I was pretty disappointed in last year’s”American Idol” finals, in which two talented kids who were (to me) less inspiring or vocally mature than the one that finished third sang it out in a contest that seemed to have been telegraphed by the producers since the beginning. It was sweet, but boring.

As far as I’m concerned, history repeated itself slightly this year, in that the most talented of the top three didn’t make the finals (and that would be Joshua. I’m not the only one that feels that way). The difference was that last night’s finals could have gone either way, to Phil Phillips, the rocker iconoclast from Georgia, and Jessica, the power belting pop princess. I truly had no idea whose name was going to be called at the end.

But I’m glad that it was Phil.

Phillips started slow, and there were moments where, as my sister told me, where he was singing that same song he always sang, no matter what it was he was singing. It was all Shades of Dave Matthews, with some tonal and speed differences. And then, a few weeks ago, something artistic and truly magical started showing through. And when Josh got voted off, and Phil could truly shine without having to compete with the loud  Joshisms (I love him, but it’s true), he emerged as the true “Idol.”

What I liked is that, unlike last year’s choice between a teen girl country singer and a teen boy country singer, Phil and Jessica were excitingly different. She was a traditional belter, with a jaunty growl to her voice, and he was the scruffy garage kid with legitimate musical sensibility. There was a sophistication in his arrangements that belied his insistence on looking like he slept in his shirt in a van at a Dave Matthews Band show.

And as for the intimation that Phil won because either the show or its voters demanded a white guy – I don’t buy it. While I’ve been long critical of the producers’ insistence on letting few African-American men through to the Top 24 – and this year there were NO African-American women – the arguable favorite among the finalists was Josh – a black guy. And Jessica got plenty of pimping from the show. I think it came down to who people liked better, who moved people. Jessica, as great as she is, doesn’t move me. She doesn’t have the vocal maturity, or maybe even the emotional maturity, to connect to what she’s singing (and when they have the 16-year-old singing songs about mature sexual and romantic relationships, there’s no surprise there.)

Racism and bias still exist in this country. And if some people used those in their voting, then they’re idiots. But I don’t think so.

I loved Phil’s single and think I could actually imagine it on the radio! Go figure! A song that’s supposed to be a hit, that’s actually hit-like! Go Phil!

In other news – Jennifer Holliday is still amazing, and Jessica’s being able to hang with her is impressive. John Fogerty is awesome. Chaka Khan is fierce but needs to fire her stylist and burn those Spanx. Ditto Fantasia and the catsuit. No. No. Wrong. Good thing she and Joshua were so on fire. Love it.

And Neil Diamond, even with a cold and singing/speaking, is still more exciting than the youngsters he was onstage with. He is, he cried!

See you next season!

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Bluesy guitar man Phillip Phillips is the new “American Idol,” defeating teenage songbird Jessica Sanchez.

Phillips, a 21-year-old pawn shop worker from Leesburg, Ga., received more viewer votes than 16-year-old Sanchez of Chula Vista, Calif.

Phillips’ victory Wednesday extended the “American Idol” winning streak for males to five consecutive seasons. The last female to win was 17-year-old Jordin Sparks in 2007.

During the three-song showdown Tuesday between Phillips and Sanchez, the show’s judges praised his performance across the board. Sanchez was faulted for a lackluster rendition of her final song, “Change Nothing.”

Phillips, who was a top vote-getter throughout the season, gets a recording contract along with bragging rights.

A teenage songbird or a bluesy guitar man will claim the 11th “American Idol” crown Wednesday.

Jessica Sanchez, 16, of Chula Vista, Calif., and Phillip Phillips, 21, of Leesburg, Ga., made their final stand Tuesday, each performing three songs for the TV viewers choosing between them. Host Ryan Seacrest was to announce the winner Wednesday.

Rihanna was set to perform on the finale, with Fox promising other “surprise guests” and a reunion of the season’s top 12 finalists.

On Tuesday, Phillips earned consistently high marks from the show’s judges, while Sanchez faltered on “Change Nothing,” the song that could serve as her first release.

The teenager agreed with panelists Randy Jackson, Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler, saying she should have gone more “urban” with her song choice.

Phillips had better luck with his potential future single selection, a slow tempo acoustic tune titled “Home,” which the judges said recalled artists like Fleet Foxes, Paul Simon and Mumford and Sons. At one point during Phillips’ final performance, the pawn shop worker was accompanied by a marching band.

It was a hit with the panel. Jackson beamed, “I love the song. I love you. I love the production. I love the marching band. Everything about that was perfect.”

High school student Sanchez and competitor Phillips dazzled the judges in Tuesday’s initial rounds. The panel declared that she won the first matchup featuring song selections by “Idol” creator Simon Fuller, soaring with Whitney Houston’s “I Have Nothing,” while Phillips delivered a solid rendition of Ben E. King’s “Stand by Me.”

“It’s like a battle of the opposites,” said Lopez. “How do you compare?”

The second round recalled the finalists’ favorite previous “Idol” performances. Sanchez reprised “The Prayer” by Andrea Boccelli and Celine Dion from the Las Vegas solo round, and Phillips crooned “Movin’ Out” from Billy Joel week. Lopez gave the bout to Phillip, while Tyler said Sanchez took it and Jackson declared it a “dead heat.”

The judges flatly rejected “Change Nothing,” the lukewarm potential future single that failed to fully showcase Sanchez’s vocal prowess. Jackson told her that it “lacked pop flavor,” while Tyler declared that it wasn’t “the proper song for you.”

