The American Idol party was over right around the time a chin connection was made between late-night host Jay Leno and season five Idol winner Taylor Hicks. Really, season six can only be acknowledged as the show's "denial stage." No one knew it at the time, but Blake Lewis' saliva-flecked beatboxing was Idol's "Taps," and the current season is pretty much a brain-munching-zombie stage show.

The bad contestants are proving to be no more entertaining than the even mildly decent acts. The San Diego auditions brought out hapless Mariah Carey–worshipper Valerie Reyes, whose off-key attempts to ape the whistle-voiced songstress no doubt left dogs bleeding from the ears throughout Southern California.

Idol briefly highlighted show stalker Blake Boshnack, who showed up in season five as the long-faced dude in the Statue of Liberty costume. Boshnack got out one or two notes in his season-five audition before the judges decided they couldn't take it anymore. In San Diego he managed a few measures before he got kicked back to his serenely doting mommy (Boshnack is in his twenties), and he seemed okay with that.

For sheer unsettling weirdness, wispy-voiced Alberto Hurtado sported long fingernails and carried a large, ornate fan. Hurtado, a large, ornate fan of the show, was bringin' the pitiful. He sang a portion of his own original song, "Life," which was a celebration of anything but. Even a zombie would have been depressed.

Two viable singers near the end of the show were presented as talented underdog stories. One was a 16-year-old who'd discovered his "vocal prowess" around age 11 or 12, only to undergo a crisis when one of his vocal cords ended up paralyzed. The other singer was an attractive Irish transplant who'd made it to Hollywood once before, only to have Visa issues keep her off the show. Simon Cowell even provided a moment of dramatic tension for the latter singer, telling her that her audition wasn't as good as the last time. You just had to root for these two regular folks with so much hope—except that the 16-year-old was past StarSearch junior division winner David Archuleta and the inked Irish chick was former would-be pop tart Carly Hennessy, now going by her married name, Carly Smithson. Both were outed as former stars-in-the-making by the time Idol aired last night.

There might be a bright side to former Z-listers showing up on American Idol this season looking for second chances. They could help AI break out of its current living-dead shamble and stumble back into more lively territory—and put a completely new spin on the term "celebrity rehab."