If you've already read my on-the-scene blog about last night's American Idol performance show, you may have picked up that I didn't really have all that much to talk about, since the impressive size of the Nokia kept the stage at such a distance as it was a wee bit tricky picking out any telling details. And I do feel bad about that, PopWatchers (Smirkelstiltskin doesn't, but then he's still sleeping, so what do we care?); fortunately, I got to observe the Davids far more up-close-and-personal during the "winners walk" press event that followed the show in the basement of the Nokia lobby.

First up, a press conference with a couple dozen radio outlets, where Cook (right) and Archuleta (left) built on the mutual-appreciation society they'd started at the top of Tuesday's show. When they were asked if they ever had a "competitive nature" about each other, Archie said "our biggest competition is ourselves." Cook took a difference approach: "I was a competitive kid growing up, but" — and at this point, he reached over to smoosh little David's cheeks — "how could you compete against this face?! I want to get so mad at him, but then it's like, Awwww." The crowd loved it, and Archie did too, though he did first reflexively jerk back from Cook's attempted cheek-smooshing. Later, they were asked about their post-Idol expectations, and Cook played it cool, stating that this very well could just be a great four-month ride. At which point, someone yelled out, "I like bartenders!" Cook smiled and replied, "I like bartenders, too," and then Archie warmly slapped Cook's shoulder and said "Me too!" Much hilarity and adorably awkward grinning followed.

Next, the Davids were shuttled to a photo shoot with a long line of sponsors — your Cokes, your Fords, your iTuneses, almost all of whose reps had their children in tow — and what struck me the most was how completely at ease David Cook especially handled the whole enterprise. I can't imagine watching Daughtry, or Blake, or even Soul Patrol posing for photo after photo with gladhanding corporate execs and not giving off even a whiff of too-cool-for-schoolery, but Cookie handled it all like a consummate pro. Archie took to it well, too, operating in his standard "gee, golly, gosh" mode, which I've come to feel is absolutely genuine, especially after I realized that neither Mama nor Papa Archuleta was anywhere in sight the entire time.

Finally, they all made it to the press line, which is where they talked to me. Tonight, I'll be speaking a bit more in depth with Mr. Archuleta, while my colleague Shirley Halperin will be sidiling up to Mr. Cook. Check back tomorrow for all the backstage goodness!

Liz Phair (pictured) made me both happy and sad today. Why? Well, her label is rereleasing her groundbreaking 1993 album Exile in Guyville on June 25th — apparently the album is out of print, a fact I find pretty hard to fathom — and Liz is going to perform all of Guyville in New York in late June, to be followed by dates in San Francisco and her hometown, Chicago. Now, it's sad because the repressing is (ostensibly) to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the album's initial release (and, no doubt, a nice way to profitably air out the Phair archives), and that my memories of that album involve too many brews in a seedy college bar, screaming singing along to "F--- and Run," reminding me yet again how old I am. (If you know of a cure for the "everything is making me feel old" feeling, please let me know, because it's making nostalgia a real drag.) Oh, and how Phair and her music have changed so drastically since (but let's not dwell on that now, shall we?).

Age be damned, I'm pretty psyched for the show, if I can con my way in, or if occasionally PopWatch contributor Samantha Xu can. (To quote her: "I'm so excited for it, I'm trying not to pee my pants.") In the interim, if there's something else that makes you just as stoked as Samantha (current TV shows/movies/music/books/games/websites), let's have it for the Must List. In the comments below, list up to three, and include your e-mail address so we can contact you if we decide to use your submission in the magazine. Deadline is tomorrow, Thursday, May 22, at 10 a.m. ET.