Sanchez concurred, saying, “Definitely, when I make my record, if I ever do, it’s going to be a lot more me.”

Lifetime network has set a premiere date for its new reality series about Bristol Palin’s home life in Alaska.

The network says “Bristol Palin: Life’s a Tripp” will debut June 19 with two new half-hours airing weekly.

The 14-episode series stars the daughter of former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, and will explore her pressures raising toddler son Tripp as she maintains her close relationship with the larger Palin clan.

The former first daughter of Alaska, Palin became one of the nation’s most prominent single mothers after the 2008 birth of Tripp. In 2010, she competed on ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars.” Last June she published a best-selling memoir.

Check, Please: The Palm Beach County episode airs Monday at 7:30 p.m. on WPBT2. The episode repeats on Thursday at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday at 5:30 p.m.

Paxman’s disclosure Wednesday appears at odds with Morgan’s suggestions that he had no direct knowledge of the shady practice which many British journalists used to score scoops.

A scandal over phone hacking at Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World tabloid reignited last year, rocking Britain’s establishment and leading to the arrest of dozens of journalists, officials, and executives.

Morgan, who edited the News of the World and the Daily Mirror newspapers before he joined CNN, has denied ever hacking a phone.

In testimony to the inquiry late last year, he said his familiarity with the practice came from the newspaper rumor mill.

The Lifetime Network is doing a film based on the book “Imperfect Justice,” written by Asthon.

The film will highlight the legal strategies prosecutors used and why Asthon still believes Anthony is guilty.

Anthony was acquitted of all charges in the death of her daughter, Caylee Marie Anthony. Caylee’s body was found in a wooded area behind the Anthony home near Suburban Drive.

Oscar Nunez, who plays the role of Oscar on “The Office,” will play defense attorney Jose Baez and Elizabeth Mitchell, who starred as Dr. Juliet Burke on “Lost,” will portray co-prosecutor Linda Drane Burdick.

Green Bay Packer star Donald Driver can add one more title to Super Bowl Champion: Dancing With The Stars mirrorball trophy owner. And the way he did that half-centipede “Stop Drop and Roll” move when his victory was announced, he might consider this one just as important.

Driver became a fan favorite early in the season, with his athleticism, great smile, musicality and shiny bald head (I swear this was a plus.) His competitors in the finals – international songstress Katherine Jenkins and hottie hot whatever-he-does-for-a-living William Levy – were also determined and on-point. But Driver and 9-foot-tall partner Peta Murgatroyd pretty much sealed it with their triumphant freestyle to Cowboy Troy’s “I Play Chicken With The Train.”

Yes. A winning moment featuring Cowboy Troy. I am as stunned as you were. But they embraced the cheese – literally – with cheese head hats throughout the auditorium – slapped on the boots and the cowboy hats, and got their funny-sexy on. It was brilliant, because not since Drew and Cheryl’s “Save A Horse, Ride A Cowboy” routine has a Big and Rich song translated into something so great on the dance floor. (I always thought that routine was kinda porny. But maybe that’s why people liked it.)

I admit to having lost some of my fire for this season when Gladys Knight got eliminated a while back, but Donald kept me interested because he was so determined. He doesn’t need to exposure or the career boost. He’s just a super fan who got a chance to live a dream and he invested. Big time. And he has adorable children. Who doesn’t love adorable children?

So congrats, Donald. I hope this inspires even bigger stars to commit to the dance floor and give it a whirl. I like an unemployed soap star as much as the next Jack Wagner fan (I loves ya, Frisco!) but there was something so cool about seeing, say, Gladys, who could not get any more famous, or Donald, who likes a challenge, taking a chance. Come on, cast of “Desperate Housewives!” Embrace your cancellation vacation with some Capezios! Larry Hagman! You’re back on “Dallas!” Come show the youngsters how it’s done! Condoleeza Rice? Live a little!

NEW YORK - FEBRUARY 25: Media personality Howard Stern attends a screening of 'Green Zone' hosted by the Cinema Society, Universal Pictures and Working Title Films at the AMC Loews Lincoln Square 13 on February 25, 2010 in New York City. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

Howard Stern isn’t the King of Prime-Time TV. At least not yet.

Stern’s debut last week as a panelist on NBC’s “America’s Got Talent” drew 10.5 million viewers on Monday and 10.6 million viewers on Tuesday, the Nielsen company said.

That’s down sharply from the 15.3 million viewers who watched the season debut of the talent competition last year. Radio star Stern replaced Piers Morgan as one of the judges this year.

Stern’s debut was the least-watched season premiere of “America’s Got Talent” dating back to 2006.

In fairness to Stern, NBC premiered his show during the final week of the television season against stiff competition, including “Dancing With the Stars” on ABC and the season finales of CBS’ Monday night comedies. Last year, “America’s Got Talent” started its season on May 31, with rerun season already well under way.

“America’s Got Talent” had 9.5 million viewers on Monday, again facing in-season competition.

Meanwhile, CNN had its lowest prime-time viewership average last week than any week since at least 1991, Nielsen said. The network’s shows average 395,000 viewers. It was a slow news week, and many of the older viewers who watch news were likely preoccupied by the winding down of seasons on “Dancing With the Stars” and “American Idol,” both of which saw a boost last week.

