Happy David Cook Day! Also, please God, let it be Archuleta next week

UPDATE: The "Idol" finalist from Blue Springs will be making various media appearances throughout the day.

This three-minute video from Thursday's Fox 4 morning news -- the top rated morning newscast in Kansas City -- shows what happens when you leave a live TV camera on a little too long. Weatherman Don Harman's reaction to two humping puppies walks right up to the edge of "SCTV"-style self-parody ... but doesn't quite go over. And the closer comes in to save it, in the form of a perfectly understated comment from the chopper pilot:

Anyway. The least surprising week in "American Idol" history left the field right where much of the viewership thought it would be several weeks ago, with only the two Davids and Syesha still standing. (How not-close was the vote to get Jason Castro off the show before he started holding pleas for help written on his palms up to the camera? DialIdol.com, which measures callers' busy signals, made a rare slam-dunk prediction that Castro would leave.)

What many of us hadn't counted on would be how quickly David Archuleta's audition for the Kathie Lee Gifford Up With Jesus and the U-S-A Tour went from refreshing to annoying to pure agony. I mean, I know they cut the musical numbers down to 120 seconds to keep ADD Nation from tuning away, but even two minutes of looking at Archuleta looking back at us with those dead eyes, that expression that should be accompanied by a spooky reverbed voiceover a la "The Shining" that says, "MY FATHER IS MAKING ME DO THIS. PLEASE. STOP HIM," is almost too much to take.

Syesha Mercado, on the other hand, offers a nice contrast to Prohibitive Favorite and Local Boy Made Good David Cook, who should have no trouble beating back a challenge from either of these future one-and-done recording artists. Syesha is not quite up there with "Idol" gospel talents of years past, but she's got loads of personality and seems to actually want to be there, on live TV, receiving the adulation of the overeager studio audience and the rest of America. Cook, I must say, has overcome a lot of his early stage fright, but what is with Archuleta and Castro? Can't they at least FAKE some enthusiasm? This is television, people, not a recording studio!

Anyway. I have been slow on the draw this week, owing to special circumstances (Mrs. TV Barn is getting her master's degree this week and Tuesday was my birthday, which I prefer to spend not typing or watching). Check the "Barnhart in print" zipper for my preview of next week's upfronts, or what's left of them; that story should post over the weekend. Finally, here's video of the third of my three appearances on the local talk show "Newsmakers," and this installment is personal, as my griller, Cynthia Smith, asks me how the heck I became a TV critic anyway (it wasn't a hostile question, um, I think):