The good folks at Zap2It just published a review of last night’s American Idol auditions from Nebraska HERE.  Here’s a quick preview:

After all, the highlight of the delightfully swift (but still montage-padded) hour-long episode was a Los Angeles native with a degree from Constantine Maroulis Tech (b.k.a. Berklee College of Music in Boston).

That would be Samantha Sidley, whose rendition of “Don’t Know Why” was pleasant but slightly over-studied, a performance out of proportion with the attention it received. Samantha was the beneficiary of an odd bit of implausibly staged theater wherein Ryan Seacrest decided to kick up a fuss about the judges’ lack of constructive criticism for one contestant and was invited by Simon to replace Paula for one audition. Ryan enthusiastically endorsed Samantha, making her the rare singer to get four “Yes” votes (that girl with the over-enthusiastic sister who sat on Simon’s lap also got four).

That drawn-out introduction got me wondering about Samantha, as did the fact that after five audition cities, Samantha’s the first contestant featured in pictures on FOX’s press site to also make it to Hollywood (they prefer the losers in the early rounds).

How many more audition nights do we have to sit through before we get to see Samantha back in Hollywood??

For the (predicted) Top 50 who went to Hollywood, see this MJ’s Big Blog entry.