For the Round 3 results, something incredible happened: for the 5th-6th vote, the judges were unanimous.
Who the judges had to choose from, however, was a surprise as well: FootworKINGz and Pixie Mystere. This is an awkward lineup that both denies and confirms my prior suspicions about dance groups in general on AGT. On one hand, that the FootworKINGz qualified for the 5th-6th spot should suffice to indicate that America is not completely done with dance acts in general. On the other hand, they stood side by side before the judges with Pixie Mystere, another dance group that was very unique, wildly entertaining, and should have had the benefit of a spoiler vote to guarantee themselves a spot in the Top 40.
How could Pixie Mystere have fallen so low? The answer may have been revealed when Nick Cannon called forth the first two acts to be confirmed or eliminated: Jeffrey Ou and BRI. America’s vote went to Jeffrey Ou.
Why Ou? Simple: Because America felt bad for him, and to be fair, how could you not? One of Ou’s dancers unplugged the cable to his piano and completely ruined the second half of his performance. Piers Morgan was correct in that this accident was a mixed blessing, because for that night only, Ou became a spoiler contestant.
Not to say that Ou is undeserving, but wouldn’t the better choice have been BRI, who can sing and play the piano? It seemed inapropriate to have Ashley Tisdale perform immediately after a singer with a far better voice had just been eliminated.
Following Ou’s confirmation and BRI’s elimination, the results went very much as forecasted. Lawrence Beamen was called to the stage alongside David Johnson and Jay Mattioli, and if you need the Examiner to tell you that Beamen advanced while Johnson and Mattioli were sent home, you either haven’t been watching AGT or haven’t been paying attention.
Second to stand before America were Mario & Jenny and Marcus Terell & The Serenades, where America decided that a life-threatening act was worth voting for and gave Mario & Jenny the third spot. Finally, Cannon called forward G-Force, Hairo Torres and U4RIA, with Torres receiving the fourth and final automatic pass into the Top 20.
This left the FootworKINGz and Pixie Mystere before the judges. The floor was given to Sharon Osbourne first once again, but this time she did not hesitate or ask David Hasselhoff to vote first. Her vote went to the FootworKINGz. The floor then went to Morgan, who commented that the two acts before him were “one of the most talented young acts” and “one of the most talented adult acts.” He also voted for the FootworKINGz.
Hasselhoff cast an unnecessary third vote for the FootworKINGz, then proceeded to give himself a big pat on the back for making such a difficult decision. Once again, the Hoff has confirmed all suspicions that he is completely in love with himself and utterly worthless as a judge.
In fairness to the judges, it has to be said that they did make the right decision this time. The FootworKINGz had been forecasted as eliminated taking into account that other talented dance groups had been eliminated even in the presence of lesser acts (most notably SQ Entertainment’s failure to surpass Tony Hoard & Rory in votes). It is doubtful that the KINGz will be able to bounce back off of this shortfall, especially considering that they will once again have to compete with Hairo Torres, the solo dancer who outranked them this week, but for all intents and purposes, their spot in the Top 20 was very much deserved.
Comments
The format of the results presentation is somewhat misleading in that 2 or 3 acts are presented together and only one is chosen to continue to the next round. This gives the impression that voters are voting in an "either-or" format for the acts presented when the actual determination is by ranking of absolute popularity by votes. In the case of Jeffrey Ou and BRI, I caught myself thinking "how could voters have voted for Ou instead of BRI" when in fact it's more accurate to have thought "how could BRI not have gotten enough votes to place her in the top 5 acts from Tuesday's show".
I think the reason they call a passed and an eliminated contestant together is so that they can give each contestant a final world instead of just shoving them off to the side. With the exception of the 5th and 6th place finishers, no indication is ever made to exactly where the acts finish. I think this is fair, as it keeps acts from yo-yoing in and out of trouble the way they do on American Idol, and also prevents most of (but not all) the potential "Daughtry" moments by never guaranteeing anyone a lead.
It's part of the reason I believe AGT is still the #1 show even in spite of Osbourne and Hasselhoff's attempts to murder AGT's credibility. The judges and the voters at home may not always be fair, but the format certainly is.
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