Tonight was the first semifinal show for American Idol, and we had 8 fresh-faced youngsters try to sing their way into our hearts. Or at least into our dialing habits, as it's back to phoning in votes.

Sarah and I agreed that the best two from the night were the first and last performers - Diana DeGarmo and Fantasia Barrino. They were the strongest, and did the best job of bringing in the now smaller audience (I also liked that Fantasia lost her facial jewelry, it was distracting). The other six were good, but were all kind of the same, kind of in that karaoke/cruise ship level that Simon keeps on about.

The only one that really stood out in a negative sense was Matthew Metzger, who did this up tempo version of "Walking in Memphis" which bleached those blue suede shoes white. The judges liked him, though.

There were other old faves from earlier in the show. Jennifer Hudson, who looked like she was wearing aluminum foil during her Pasadena tryout, was back and did OK. Katie Webber, the cheerleader, was back, and did a pretty good job with a jazz number, which was a nice change of pace from the ballads. Erskine Walcott lost the hat and the cornrows, but also seemed to lose a bit from his performance.

Over on America's Next Top Model, there were a variety of personality and image-related exercises, where we learned that everyone thinks Camille is ruthless and everyone's pick to get axed. Then again, if you've watched more than 10 minutes of the show, you'd know this.

They then paired this up with some sort of underwater photo shoot, which seemed out of place. One of the guys associated with this brought along his little dog, who was wearing a rain hat and pink ribbons on each leg. He was a judge later in the show, and brought his dog there, too (sans hat and ribbons). Got to love high fashion.

We also learned some things about contestants this week. Sara is competing without her father's knowledge, as he's pretty traditional and she fears his reaction. Mercedes finally confesses to having lupus, and everyone is supportive. Shandi has both a record and a past history of drug use, fueled by what appears to be the least supportive family in America.

In the end, Camille gets to the final two but survives, as we send Xiomara into that good night due to general lack of success over the week.

There's a part of me that thinks MSNBC or Fox could make a good show out of Camille and Omarosa from The Apprentice. They're very similar in both looks and personality, and I think their combination of self-assurance and borderline psychosis would give Sean Hannity or Bill O'Reilly a run for their money.