For this week, American Idol was like that season of Dallas that was all one of Pam Ewing's dreams.

Given the booting of Corey Clark, the decision was made not to boot anyone off of the show this week. Votes will carry over to next week, just adding to the painful tease of getting thatclose to sending Carmen back to Bountiful. On the other hand, we do get another week of reading the subtextual hints that she and Clay have something going on.

Related to that, we got a half-hearted, back-handed confirmation tonight that camera whore Kimberly Caldwell is dating semi-finalist J. D. Adams. Is he trying to ride her coattails of pseudo-fame, or is she trying to latch on to his Presidential heritage?

There were more group sings, and the contradictory announcement that the producers wanted to capture the "magic" of the live rendition of "God Bless the USA" from last week that they had the kids re-record it in the studio. Whatever machine makes everyone sound on-key apparently can't travel. Oh, odd note here: Corey and Julia, last week's victim, were both in-studio to sing this, but Kimberly Locke wasn't. Pinko!

Getting back to the booting that wasn't, the other two in the bottom three this week were Trenyce and Kimberly Locke. I'm not sure if this is proof that most of the 13 year olds who watch are morons, or if there's some sort of Weakest Link-type plot by fans of Ruben and Clay to pick off the competition by voting for the deficient.

There was one segment from the house, but no sign of show correspondent Kristin Holt. Maybe she's been embedded with a military unit to give the Texas cheerleader perspective to war.

I will say that watching the recap show on tape is a huge boon. I would like to skip more of the padding, but even just missing the plentiful commerical breaks is time-saver enough.