Well, that was weird. A couple months ago, I (and everyone else on the Internets) discovered Muxtape.com, a website that lets you upload a free streaming playlist of up to 12 MP3s for the world to enjoy. Fun! I signed up, tossed six tunes that I was feeling at the time onto my page, and promptly got bored and forgot all about it. Then this afternoon, I got an alert that a new song had just been added to my muxtape — something called "Aim (with Stephen Jones) — Good Disease [Babybird does a Prince thing]." Uh, what? Actually, as I soon discovered, all six songs on my muxtape had somehow been replaced by this same tune (which I'd never heard in my life)... And before I could figure out which of my mischievous friends had guessed my password, I discovered that every single song on every muxtape out there was now "Aim (with Stephen Jones) — Good Disease [Babybird does a Prince thing]"! Even New Yorker critic Sasha Frere-Jones was bigging up this Aim guy.

Muxtape.com's proprietors seem to have realized what was up pretty quickly. As I was writing this blog post, they took down the whole site and put up a terse message admitting that "someone gained access to our server and caused some problems"; a little while later, they added that "there are backups of the overwritten data and I anticipate most of it being restored successfully." (Whew!) Anyway, looks like everybody's muxtapes are out of commission for the time being. But what in the name of Babybird was that? I'm guessing this whole thing was the work of a hacker who really digs random British electronica from 2002 — sorta like a next-generation Rickroll. Or maybe Muxtape.com was just a brilliant viral scheme to popularize Aim (and Stephen Jones) all along, and this was the coup de grace? Pretty hilarious, either way.

So did this prank catch any of you by surprise, or am I the only one? And while we're at it, what do you think of "Good Disease"? It's embedded below, for all of you who missed its hour or so of muxtape glory. And I have to admit, it's actually not half bad, in a loungey trip-hop kinda way...

Everybody knew that The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian was going to win the box office last weekend, right? And it did indeed come in at No. 1 (even with a disappointingly low $55 million), right? You know, sheesh — this box office prognostication thing is easy! Anybody can play!

And, hey, with our Summer Box Office Challenge, anybody can. (To wit, 80 percent of last round's players correctly saw Prince Caspian ruling the multiplex during its opening weekend. Smart, people, smart!) Now entering its second month, EW.com's game allows folks at home to take a stab at foreseeing each weekend's final box office rankings, with a set of DVDs going to the person whose crystal ball is the clearest. Think you've got what it takes? Think Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is going to triumph this weekend? (And, well, if you don't, maybe this game isn't for you.) Just click on over to the game before Friday at 8 p.m. Eastern Time and give it a crack. (Get it? Indiana Jones...whip...crack...? Eh, just have fun!)

"An Active is the truest soul among us." Or so says Olivia Williams' big-brained science honcho in this promo for Joss Whedon's new Fox show, Dollhouse, premiering this fall. And judging by this spot...

...Dollhouse will touch on all of the things that enrich the soul of the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly. Drop-dead-gorgeous female hero? Check. Her search for identity and purpose while carrying out a specific mission (or, in this case, the specific mission-of-the-week)? Done. Disparate people banding together to forge a family out of isolation? In there. Skillfully twisted dialogue that's both catchy and revealing? Boom. Lots of the kicking of ass? Youbetcha.

Let's say you're not a Joss Whedon fan — a group I most definitely don't belong to, judging by my Quixotic insistence on bringing you clips from Firefly every Friday — but does this intrigue you? Is watching Eliza Dushku's Echo have a different persona implanted on her each week, while searching for the truths of who she really is and how she got stuck in "the Dollhouse," something you're up for? (And does the prospect of Battlestar Galactica's Tahmoh Penikett — as a federal agent on her trail — taking his shirt off sweeten the deal?) I've already got my TiVo primed...how about you?

Well, "Cancun," the Reaper season finale, kind of fudged the whole question of Sam Oliver's paternity, but we do know this: his father is one hell of a guy.

I was actually kind of hoping that the Devil (Ray Wise, right) really was the sire of Sam (Bret Harrison, left), just because their mentor-protégé relationship is so much fun to watch. Also because it would make Sam's loyalties in the looming demon rebellion against Satan that much more complicated. Still, the revelation in the season's final minute that the elder Mr. Oliver is apparently a demon offers some possibilities for season 2. I'll admit, that was a revelation I didn't see coming.

