Why Joshua Lost

OK, I know a number of you are reading this and thinking, "Does he really need to explain to us why Joshua lost? I mean, that guy should've been gone at least a week ago, if not more. True, true - but we still need to look at why he should have been gone, and why he ended up leaving this week. As has been usual with these, some of our answers will come from my article, What American Idol 2 Contestants Need to Know, while others will come from outside that article.

We'll begin, well, at the beginning. The first rule is to have some singing talent. Josh does have some singing talent - just not enough. He can sing songs that are not terribly vocally challenging. He can sing songs that he can countrify - that is, convert to a country-type song. But whenever he tried to leave that genre and sing without his accent, the results were often staggeringly bad. He could sing better than I could, given the right circumstances, but that doesn't make him a recording star or the American Idol.

His lack of ability in certain areas went hand in hand with his song choice. Sometimes, you just stared as he performed, wondering what the hell he was thinking in choosing a particular song. Had he listened to himself singing it? Had anybody else before the show went on the air? In the final show he redeemed himself with some good choices, though risky on one of them when he picked the same song as Clay. But along the way, that had not been the case.

Two areas where he did succeed were in being different and being memorable. From the moment we saw him, we knew he was The Marine. This was certainly different from all the others, and it was just as memorable. In case we somehow forgot and didn't notice the crew cut (which he allowed to grow a little bit along the way), we were constantly reminded of it either by Ryan, the producers, or Josh himself. He grabbed our attention when our attention was focused on our armed forces. Sometimes, that attention wasn't all good, as some people wondered why he wasn't in Iraq. But the majority opinion seemed to be that if the Marines didn't call him up, that was fine with them. I suspect that Josh earned far more votes as a Marine than he did as a singer. Don't get me wrong, some people have written to say they liked Josh's voice. But if that voice had come from anybody other than a Marine, I don't think he would have even made it to the Top 12, let alone the Final Four.

The fifth rule is to avoid karaoke - singing it like the original. Because Josh converted so many songs to country, that was one area he didn't have to worry about.

He did, however, have some problems with the sixth rule about arguing with Simon. Early on, Josh showed a bit of cockiness when he challenged Simon to push-ups (a challenge Simon did quite well with, I might add). As the weeks went by and Josh became a more frequent target for criticism, it started to get to him. Finally, last week, he made a comment about how it was a good thing for Simon that Josh had Marine Corps restraints on him. And if he didn't? The implication was that he would have beaten up Simon. Not really a bright thing to say. In this case, it probably didn't hurt him with his fans because they all were in love with Josh and probably didn't really like Simon anyway. But it did hurt him with others. Believe it or not, there are still people out there who vote based on merit, not because they have dedicated their lives to a single contestant. And Josh turned off many of those voters with his remarks. Even though he sang better in his final week, it is unlikely that many of those who vote on merit were going to simply overlook his statements of the previous week. Call them demerits if you will.

Now that we've gone through the article, let's look outside of it. Most of the "outside" stuff explains more of why Josh stuck around as long as he did rather than why he lost. He has a dedicated core group of fans who will call and call and call. Some of them went so far as to set up a website to encourage non-viewers to call in for him. It went even further than that, though, as at least one of his relatives sent out e-mails to writers who said bad things about him! Yes, they were a dedicated group - dedicated to getting Josh voted in as the American Idol. This is not to say that other contestants don't have dedicated fans as well, but these people were not just supporting Josh - they were often supporting Josh the Marine. That spurred them on to vote even more than they likely otherwise would have.

And so Josh progressed along while others dropped off. Nobody complained too much at first. After all, losing Charles or Rickey wasn't all that big a deal, it seemed. And few thought Carmen should have stayed around much longer. Then it hit the fan when Trenyce - who had one of her best weeks ever - was voted off last week instead of Josh - who had one of his worst.

This, frankly, is one of the main reasons Josh left this week. If there had been another contestant who was not particularly well-liked, or if Trenyce had put on a horrible show last week while Josh put on a great one, the results this week might have been quite different. Why? Well, let me take you back to the first season. Everybody remembers that Nikki beat Tamyra for the final three. But how many people remember who went the week before? Be honest. Hell, I had to look it up to be sure! It was RJ. Remember him? Not really. Why? Because he was one who probably should have gone earlier, too (before Christina Christian). So when Nikki beat RJ, there was not a huge outcry. Tamyra's fans did not rush to the phone after the final four performances because they figured she was safe. But Nikki beat her and everybody had a quick news flash. Coming back to this season, that shocker came a week early. Fans of Clay, Ruben, and Kimberley knew they had to keep dialing and redialing to make sure Josh didn't beat their Idol.

Basically, last week's shocker drove this week's results. But, of course, last week wouldn't have been a shocker if the other elements - mainly singing ability - had not come into play over the entire course of the series to date. When you combine these together, you see just why Joshua finally lost.

David Bloomberg is the Editor of Foxes On Idol, and can be reached at rno@pobox.com.

Be sure to sign up for the RealityNewsOnline/FoxesOnIdol e-mail update so you can stay informed about new articles on both sites! For all of the RealityNewsOnline articles about this show, check out the American Idol page.

For more news about reality TV, be sure to check SirLinksALot!