CBS easily won the last full week of the television season, averaging 10.1 million viewers in prime time (6.4 rating, 11 share). ABC averaged 7.1 million (4.6, 8), Fox had 7 million (4.2, 7), NBC had 5.6 million (3.5, 6), the CW had 1.1 million (0.7, 1) and ION Television had 930,000 (0.6, 1).

Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision led with a 3.8 million prime-time average (2.0, 3), Telemundo had 1.1 million (0.6, 1), TeleFutura had 780,000 (0.4, 1), Estrella had 230,000 and Azteca had 130,000 (both 0.1, 0).

NBC’s “Nightly News” topped the evening newscasts with an average of 7.5 million viewers (5.1, 11). ABC’s “World News” was second with 7.1 million (4.8, 10) and the “CBS Evening News” had 5.5 million viewers (3.9, 8).

A ratings point represents 1,147,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation’s estimated 114.7 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.

For the week of May 14-20, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: “NCIS,” CBS, 19.05 million; “American Idol” (Wednesday), Fox, 17.68 million; “American Idol” (Thursday), Fox, 16.4 million; “Dancing With the Stars,” ABC, 15.79 million; “NCIS: Los Angeles,” CBS, 15.19 million; “Criminal Minds,” CBS, 13.68 million; “Person of Interest,” CBS, 13.47 million; “Dancing With the Stars Results,” ABC, 13.23 million; “The Mentalist,” CBS, 13.09 million; Movie: “Jesse Stone: Benefit of the Doubt,” CBS, 12.93 million.

Football star Donald Driver and actor William Levy come into Tuesday’s season finale tied with 59 points. Jenkins has a perfect score of 60.

Each must perform one last dance before a new champion is crowned. Music for their final routines wasn’t provided until after Monday’s episode, so they had less than 24 hours to prepare their show-closing numbers.

Viewer votes combined with judges’ scores will determine who takes home the ABC show’s mirror ball trophy.

The other Season 14 contestants — Martina Navratilova, Gavin DeGraw, Jack Wagner, Jaleel White, Sherri Shepherd, Melissa Gilbert, Roshon Fegan, Maria Menounos and Gladys Knight — were eliminated during previous episodes.

Donald Trump’s fifth rendition of “Celebrity Apprentice” featured its fair share of fireworks, including Lisa Lampanelli’s histrionics, Aubrey O’Day’s narcissism, Dayana Mendoza’s battles with seemingly every other woman on the show and 110 percent of Lou Ferrigno’s muscles.

But tonight, it came down to “American Idol” runner-up Clay Aiken and former late-night talk show host Arsenio Hall.

Click here to read the rest of this article at AccessAtlanta.com.

SPOILER ALERT: DON’T READ ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW ABOUT LAST NIGHT’S “FOOD NETWORK STAR” OR WHAT HAPPENED TO LOCAL BOY JOSH LYONS!

OK, you’re still here. So I can tell you that Josh, of soon-to-be Clematis sushi palace Fuku, his own catering company, band Fell on Deaf Ears and some awesome vests, survived the cut again on the second episode. But I’m worried that if Team Giada had not been named the winner and thus immune from elimination, our goateed guy about town might have been cooking for his life again.

The challenge saw the teams research one specific aspect of a food-famous area of New York, either soul food-laden Harlem, Italian-flavored Arthur Avenue, or the Jewish and Kosher theme of the Lower East Side. They then have to lead a bus tour through that area, using their food as an edible landmark. Josh’s team got Little Italy, and he specifically was supposed to talk about a meat market. It’s not that his sausage and peppers crostini was awful. It’s that it was just OK. And when paired with a very, very long story about how Joe Pesci and Robert DeNiro met on the phone when Pesci was working at a Little Italy restaurant that didn’t appear to have anything to do with the food he had cooked or the meat market he’d been inspired by, the scales were tipped for “Meh.” I’m worried. Come on, Josh. You’re gorgeous and funny and a rock star and we know you can cook. Make all that work for you. We want you around longer. We encourage gorgeous and talented. In fact, we prefer it.

Otherwise, I really dug last night’s episode, because it perfectly represented the two things that anyone with a cooking show should be able to master – cooking and showing. (This is not a difficult concept to understand.) It doesn’t matter how well you cook if you can’t engage an audience, because the folks on the other side of the camera can’t taste your food. They have to feel it. And it’s amazing how many of these contestants are eliminating themselves without realizing it because they can’t do both, or at least not out of their comfort zone of the food they usually cook.

“Well, won’t they be cooking their own food if they get a show, Leslie?”

Yes, technically, Person I Made Up! If they can win. But they’re on something we like to call a game show, and the way that these things work is that you are constantly thrown out of the comfort zone, and not just to judge how well you can roll with the punches and unpredictable world of live TV. It’s also because making people uncomfortable and shaking them up is good TV. And if this surprises you, you shouldn’t be on TV. That was punctuated by Team Bobby’s Kara, who completely blows not only her chicken and waffle challenge from Melba’s, but her presentation.

Kara tells us from the very beginning that she’s not comfortable with soul food, that she doesn’t know anything about it, that she doesn’t like fried chicken or waffles and basically that she’s not savvy enough to follow that with “…but I’m sure gonna find out all I can about them, because this is the challenge I landed on this here game show, and pretending it isn’t is like going on “The Price Is Right” and cussing Drew Carey out because you got Plinko instead of One Away.’” You rolled the dice, sister. Play through.