Actually, the most interesting character this episode was Tony, who reminded us, after weeks of neighborly friendliness, that demons are not always nice guys. He began the episode by dropping a washing machine on Sam (a test to see if Sam had enough devilish power to save himself and thereby prove he's Satan's son; Tony didn't seem to upset by the prospect that, if Sam were a mere mortal, he'd be crushed to death) and later buried Sam alive in a demon-proof cage. Give Tony credit for being cleverer than he's seemed so far (given the ill-advised rebellion attempt a few weeks back that killed his lover, Steve); he not only recognized that Sam might be the spawn of Satan, but that he was also certainly a mole for Mephistopheles. And he took advantage of that situation by withholding from Sam the key info: that the King Solomon-designed cage was meant to imprison not the Devil but Sam himself. (Plus, Tony got to buy the parts cheap, via Sam's Work Bench employee discount.)

Tony also ran the emotional gamut when he learned Steve had been appearing in visions to Sam (and not to himself); he went from disbelief to jealous anger to awestruck wonder to regret to forgiveness within moments. Despite Tony's assertion that not even God's vast capacity for mercy extends to demons, it seemed that Steve really had become an angel and ascended to heaven. ("It's better than Cancun," Steve exclaimed, justifying the episode's title.) Tony realized he had to rescue Sam from the box, though curiously, he did not rescue Mr. Oliver, who'd jumped into the cage to save Sam. Had Tony figured out what was confirmed in the final scene, when Mrs. Oliver showed up to dig her apparently unharmed husband out of the abandoned cage? Not sure, but at least now we know why Sam's dad ripped out all the pages in Sam's contract referring to his paternity, as well the nature of the secret he told Sam he was forbidden to divulge.

I didn't really dig this week's subplots. The escaped soul of the week, an evil fortune teller who was easily dispatched back to hell via a hurled baseball? Meh. Sock breaking up with Josie for no good reason save his own immaturity? That's just Sock being Sock. Sock falling for beautiful succubus Marlena? He'd already fantasized about Gladys, so his attraction to another demon was no great stretch, especially since her kisses gave him the world's greatest adrenaline high and super strength. (Each kiss also took a year off his life, but as Sock noted, they're the crappy years at the end.) Not sure why Marlena was attracted to Sock, but that was less irksome than Sock's trying to pimp her out to Ben so that he could feel the high, too — and Ben eagerly going along with the idea. Ben seems too sensible to shorten his life over a momentary high, not to mention making out with a demon when he already has a dream girlfriend in Cassidy. (Where was she, by the way?) At least Marlena had the good sense (and self-esteem) to find Sock's scheme appalling; she may be a life-sucking demon, but she's not a whore.

Oh, and that fireworks effigy of Mr. Oliver? That was pretty awesome to watch, and it made a nice, emotional close to the episode and the season. It was a send-off that Sam's dad would surely appreciated, had he been there. (And if Mrs. Oliver had been a little quicker with the shovel, he might have been.)

Questions: So, how many years did Sock shave off his life? When is Sam going to find out that his father is not only still alive, but is a demon as well? Is Sam's mom a demon, too? Is Sam really their child, or is he adopted? (After all, the Devil himself left open the possibility that he really is Sam's dad.) Since Tony's cage idea didn't work, what's the rebellion's Plan B? Finally, are you pleased with the way Reaper's first season played out, and what do you want to see happen next season?

So, according to this article in Federal Computer Week, Sen. Joe Lieberman has urged YouTube to pull down videos posted by Islamist terrorist groups, as well as to tighten its submission policies. And YouTube has politely told the senator to go stuff it. Say, did you even know that there were terrorist videos on YouTube? My favorites include the one where the baby panda sneezes so hard it explodes, the one where a training camp full of terrorists dances in formation to Michael Jackson's "Beat It," and the one with that song "Chocolate Rain of Death." Of course, watching these viral vids may infect you with the urge to take up arms against the government and your fellow citizens, but that's a small price to pay for free streaming entertainment.

