American Idol: The great unknowns?

This morning's column previews the "American Idol" semi-finals:

Okay, freak show's over. Time to get onto the actual competition portion of "American Idol." But before we do, I have an important question to ask:

Who are these people?

What a strange and very anonymous group these 24 semifinalists make. A half dozen or so never even appeared on camera before last Wednesday's episode, and I feel like I only have a handle on either the personalities or talents of another half dozen.

To read the rest, click here. (NOTE: Continuing my recent shamefully error-prone ways, the story refers to the semis beginning tonight, when of course they don't begin until tomorrow.) I haven't decided yet whether I'm going to do performer-by-performer reviews of the semis or wait until the finals the way I did last season. Depends on how inspired I am by all these randoms, I suppose.