Kara’s discomfort is so palpable that when she starts her story, she not only gets flustered about describing Melba – she trips over “Black” and “African-American,” which doesn’t probably mean anything other than that she was so uncomfortable she flubbed those descriptors, which made her seem even more uncomfortable – the fact that she had to describe the woman’s race punctuates that even more. Ironically, those descriptors wouldn’t have sounded out of place if she’d actually told the story of the history of chicken and waffles – African-American musicians showed up hungry after a gig, and a resourceful cook rustled up what she had handy, thus creating a delicacy. (Convienience is how we arrived at a lot of ethnic delicacies, including chitterlings, hagis and any food involving gross meat baked inside another type of meat.)

Anyway, I am loving this team set-up, because it enages the mentors in a different way, and because it gives the contestants an added layer of advice. This doesn’t mean they have to take it, of course – you can lead a chef to the oven, but you can’t make him not screw it all up. Or something like that.

The network said Thursday that its new series include a modern take on “Beauty and the Beast,” an action drama “Arrow” based on comic book characters and “The Carrie Diaries,” a prequel to “Sex and the City” about Carrie Bradshaw’s life in the 1980s.

“The Carrie Diaries” begins on Monday nights in January after the final season of “Gossip Girl” finishes.

The Nielsen company says the CW saw its ratings slip by 17 percent this season and 20 percent among the young women who make up its target audience.

But the CW executives argued that traditional television ratings don’t do them justice, that many of their young viewers are watching their programming through nontraditional means, like video streams and DVR playbacks.

“The audiences are watching shows in a very different way,” said Mark Pedowitz, the network president. To that end, the CW said it is working on developing a separate measurement system to show advertisers their commercials are making more of an impact than would be expected just by seeing the television ratings.

Still, the CW dramatically shuffled its schedule. The network will move the soapy “90210″ from Tuesdays to Monday at 8 p.m. ET. The sophomore drama “Hart of Dixie” switches from Monday to Tuesday, preceding a new series, “Emily Owens, M.D.,” about a young doctor who finds her hospital much like high school.

“Arrow” will air on Wednesdays, followed by the returning drama “Supernatural,” which moves from Friday nights.

“The Vampire Diaries” remains on Thursday, followed by the new “Beauty and the Beast,” where a female detective finds a handsome doctor who’s a beast with superpowers who saves lives in his spare time.

“America’s Next Top Model” moves to Friday nights, joining the drama “Nikita.”

The CW does not program for the weekends. The network says it is moving toward less serial programming, emphasizing series where viewers don’t feel they’ve lost the story line if they miss a week or two, and is trying to minimize the interruptions that reruns cause for serials.

The CW will also start its new season in October, a few weeks after other broadcast networks launch new series. In the past, the CW has tried to launch before the other networks, but found too many viewers abandoned their shows to check out other networks’ premieres, Pedowitz said.

Also on Thursday, the USA Network touted several new projects it has in various stages of development, including productions by Kelsey Grammer, Dick Wolf and Mark Burnett.

Grammer, the ex-”Frasier” actor with an active production company, is making the comedy “The Dicicco Brothers,” about a Silicon Valley entrepreneur whose unrefined family holds him back. Wolf, maker of the “Law & Order” series, is developing a drama about an insurance investigator who divorces his wife and marries a man. Burnett, the busy “Survivor” producer, is making “Romancing the Globe,” a globe-trotting, looking-for-love reality show.

“American Idol” finalist Joshua Ledet won’t be belting it out on this season’s final showdown.

The booming 20-year-old vocal powerhouse from Westlake, La., was revealed Thursday to have received the fewest viewer votes on the Fox talent contest. That leaves bluesy 21-year-old crooner Phillip Phillips, of Leesburg, Ga., and sassy 16-year-old budding diva Jessica Sanchez, of San Diego, to compete on next week’s finale.

Ledet has been one of the judges’ favorite finalists, earning more than a dozen standing ovations from the panel.

“Idol” host Ryan Seacrest said 90 million viewer votes were cast this week.

Phillips and Sanchez will face off Tuesday, with the 11th season “Idol” champion crowned Wednesday.

NEW YORK — Joey Lawrence is shedding his clothes: The actor has joined the male erotic dancing troupe Chippendales.

The 36-year-old will work as a singer, dancer and host in the Las Vegas production for three weeks in June.

In a statement to The Associated Press on Thursday, Lawrence said screening Channing Tatum’s upcoming film about being a stripper — “Magic Mike” — encouraged him to join the male revue.

Says Lawrence: “I found out that guys like Brad Pitt and Javier Bardem have also done stuff like this and being the fearless guy that I am, I said yes.”

The married father of two stars as a male nanny in the ABC Family series Melissa & Joey. He’s best known for his role on the 1990s TV show Blossom.

The 18-year-old singer, who first came to America’s attention when she auditioned for season 10 of Idol, but was cut just before the top 24, was praised by the judges for her powerful voice, but suffered throughout the competition to connect emotionally to her song choices. She began to improve in recent weeks, but lack of consistency became a problem.

She was sent home last week after she failed to impress the judges with her rendition of Bonnie Raitt‘s “I Can’t Make You Love Me.”

Cavanagh talked to reporters about her elimination, her close friendship with fellow contestant Joshua Ledet, and who will take home the title.

On predicting her Idol sendoff.
“There was definitely something different about that day. I’m not sure what it was, but I guess it was just my gut just telling me. I was just preparing myself for it, but at the same time staying hopeful because you never know what could happen. But I’m not quite sure what the feeling was, but it was just different than every other Thursday.”