Heh. If there's any video I'm worried about that could encourage terrorism, it's the one below. A pampered Hollywood starlet being chauffeured around, having her hair and makeup done, snapping gum, being nuzzled by Salman Rushdie, and destroying a perfectly good Tom Waits song — why, it's enough to make anyone hate America.

You might not want to play this video if your boss is within earshot (unless your boss really doesn't mind expletives), but if you're in a safe space, do indulge in this quick compilation of Kristen Johnston's scenes as Sex and the City party girl Lexi Featherston. If you could embed a YouTube clip in the dictionary next to the word "tragicomic," this would be it, folks.

It is an open secret -- which is to say not really a secret at all -- that I am obsessed with American Idol's Aloha Mischeaux. So when I discovered several hot new tracks on the season 4 semifinalist's MySpace page earlier this spring, it wasn't long before I extended an invite for her to swing by the EW.com cubicles for a very special episode of Idolatry. The results are embedded below, and let's just say Aloha turned the hallway outside my office into a raucous concert space. Someone sign this woman to a record deal already! Seriously!

I loved Scarlett Johansson in Match Point and Lost in Translation -- so much, in fact, that I was willing to overlook her recent misfires, film adaptations of best-selling books The Nanny Diaries and The Other Boleyn Girl. I would patiently sit through six more train wrecks like The Island in anticipation for the next Ghost World. So, I guess you could say I love Scarlett Johansson, the actress. Unfortunately, I am not so taken with Scarlett Johansson, aspiring recording artist.

Disappointment doesn't adequately describe the letdown I felt after sampling a few Tom Waits cover tracks on her debut album, Anywhere I Lay My Head. I hadn't heard Scarlett Johansson sing since her 2006 stint as the host of SNL, and I vaguely recalled her rendition of ''Something To Talk About'' as ''alright.'' Not ''alright, someone get her a record deal.''

Actresses are dealt some of the most brutal critical backlash, deserving or no, for their seemingly flighty forays into the music biz. So I admire Johansson for singing, or sort of moaning off-key for several beats too long, in the face of adversity. And if it's hard to successfully transition from actress to musician, it's even harder to tackle a folk legend like Tom Waits. Waits croons with raw emotion and his voice has such distinct grit, but it's a sound that's either poorly imitated or missing entirely from Johansson's covers. She's shown such emotional depth on-screen that it's almost disconcerting to hear her sing with a hollow, lifeless quality.

Should Scarlett stick to her film gigs or is this just the start of her music career? Check out a few performances over at AOL Music and let us know what you think!

After reading the comments on my post mourning CBS' cancellation of Moonlight (pictured), in which some viewers vow to boycott the network, and those on Abby West's Bones season finale preview and postmortem, in which a handful of fans threaten to abandon the Fox drama after its rushed resolution to the Gormogon case, I'm wondering how often people actually follow through on such promises.

So, tell me: Have you ever boycotted an entire network? Or gone cold turkey on a show because you felt it did you wrong? And how long did you hold out? I'm fascinated.

P.S. While I'm the "obsessed colleague" who wouldn't stop complaining to Abby about Booth's beer helmet — (a) he had a tub caddy that could've held his cans and (b) I know he's a "dude," but he still shops at Spencer's? — I'll be back.

P.P.S. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Moonlight is still being shopped to cable networks, including TNT. Hmmm. While TNT has Angel repeats in the morning, I'm not sure I see vamps fitting into its primetime lineup. Angel alums on the other hand, yes: I went to the Turner upfronts last week, and saw that J. August Richards (Gunn) has a role in Steven Bochco's upcoming TNT legal drama, Raising the Bar, while Christian Kane (Lindsey) will be seen opposite Timothy Hutton in the net's Leverage. Of course, TNT already has a double dose of Boreanaz, with Tuesday night Bones repeats.