Caught up on three shows tonight:

American Idol entered its final stage yesterday by naming its final pair, Fantasia Barrino and Diana DeGarmo. Jasmine Trias, whose continued presence on the show created controversy among people with nothing better to do, was finally given the heave-ho. Her clean teen looks, big smile, vacuous facial expression and marginal singing ability all add up to a future announcement by the Disney Channel of the new series Jaz's Aloha Spirit (writers all over greater Los Angeles are now doing a search and replace on their unused Lizzie Maguire scripts).

Fantasia should win, but if Diana squeaks it out I will take one for the team and adopt her weiner dogs.

Turns out that the first single for this year's Idol was co-written by Tamyra Gray. Yeah, that's pretty much the reaction I had.

We also finally got up to date on 24. You'd think we'd have used that six week hiatus better, but this way everything is at least fresh in our memories. I just hope that next season's turmoil isn't another personal vendetta involving Jack Bauer and the Drazen family. Let's give some other band of crazies a turn.

Adding another reality series to the mix, we also took in the final half hour of Colonial House on PBS. It's pretty good, though it seems like the participants are acting more like modern folks than on some of the other shows. I thought the folks on Manor House and 1900 House did a much better job of staying in the period. It does appear, though, that things will get much more 17th century as the show continues.

The one serious problem with Colonial House is the two hour episode length. I'd agree with TV Barn's Aaron Barnhart that they'd be better off with hour-long segments.