You would think that having the whole summer off would give you some time to come up with some spectacular ideas to kick off a new season of a popular TV show... Not so for the cast and writers of Saturday Night Live. Once one of the funniest shows on television, SNL is wallowing in the dregs of banality. Last night's season premiere was one of the worst SNL shows ever. I feel bad for Michael Phelps, who came off some spectacular Olympic achievements and landed in the heap of dung that was last night's show.

Of course, the season kicked off with some digs at Republicans, as Tina Fey made a cameo as Sarah Palin in the show's opening segment. It's ironic that the treatment of Sarah Palin by Fey, in which Fey portrayed her as a bubble-headed wing nut, showed Fey to be a bubble-headed wing nut herself. Such simplistic criticisms of our future Vice President reveal more about Fey than Palin.

Surprisingly, the show went downhill from there. Stupid character driven gag followed stupid character driven gag, with the few moments of brightness soon smothered by a miasma of uninspired drivel. I'm sure Michael Phelps did the best he could not to be embarrased by this show. As an athlete he cannot be expected to pull the show up to a higher level; that's the cast's job. And in this, they failed miserably. You may wonder whether they were trying to tone down their abilities as comedians to allow Phelps to stand out among them, but that's obviously not the case.

popslant  feels bad for Guy Fieri, the Food Network host, who was in the front row of the audience. You score some front row tickets for SNL, then they perform this miserably? Should've stuck with Plan B, dude. You could have been having some wings at TGI Fridays with some friends and had a more entertaining time.

As for the musical guest, Lil Wayne equals Little Talent. Are you kidding me? popslant  found listening to Lil Wayne's gratuitous, off key bellowing to be more excruciating than having one's fingernails pulled out. How does this crap warrant an appearance on SNL, let alone on any network TV program? From the moment he uttered the oh so original exultation to "let me see your hands," I knew that he was just another in a continuing line of no-talent rappers who think being able to string together couplets constitutes some higher art form. Give me a break.

So another dismal season of SNL gets underway, and once again, there's another reason to go out on Saturday and leave the TV off.

Without a doubt, Kevin Eubanks is the lamest of the late night bandleaders. The first rule in rock guitar playing is to stand up and play, yet he sits on his stool night after night like a boy instead of a man. Last night he played "Purple Haze," as the show went into commercial break. Wow, Kevin, way to reach for the low-hanging fruit—playing a song that is more appropriate for a high-school level garage band than a national late night TV show.

The Tonight Show theme song is a mess. The horns are decent, the percussion is good, but the guitar is abyssmal. Weedly wee goes Kevin, playing a lugubrious warble over the top of it all that has neither melody nor hooks. It's as if he's just trying to play guitar without the music. Hey! Look at me! I'm playing the hell out of this thing!

popslant  prefers Max Weinberg and his band of 7 over Kevin Eubanks any day. Or even Paul Schaffer, who has grown ever more bizarre over the years, but still does a pretty decent job.

Looking beyond the guitar playing is his smarmy personality. We know you think you're cool Kevin, as you make wise-cracks to Jay and treat him like a square, but you're not. Your self-indulgent quips just show how vain and egotistical you are. Oh sure, you may indulge Jay by being the butt of a joke in one of his skits, but through it all you are dripping with an annoying narcissism. No we're not making this up, all you have to do is look at one of your album covers. Get over yourself, or get a room and stop trying to remind us of how great you think you are.

I hope you're saving your money Kevin. Jay's run of the Tonight Show is over next year, so in 2009, you'll be out of a job. See ya...

The winner was actually David Cook in a stunning upset to puppy dog David Archuleta. It was pretty much a toss-up anyway, but here at popslant  we thought Archuleta had it locked, even though Cook is by far the more engaging performer.

By choosing Cook, America shows it has some semblance of dignity after passing over the most talented of all, curvy diva Carly Smithson. Smithson showed once again that she was the best singer in the competition during her performances on Wednesday night's show. Her version of "Jesus Christ Superstar" a few weeks back, was the best performance of the season. Ironically, that was the performance that got her cut from the show. Maybe American pop culture has a problem with Christianity? Or maybe some just don't want to be reminded....

The final show was a taste of what fans are going to get on the summer tour. All top 10 performers were there, some we've missed, such as Smithson and the beautiful Kristy Lee Cook, and others we were happy to see left behind, such as Jason Castro and David Hernandez. And those who fall somewhere in between, such as Chikeze, or of course, this guy:

Note to Jordan Sparks: Your song was awful, horrible, complete and utter total dreck. That style of singing, which we here at popslant  like to call double trochaic sucktameter is overdue for a quick merciful death. Besides the fact that such vocal histrionics generally sound rhythmically clumsy, the whole singing genre is overdone, overused and does not impress.