Top 10 Most Successful Idol Contestants

On being referred to as the dark horse of the competition.
“I would take it as a compliment. I never really looked into what everyone was saying. I really was focusing week by week and making sure that my songs were right and my songs were good enough. I just went out there and I wanted to improve each week. I think that people were seeing an improvement in me each week. I definitely feel like I’ve grown so much. I’m just really proud of that.”

On her favorite moments of the season.
“I think probably when I sang ‘Rolling in the Deep’ and ‘Son of a Preacher Man.’ That was definitely my turning point on the show, but definitely also ‘The Climb’ because that was my first standing ovation on the show.”

On who will be the next American Idol.
“I honestly have no idea. I’m definitely with America and the judges on this one. The show can go either way. They’re all amazing, so it’s definitely going to be a fight to the finish line.”

Who deserves to go home this week on American Idol? Vote!

On the top 3: Jessica Sanchez, Joshua Ledet, and Phillip Phillips.
“Phillip is very unique. You don’t see a lot of people perform like that. He has his very own style and his voice is amazing. Josh, I mean, he takes you to a whole other place when he sings. He amazes everybody each week. And, of course, Jessica is only 16 and the way she sings—she sounds like she’s in her 20s. She’s amazing as well as the other two, so it’s definitely going to be tough. The finale is going to be a big one.”

On her bestie, Joshua Ledet.
“We started to get really close in Hollywood week and then we were just attached at the hip from there. When he would rehearse, I would be in there watching him rehearse and when we could ever go out to dinner, we’d go out together. We just kind of hung out and relaxed and kept each other sane.”

On her favorite Idol judge.
“I’ve definitely always felt loyal to [Jennifer [Lopez] because she’s always been rooting for me and always had my back since last year and always believed in me. I think she’s definitely been a big inspiration for me since last year and this year. In my mentor sessions, I would definitely say that Stevie Nicks was a big one for me because we kind of had a moment and it got really personal and beyond the lines of me in a singing competition. She really just cared about us at that moment and wanted to help.”

Skylar Laine on Her ‘Idol’ Elimination: ‘Maybe It Was My Time to Go’

On her British beginnings: Hollie and her family moved from Liverpool to Texas ten years ago.
“It’s a dramatic change, but it was a good change. My dad moved us out here to follow our dreams and make a better lifestyle for us. There is so much more to do [in America]. I can go out and achieve something like this.”

Cast members Odette Annable, left, and Hugh Laurie pose together at the 'House' series finale wrap party. (AP photo)

NEW YORK — It will be painful saying goodbye to House.

The Fox medical drama concludes its eight-season run Monday with a series finale at 9 p.m. EDT, preceded by a one-hour retrospective. And with that, Hugh Laurie will be done as the show’s abrasive champion, Dr. Gregory House — unless, Laurie adds with a laugh, “someone comes up with an idea for a stage musical.”

“I feel a huge satisfaction that we got to the end with our dignity intact,” he declares. “I never felt that we did anything that wasn’t true to the character or the show — like, ‘House gets a puppy.’ I think that’s quite an achievement.”

No doubt. Sure, the medical mysteries that formed the core of most episodes inevitably grew a bit formulaic as the seasons piled up. (Didn’t each week’s patient always seem to start bleeding from a different orifice, bafflingly and life-threateningly, right on cue before each commercial break?)

But if the rhythm of the investigation began to feel over-familiar, House never did. On the contrary: He is only more complex, obstreperous and fascinating.

Not that he didn’t start with a bang right from the series’ inception in November 2004: Here was a brilliant diagnostician with a snide manner, a limp and a cane, a stash of painkillers and a perpetual stubble. He flouted regulations, ducked cases that bored him and kept things stirred up as a not-so-merry prankster.

He was conceived as a contemporary Sherlock Holmes. Like that fictional 19th-century sleuth, House is indifferent to those he is helping, focused instead — with cool deduction and uncanny intuition — on the challenging nature of the mysteries that plague them.

Both men play musical instruments, take drugs (House is hooked on Vicodin, while Holmes has a thing for cocaine), and both have trusty sidekicks: Holmes’ Dr. John Watson and House’s Dr. James Wilson, his best and probably only friend, played with quirky forbearance by Robert Sean Leonard.

But the Holmes connection has never been the most interesting thing about House.

More impressive was how House put a difficult, largely unpleasant figure front and center as the hero of a TV series.

“Traditionally in an American drama, the damaged, sarcastic cynic would be a peripheral character,” notes Laurie, who signed with the show thinking House would be just that. “To make someone so apparently jagged and unsympathetic into the central character was a very bold step. And so was clinging to that premise, never relenting to suggest that, underneath it all, he has a heart of gold. I’m not sure that House does have a heart of gold. He is on the side of the angels, but that doesn’t mean that he’s an angel.”

And there was even more to the brave House recipe: the pain he endured.

Perhaps no TV protagonist has been imprinted so profoundly by a physical affliction. Walking with a limp, his cane supporting his bum right leg, House is constantly hurting. Pain is part of his persona. And the idea of that ever-present pain ran counter to every rule of routine TV, which, typically conceived as aspirational for viewers, calls for the hero to personify a desirable state. On the contrary, House is all about discomfort, and coping with it.

“The pain explains, to some extent, his personality,” says Laurie. “But we never gave the viewer any definite answers about how much, and I’m rather glad about that. It’s not that simple: There was a possibility that he might have behaved much the same even without his affliction.”

