Cerebral Itch American Idol Update: Dolly Parton Jumps the {Jesus} Shark Last Night

As our regular readers know we've been keeping our powder dry and not commenting on the latest season of American Idol. Despite the fact that it's been touted as the most talent-packed gathering of young singers we frankly haven't seen anything particularly newsworthy or any performances nearing the level of excellence we all enjoyed during the Fantasia/Jennifer Hudson season 3 (okay, that David Cook/Billie Jean number was pretty cool).

But last night, the gods or should we say Jesus smiled on us. Dolly Parton was the relic they trotted out this week for the contestants to cover and last night she performed her new song - Jesus and Gravity. Yes, that's correct, a pop song that combines religion and science - bold. From the sweet affable hillbilly pixie who gave us classics like Jolene, 9 to 5 and Here you come again we got an off-pitch, screechy Jesus song one might see on a Sunday morning cable channel Christian ministry hootenanny. According to the lyrics, Jesus has wings and he's Dolly's friend. So much so she blurted his name 11 times in the song and each time made Simon Cowell convulse in pain. So in short, Dolly Parton jumped the shark last night and went from country music icon to loony, cat loving church lady.

One must admit that the best part of the night was when, at the close of the song, she pointed at the judges and screamed, "Hallelujah Simon!" and chatted with Ryan Seacrest about how she has Jesus and he has Simon. It was the most bizarre and painful thing to watch Seacrest be gracious yet see his face contorted into a fake smile masking sympathy. Thank god for Simon though; his face masked nothing but contempt for Dolly who had just alienated huge swaths of his TV audience with a crappy Christian-based song that had no mainstream commercial appeal or financial upside. It was American Idol after all.