Fox's "American Idol" is down to its 12 finalists after four semi-finalists were cut Thursday night.
The first to go Thursday was a bit of a surprise, perky Katelyn Epperly, 19, of West Des Moines, Iowa.
The second to go wasn't so much of a surprise, 24-year-old Todrick Hall, 24, of Arlington, Tex. Hall was dismissed early as being more a dancer than a singer. And while he turned up the volume, he seemed a polarizing performer.
In the end, he didn't get enough votes.
Alex Lambert, 19, of North Richland Hills, Texas, shared a last name but little else with last year's runner-up, Adam Lambert. He had a fresh-faced innocence and judges said he needed to loosen up on stage.
He won't have that change after being dismissed in the one-hour results show.
In a final surprise, 20-year-old Lilly Scott, of Littleton, Colo., was cut. Her fresh rendition of Patsy Cline's "I Fall to Pieces" didn't bring in enough votes.
Starting next week, only one singer will be cut each week.
Tim Cuprisin is the media columnist for OnMilwaukee.com. He's been a journalist for 30 years, starting in 1979 as a police reporter at the old City News Bureau of Chicago, a legendary wire service that's the reputed source of the journalistic maxim "if your mother says she loves you, check it out." He spent a couple years in the mean streets of his native Chicago, and then moved on to the Green Bay Press-Gazette and USA Today, before coming to the Milwaukee Journal in 1986.
A general assignment reporter, Cuprisin traveled Eastern Europe on several projects, starting with a look at Poland after five years of martial law, and a tour of six countries in the region after the Berlin Wall opened and Communism fell. He spent six weeks traversing the lands of the former Yugoslavia in 1994, linking Milwaukee Serbs, Croats and Bosnians with their war-torn homeland.
In the fall of 1994, a lifetime of serious television viewing earned him a daily column in the Milwaukee Journal (and, later the Journal Sentinel) focusing on TV and radio. For 15 years, he has chronicled the changes rocking broadcasting, both nationally and in Milwaukee, an effort he continues at OnMilwaukee.com.
When he's not watching TV, Cuprisin enjoys tending to his vegetable garden in the backyard of his home in Whitefish Bay, cooking and traveling.