It was Laurie who chose which leg for his character’s crippling blood clot, he divulges with a laugh when asked.

“I tried it various ways, including limping with BOTH legs, but that was just ungainly,” he jokes. “Then I settled on the right leg. But I have always wondered whether, if I switched legs for an episode, anyone would notice.”

In conversation, the Oxford, England-born Laurie is not only charming, but witty, befitting his past comedic series “Black Adder” and “Jeeves and Wooster” (in which he starred with Stephen Fry), as well as, more recently, the “Stuart Little” films.

Of course, House had its own mordant comic streak.

“It was EXTREMELY important that the character be funny: He had to be good value for the audience, and also to explain Wilson’s tolerance and friendship. You had to believe that, at the end of the day, Wilson just delighted in the fact that House was an occasionally outrageous but almost always funny character to hang out with.”

Sample House-isms, delivered deadpan and gratingly razor-sharp:

— “Adjectives matter: Hate nurses, love naughty nurses.”

— “Treating for wrong diagnoses can result in side effects, like death.”

— “What’s the opposite of ‘Thank you’? I’m pretty sure it ends in ‘you.’”

House has never lost his funny bone, nor his perversity, even in the face of Wilson’s cancer diagnosis in recent episodes.

After helping Wilson administer aggressive treatment on the sly, on his living room couch, House shares his Vicodin for Wilson’s painful side effects while razzing him, poker-faced, with, “Remember, they’re a gift, so it’s rude to keep throwing them up.”

Laurie chuckles at the thought of such rampant candor.

“Yes, one can say House has no manners,” he declares, “and that’s probably true. But good manners are probably not our principal goal in life.”

Not House’s, anyway. However much a jerk, he’s a jerk who believes morality is measured not by attitude, but results. On that score, he’s got no cause to apologize. He saves lives no one else can save. That gives him a pass to act or think however he chooses.

“Being free of the requirement to be well-mannered, House was able to get to the heart of things in ways that other people might not,” says Laurie. “But the question was always whether he’s using his indispensableness to behave badly, or whether he’s using it to tell the truth. House being House, he exploited this license to an appalling degree.”

On last week’s episode, House continued to coax, pester and bully Wilson into not giving up his battle against cancer. House can’t bear the thought of losing his friend. But Wilson (who, ironically, is an oncologist) doesn’t want to put himself through more chemotherapy.

“He just doesn’t want to live in pain,” a colleague tries to explain, which triggers a furious reaction from House.

“LIFE is pain!” House roars, his voice at a pitch never heard from him before. “I wake up every morning, I’m in pain. I go to work in pain. You know how many times I wanted to just give up, how many times I’ve thought about ending it?”

The show, which never flinched at dealing with big ideas, is now wrestling as never before with the issue of what makes life worth living —and determines when it isn’t.

Monday’s finale, says Laurie, brings House to the edge of a precipice eight seasons in the making: “Is he gonna step forward or step back? Is it life or is it death? I can say no more than that,” says the actor who made flesh-and-blood one of the most compelling characters in television history.

That achievement will live on, whatever House’s fate.

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Online:

http://www.fox.com

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LOS ANGELES — The three “American Idol” finalists earned nearly uniform votes of confidence from the show’s judges. But it’s the audience tally that will determine which two singers advance to next week’s finale.

Joshua Ledet’s gritty performance Wednesday of “I’d Rather Be Blind” had the judges on their feet — not an uncommon reaction to the Westlake, Ga., gospel singer. He also impressed the panel with “Imagine” and “No More Drama.”

Jessica Sanchez of San Diego wowed judges Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler with “My All,” ”I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” and “I’ll Be There,” although Randy Jackson said the last song was just “OK.”

Phillip Phillips of Leesburg, Ga., scored with ‘Beggin,’ faltered in the judges’ eyes with “Disease,” and then rebounded big on “We’ve Got Tonight.”

That’s because Benedict Cumberbatch – who plays a modern-day version of fiction’s greatest detective on the British import now airing Sundays on PBS’ Masterpiece Mystery! – lives in a vintage L.A. wood-frame house that sits less than two blocks from the sleek offices of Robert Downey Jr., the American movie star who keeps it Victorian on the big screen.

"It’s just right over there," Cumberbatch said with a nod of his chin as he sat at his dining-room table. "I should go throw eggs or do something. I’ve never met him. I think he got a few (press) questions and then after a few more he was like, ‘Who is this kid Cumberbatch?’ "

You won’t hear that question in the United Kingdom, where Sherlock is a full-tilt prime-time sensation and, with its brilliant but quirky misanthrope, can be thought of as the metric conversion of House, although the detective’s caseload concerns the newly dead of England instead of the recently sick in New Jersey.

The show, created by Doctor Who veterans Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss (and, working separately, Arthur Conan Doyle), costars Martin Freeman as Dr. John Watson, an army doctor who was injured in Afghanistan and finds himself as the only true friend to the eccentric "consulting detective."

The show is playful (there’s much humor, for instance, about the perception that Holmes and Watson are a gay couple) but it’s not as proudly daft as Doctor Who. Holmes also doesn’t spend as much time smiling at people.

"If he’s charismatic, it’s an accident of who he is," Cumberbatch said. "He’s an odd entity. He’s sociopathic, and there is a vicarious thrill you get watching someone who carves his way through bureaucracy and mediocrity like a hot knife through butter."

The second season finds Holmes himself under the magnifying glass, Cumberbatch says.

