until finally he broke down. "I'm not really concerned with what's going on [with those reports]. I'm just focused on singing." Bam! There's your headline! David Hernandez is not concerned about those reports. I'll just clear off this space on the mantle for my Pulitzer. Who said hard-hitting interviews were a thing of the past? Take a bow,
EW. Take a bow.
Posted Mar 6th 2008 10:00PM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: American Idol, Reviewcaps, Contestants, Alumni, Performances, Episode Reviews
(S07E19) Thank god it's the end of three-times-a-week
Idol. Tonight, we lost four more contestants to the ether and said hello to our Top 12. It's been a long road coming, and while I can't say I agree 100% with the Top 12, I will agree that
most of the contestants in it deserve to be there.
Honestly, I think the
Idol team accomplished their goal of creating the most talented Top 12 in
Idol history. Say what you want about their professional pedigree and the lack of true amateurs in this group because in the end it won't really matter. What they will bring is a better more consistent product to the screen. Sure there's early favorites, but who can honestly predict the winner at this point (I know some of you are very certain you know who it will be)? Can you even predict the Top 12?
Continue reading American Idol: Top 12 Revealed
Posted Mar 5th 2008 10:26AM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: American Idol, Contestants, News and Gossip
Don't tell Frenchie, but despite confirming that
David Hernandez was a stripper in a mostly male night club, only quitting as recently as September 30, 2007, sources say he will not be removed from the show. FOX declined comment, but
Idol executive producer Ken Warwick did make a statement (that has since been removed from most stories I've seen this morning; his comments were there last night and now those reports say that both FOX and
Idol declined comment).
He said, "We're never judgmental about what people do to earn a living. They've got to put food in people's mouths." Also mentioned, and since removed, was the never revealed stripping past of first season contestant Nikki McKibbin, as well as an expanded explanation for Frenchie Davis' dismissal in 2003.
Continue reading Idol hopeful's stripper past confirmed, won't be booted
Posted Feb 28th 2008 4:20PM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: American Idol, Contestants, News and Gossip
It's that time of year again. The time when
American Idol settles down with it's Top 24, we start singling out our favorites, and the media starts digging into these people's pasts and presents looking for juicy secrets like they're presidential politicians, too. Other than the expected mug shot discovery, two have surfaced this week that are certainly generating a lot of buzz.
One features Robbie Carrico, who has been called out as inauthentic in his attempts to be a "rocker" week after week thus far on the show. The other, the handsome but otherwise dull David H., who had a great week. Of course,
Idol and FOX aren't saying anything about it. In order to not spoil the fun for those who like to avoid this kind of thing, you'll have to follow me to know more.
Continue reading Idol Secrets: Amanda, Robbie and David H.
Posted Feb 27th 2008 12:13AM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: OpEd, American Idol, Reviewcaps, Contestants
(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.
Continue reading American Idol: Top 10 Boys Perform
Posted Feb 20th 2008 12:26AM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: American Idol, Reviewcaps, Contestants, Performances
(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.
Continue reading American Idol: Top 12 Boys Perform
Posted Feb 15th 2008 2:02PM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: American Idol, Contestants, News and Gossip
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.
Continue reading AI OD: Video introductions to Idol's Top 24 online
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