Note to Carrie Underwood: Keep up the good work. You've become sort of the Alanis Morrisette of country music, and it works. You're our favorite American Idol winner.

Of course, Carly Smithson is our favorite Amercian Idol who didn't win.

American Idol wraps up tonight, and it's down to the two Davids.
popslant  has predicted a David Archuleta victory, and we still do, although it could easily be David Cook. The winner is definitely a David.

The Tuesday performance goes to David Archuleta, who tried harder and worked it a bit more than the far more interesting David Cook. Neither of them are the best contestants we've seen this season, but they are the only ones left.

Missed: Carly Smithson, Kristy Lee Cook.

Syesha Mercado was eliminated from American Idol on Wednesday, as we predicted in an earlier post. While she was an interesting and sometimes sexy performer, she was uneven, sometimes sounding silky and smooth, and sometimes sounding like finger-nails on a chalk-board. Still, we have to give her props for her amazing performance when she lost her voice and still belted out "Chain Of Fools."

The god-awful "phone-in questions" segment was thankfully missing from the show. That particular segment was usually like a huge sucking sound for 7 minutes of the program. Of course, the show was not absent a huge sucking sound, thanks to a performance by Fantasia, the Chris Tucker of pop music.

So now it's down to the Davids. David Cook, the better than Daughtry but still not anywhere near as good as Carly Smithson rocker guy, and David Archuleta, the talented but really only 3/4 full puppy dog boy.

popslant  still picks David Archuleta to win and David Cook to take second, by virtue of the former's huge teeny girl fan base, and the extra Vote For The Worst votes he picks up.

David Archuleta's father gets the boot! Jeff Archuleta lost his backstage privileges at the American Idol performance show, presumably for meddling too much... We had heard the buzz about this showbiz dad, and it looks like things have finally come to a head.

So now that its official, just what category of showbiz dad is he? Is he the Displaced Wannabe or the Surreal Proud Poppa? The Over-Involved Control Daddy or the Gold-digging Limelighter?

popslant  believes he may just be a Really Surreal Over-Involved Wannabe Gold-Digger.

Or something like that.

Suspected child pornographer r.Kelly was in court today, asking for yet another delay in his upcoming trial. Thankfully, it was not granted.

How can this trial still have yet to take place afters 6 years of delays? Will this thing ever go to trial? Apparently so, as jury selection will resume on Monday. It's about time.

our call: While of course, r. Kelly should be presumed innocent until actually found guilty, based on evidence we know about, popslant  believes the final outcome should be a judgment of guilty.

Of course,
we could be wrong.

And so, the obvious has occurred. I don't even think Jason Castro was the slightest bit surprised as he was stopped from making the top 3 American Idol contestants. note: to the American Idol producers: When Bo Bice was talking about the David who was taking chances with the arrangements, he was not talking about David Archuleta, as your director seemed to think.

our call: popslant  picks David Archuleta to win, David Cook to take second, even though Cook is by far the better performer, if not the best singer.

The first thing I noticed about this week's American Idol performance show was the horrible sound production. The music was buried and the vocals were pushed right to the front of the mix. Could what I thought at first was a mistake be a concerted effort by the producers of the show to change it back from being a popularity contest? The vocals were certainly front and center. It actually changed my opinion on the singing ability of the performers, as puppy dog David Archuleta actually was shown to be the best pure vocalist, even if he chooses sappy songs, looks like he belongs on the cover of Teen Beat, and is so syrupy that you just can't stand to hear him speak, let alone sing. I don't care for his voice, but I think last night, with the aforementioned sound production, he did show himself to be the best singer. The best singer left in the competition, that is.

I still would have preferred Carly Smithson. Her version of Jesus Christ Superstar was incredible. I think the producers were as shocked as the rest of us, and that really suggested that it was actually a popularity contest at that point. A less deserving, but more popular (for reasons probably other than his singing) contestant is still left, that being the dread-locked (or should we say dreadful?) Jason Castro. popslant  believes that he should be cut tonight, although he may still have some life in him because of his popularity. Syesha Mercado and David Cook both sounded pretty awful with the vocals featured so prominently in the mix. It could be anyone's game, but I say that whether he gets cut tonight or not, Jason Castro is the least talented of the four remaining contestants.

Pop Culture is speeding at us at virtually all times! Cable, WiFi, iPods, iPhones, Digital HDTV, DSL and even dial-up, the slow gray hair in the fast lane! popslant  is here to wade through some of the muck and mire of this culture to find choice nuggets worthy of consideration. Reviews, previews, old views and new views are to be included in a fine bill of fare from popslant !