Fresh off its weakest start in four seasons, American Idol dumped the second offering of season seven on viewers Wednesday night. And though it seemed impossible to top the sad and boring Philly trial from Tuesday, the two-hour Dallas, Texas, auditions stepped up and added pitiful to the mix.

Stripped of any (possibly planted) freaks like über-creepy "Paula stalker" Paul Marturano from Tuesday night, Dallas was two more hours of modestly talented, usually nice-looking folks being passed on to the Hollywood stage—types that by now seem way too familiar to anyone who has been watching the show lo these many years. There were the requisite soul-singing blonde cuties, the mandatory full-voiced R&B singers, and of course the evergreen cleft-chinned farm boy who aspires to be George Strait. Dear Idol producers: Your love of standard-issue high school jazz-choir refugees is showing.

There were also, of course, the usual calculated tearjerkers: car-crash survivor Kayla Hatfield, whose off-kilter Janis Joplin imitation combined with her sunny demeanor even tweaked Simon's vestigial senses of pity and hope, and Jessica Brown, an attractive stay-at-home mom and former meth addict from Dallas. If you couldn't root for the winsome and hopeful Jessica, you might as well go out clubbing baby seals.

Speaking of bloody little seals ... Idol saved the greatest pain for last. Renaldo LaPuz entered the audition room cloaked in white and silver, looking a bit like an adolescent seal caught in an environmental disaster involving aluminum foil. And in a uniquely passive-aggressive way, the judges proceeded to club the dude bloody. The entire episode telescoped at that point, and time stretched in the awful molasses-like way of a paralyzing nightmare. In an effort to create a little tension-relieving comedy, the judges rammed headlong into LaPuz's act, accompanying his warbled rendition of "We're Brothers Forever," a song of his own composition. Randy Jackson and Paula Abdul joined him on stage, and, at over six minutes, it really did go on, as the earnest contestant sang, "forever."

To hell with the clubbing of baby seals: When jumping sharks, AI, one must always remember that the shark can leap out of the water and bite, hardcore.