Whatcha gonna do when Gokey-mania runs wild on you?

In a rare breaking news bulletin for Channel Surfing, Sara Boyd has selected Danny Gokey as her new contestant in the "American Idol" Punishment Pool.

This -- as I'm sure Adam Reinhard is beyond glad to hear -- could change everything.

If you've been following our "Idol" torture-a-thon, Adam's contestant Matt Giraud has been an unstoppable force from the beginning, thus resulting in back-to-back blog entries (read here and here) on Channel Surfing.

Up to this point in our silly little experiment, Mr. Reinhard has taken quite the team bullet by taping two Tuesday night shows (yes, taping them on a VCR) and filing timely reports. Then again, his entries have been hilarious -- some would even argue, inspired. In fact, we hear "The Soup" is interested in hiring him as their new host.

Sara Boyd, meanwhile, enjoyed a relaxing week off because her previous contestant, Michael What's His Face, was booted from the show. Here's hoping that time away from our bacteria-infected Punishment Pool was truly savored, because now's she's tied to the Goke-meister, who you may or may not have heard, is from Milwaukee.

Milwaukee. Gokey. Milwaukee. Milwaukee. Gokey. Gokey. Milgokey. Gowaukee. (Gunshot blast to the head.)

Upon selecting The Gokester at random, Boyd packed up her desk and left for the day so she could "replace Danny's water bottle with sulfuric acid." Yikes. It appears she knows her potential fate and plans to take drastic action.

Anyway, if none of this is making any sense to you, for shame. We'll go over the Punishment Pool rules one more time:

A few weeks ago, Channel Surfing's renowned "Idol" haters picked one contestant each out of a hat. Those four randoms were Michael Sarver (Boyd), Scott MacIntyre (Thomas), Matt Giraud (Adam) and Lil Rounds (MJ). The contestant that finished highest each week based on EW.com's Power Rankings tally would then force that singer's blogmate to watch and report on "Idol" the following week. Giraud finished highest twice, so Adam fell on the sword two straight weeks. If a contestant got voted off, that meant a weekly stay of execution for said blogger. But it also meant picking a new contestant upon returning to the pool the following week, which is why Boyd (who lost Sarver) is now saddled with Milwaukee's Best heading into this Tuesday.

Caught up? Sweet.

Since Scott "Blind Willie" MacIntyre got voted off this week, Thomas is safe for next Tuesday. When he jumps back in, Kris Allen, Anoop Desai, Allison Iraheta and Adam Lambert (gulp) will all be available.

Here's what EW.com's Michael Slezak wrote about each following this past week's performance round. It could be neck and neck between Gokey and Giraud!

YOU CAN CUT THE TENSION WITH A KNIFE (that is, if Adam didn't already use it to kill himself ...)

Sara -- Danny Gokey (last week, 4); Danny may have put the ''flat'' in Rascal Flatts last week, but from a pitch standpoint, he certainly delivered an improved vocal tonight. That said, his choice of arrangement was so thuddingly unhip, I was surprised someone didn't trot out the old ''cruise ship/hotel bar/wedding singer'' cliché. I know, I know, Gokey fans ... I am unrelentingly tough on your man, but I just don't see what kind of relevance or originality he brings to the 'Idol' stage, which makes the judges' unrelenting fawning over the guy all the more frustrating!




Adam -- Matt Giraud (last week, 5); Sure, like an overeager culinary student trying to wow his audience, Matt added one teaspoon of vocal riffs too many, but the end result was nonetheless tasty, thanks to an on-point falsetto, and a vibrato that was modulated with enough care to never go off the rails. (Well, except for that unfortunate final transition from squeak to growl as Matt went from ''so right'' into ''yeah''!) You know if I'm not making fun of the guy's Timberlake-ian fedora, he had to be doing something right.




Malavika -- Lil Rounds (last week, 7); From her opening ''sexywalk'' to the way the cameras caressed her gams to every last unoriginal bit of phrasing, Lil's attempt on ''What's Love Got to Do With It'' was 100 percent pure karaoke. And while she didn't hit nearly as many flat notes as she did last week on ''I Surrender,'' there was still noticeable and unpleasant strain every time she pushed her notes and tried to out-Tina the legendary Ms. Turner herself. After five weeks of the Idol finals, Lil has yet to give a performance that says she's worthy of the season 8 crown.



-- Thomas Rozwadowski, trozwado@greenbaypressgazette.com