"He’s a deconstructed and more vulnerable character who is easier to relate to and care about," the 35-year-old actor said. "But it’s a slow learning curve. He’s still staggeringly smart, violent, physically capable, irreverent, comically rude – to idiots or anyone vaguely in his way – and dangerous."

Americans are getting clued into Sherlock – more than 3 million viewers tuned in to the second season premiere two weekends ago.

But how long will this Sherlock stay at the scene of the crime? More and more, the actor is hearing the siren call of larger screens and a wider world.

Cumberbatch got strong reviews for his work in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, which featured the deepest British cast this side of Hogwarts, and it added to a film résumé that already included Amazing Grace and Atonement.

Moffatt says that Cumberbatch – whose mother and father put together long careers in television and onstage – was a star just waiting for a spotlight when he arrived at his Sherlock audition.

"He was already one of the most admired actors of his generation and, within the industry, universally tipped for stardom," Moffat said. "We were the lucky ones who gave him the breakthrough part. The challenge of Sherlock Holmes is to play a show-off, self-obsessed egotist and yet still be loved, and actually very few people have pulled it off. I may be prejudiced, but I don’t think anyone has pulled it off as well as Benedict."

Later this year, Cumberbatch will reteam with Freeman in New Zealand on the set of The Hobbit: There and Back Again, the concluding half of Peter Jackson’s two-film adaptation of the Tolkien fantasy classic. It may be a bit tricky to recognize Holmes in this disguise, though; he will be voicing the Necromancer of Dol Guldur and then doing the voice and motion-capture performance for Smaug the Golden, the great dragon who serves the story as both its Darth Vader and its Death Star.

Cumberbatch is also at work on a project that could transform his career with warp-speed whiplash – he’s playing the villain in the new Star Trek feature film, adding his name to a considerable list of British actors that includes Tom Hardy and Malcolm McDowell.

The notoriously secretive director J.J. Abrams is keeping the film beneath a cloaking device, but the Internet is certain that Cumberbatch’s role is the tyrannical Khan – Ricardo Montalban’s famed role on 1960s TV and the 1982 feature film The Wrath of Khan – but Cumberbatch flinched at the topic, as if he isn’t allowed to hear the question, much less utter an answer.

Cumberbatch won the role based on an audition video that was shot and sent with an iPhone. According to Bryan Burk, Abrams’ producing partner on Trek as well as Lost, it was all about the scale of the talent, not the size of the screen.

"Benedict has an incredible presence and brooding intensity," Burk said last week. "To say he’s a welcome addition to the Star Trek cast is an understatement; he’s an actor that truly captivates his audience."

Looking ahead, he said his goal is to steer away from typecasting and repeating himself ("I want to be able to play trailer-bound fatties in a Judd Apatow comedy") and keep a balance in his own life and clear recollections of his path and past. He flipped up the locks of hair on his forehead where the skin is mottled in patches – a remnant of his days as a laboratory creation in Frankenstein and the makeup process that burned and ripped at his skin.

"I have actual acting scars," he said. "That’s what they are and the sunshine here just makes it worse if I’m not careful."

Bruce Seidel is confident the future of food television won’t be seen on television.

Which is why the Food Network and Cooking Channel veteran has checked out of network TV to oversee the launch of YouTube’s latest original content channel, HUNGRY. The channel, which goes live on July 2, is expected to feature a freewheeling blend of how-to and celebrity-driven food videos.

The venture is part of the Google Inc.-owned video site’s plan to launch roughly 100 channels of niche-oriented programming. Earlier this month, YouTube pledged to spend some $200 million to help market those channels across Google and its advertising network.

Seidel was drawn to the project in part for YouTube’s ability to create a more direct community with viewers than generally is possible with network television. It also offered more flexibility not just for viewers, but also for producers, who can more easily experiment with format and content.

YouTube also offers an enviably large and young demographic, truly the icing on advertisers’ cake.

“The wonderful thing about YouTube is it has 800 million users worldwide and they all need to eat,” Seidel said in a telephone interview. “I’d like to get just 1 percent of them.”

YouTube content historically has been dominated by low- and no-budget user generated videos. But Seidel, a former top executive at Food Network who oversaw the launch of its sister network, Cooking Channel, said HUNGRY will feature professionally produced videos worthy of any network.

At launch, videos will stick mostly with YouTube convention, running one to three minutes, with new episodes posted weekly. Seidel said they also are eager to explore longer format videos. By the end of the summer, the channel hopes to have close to a dozen series, all produced in partnership with multimedia studio Electus-IAC, which is responsible for the channel’s content.

One of the series will feature fellow Food Network alumnus Duff Goldman, the cake master behind that channel’s reality show “Ace of Cakes.” Goldman’s YouTube program, “Duff’s Food World,” will be a sometimes irreverent variety show focused on food pop culture, including visits to unusual restaurants and spotlights of humorous food clips from the web and TV.

Goldman also will serve as a talent and programming consultant for HUNGRY. In that role, he said he is eager to push food television both forward and backward.

“Basically, the cooking show on television is almost dead,” he said. “When you look at the programming on any kind of cable food channel, you kind of find that everything is being replaced by travelogues, competition, reality. There is not a lot of instruction.”

YouTube’s ability to promote a simple two-minute video on how to roast a chicken — something simply not done on network television — is just as alluring as creating content that pushes boundaries, Goldman said.

“It’s magic. It doesn’t have any boundaries. I don’t need to make it 22 minutes. I don’t need to make any sponsors happy. I can get away with stuff,” he said.

