Elvis Was In the Building

Annie Lennox came close to a wardrobe malfunction as Fox showed a side view of her playing the piano and singing Bridge Over Troubled Waters. Elvis sang a duet with Celine Dion, almost $30 million was raised for charity and, for the first time, nobody was voted off in the vote-off show..

It was just another night of American Idol Gives Back.

I was no big fan of those commercials sticking Fred Astaire in the vacuum cleaner ads and other similar digital resurrections, but the Elvis sighting, in which a white-suited Elvis was digitally inserted into the show,  was oddly affecting and certainly a technical marvel.

He was three dimensional and seemed to occupy space on the Idol stage next to Dion in close-ups and, even more impressive to me, long shots. They even sounded pretty good together.

Now, all we need to do is add 3D and HDTV and Elvis's comeback would be complete.

For those who did not watch, nobody was booted off the show. Though it appeared to come down to Jordin and Chris, Idol producers decided not to boot anybody off on a charity show–one featuring some somber footage of AIDS in Africa and povery in the U.S.–but instead decided to add Wednesday night's voting totals to next week's totals, then boot off two next week.

By John Eggerton