Other series already in production include “Brothers Green,” which features a pair of Brooklyn brothers who are musicians and “underground caterers” tackling new culinary challenges every week, and “Casserole Queens,” which focuses on two Austin women who favor retro food and entertaining.

Flexing its ability to focus on micro-niches, HUNGRY also plans series on pork, gluten-free cooking and Italian desserts.

The point is to simply try new things, Goldman said. If it works, it will continue. If it doesn’t, it won’t.

“Food is very precious. People get a little too serious about it,” he said. “There’s room for the very serious culinarians. But I also like to laugh at myself. So we’re going to do a lot of comedy. Because there’s a lot of comedy in food.”

Earlier this month, YouTube announced the launch of several other channels, including Wigs, which will focus on scripted dramas for women; and TeamUSA, which will feature content ahead of the 2012 Olympic Games.

“Two and a Half Men,” where Kutcher replaced Charlie Sheen as the lead actor this season, will move to Thursday. “The Mentalist,” where Baker is a brainy crime-solver, shifts from Thursday to Sunday.

CBS is adding three new dramas and one comedy to its fall schedule. Dennis Quaid and Michael Chiklis star in the new drama “Vegas” and another new series transplants Sherlock Holmes to Manhattan.

“CSI: Miami,” “Unforgettable” and “Rob” have been cancelled.

CBS is about to win another season in the ratings race, by the largest margin by a winner over a second-place network in 23 years.

MANILA, Philippines — Philippine President Benigno Aquino III has picked his “American Idol.”

The Philippines’ leader says he is happy Jessica Sanchez is one of the singing contest’s top three finalists and “hopefully she really reaches the top.”

The 16-year-old Sanchez is from Chula Vista, California, and has Filipino and Latino heritage. She is being cheered by many in the Philippines and by the Filipino and Mexican communities in the U.S.

The TV talent show airs the finale next week.

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Online:

http://www.americanidol.com/

LOS ANGELES — Maria Menounos earned a perfect score on Monday’s episode of “Dancing With the Stars,” but on Tuesday, she was ousted from the show.

The 33-year-old TV personality was eliminated from the ABC dance-off one week shy of the finals. Judges’ scores are combined with viewer votes to determine who is dismissed each week.

Singer Katherine Jenkins, actor William Levy and football star Donald Driver will compete Monday for the mirrorball trophy.

Actors Roshon Fegan, Melissa Gilbert, Jaleel White and Jack Wagner have already been eliminated, along with singers Gavin DeGraw and Gladys Knight, TV personality Sherri Shepherd, and tennis champ Martina Navratilova.

Host Tom Bergeron announced Tuesday that next season’s “Dancing With the Stars” will feature contestants and champions from past seasons vying for the title.

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Online:

http://beta.abc.go.com/shows/dancing-with-the-stars

Eva Longoria and Scott Bakula are shown in the series finale of "Desperate Housewives, " that aired Sunday. (AP photo)

NEW YORK — For one last time, a crowd turned out to watch the goings-on on Wisteria Lane.

ABC’s Desperate Housewives drew a little more than 11 million viewers for the two-hour series finale of creator Marc Cherry’s prime-time soap. That wasn’t enough to land it back in the Nielsen company’s list of top 10 shows for the week, where it was a regular in its early years, but it was nearly three million more viewers than usually watched this season.

The primary characters were all seen moving away from the cul-de-sac they called home in that final episode.

With the TV season winding down, “NCIS” held to its standard of the most-watched prime-time program of the week, Nielsen said.

CBS comfortably won the week with an average prime-time viewership of 10 million (6.3 rating, 11 share). ABC had 7.9 million (5.1, 9), Fox had 7.3 million (4.5, 8), NBC had 5.6 million (3.6, 6), the CW had 1.2 million (0.8, 1) and ION Television had 1.1 million (0.7, 1).

Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision led with a 3.6 million prime-time average (1.9, 3), Telemundo had 1.1 million (0.6, 1), TeleFutura had 620,000 (0.3, 1), Estrella had 250,000 and Azteca had 110,000 (both 0.1, 0).

NBC’s “Nightly News” topped the evening newscasts with an average of 7.9 million viewers (5.4, 11). ABC’s “World News” was second with 7.4 million (4.9, 10) and the “CBS Evening News” had 5.7 million viewers (4, 8).

A ratings point represents 1,147,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation’s estimated 114.7 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.

For the week of May 7-13, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: “NCIS,” CBS, 18.2 million; “American Idol” (Wednesday), Fox, 16.46 million; “Dancing With the Stars,” ABC, 16.37 million; “American Idol” (Thursday), Fox, 15.62 million; “NCIS: Los Angeles,” CBS, 14.56 million; “The Big Bang Theory,” CBS, 13.72 million; “Dancing With the Stars Results,” ABC, 13.71 million; “Person of Interest,” CBS, 12.96 million; “The Mentalist,” CBS, 12.62 million; “Castle,” ABC, 12.36 million.

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ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co. CBS is owned by CBS Corp. CW is a joint venture of Warner Bros. Entertainment and CBS Corp. Fox and My Network TV are units of News Corp. NBC and Telemundo are owned by Comcast Corp. ION Television is owned by ION Media Networks. TeleFutura is a division of Univision. Azteca America is a wholly owned subsidiary of TV Azteca S.A. de C.V.

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Online:

http://www.nielsen.com