Ah, humanity!

Ah, humanity!

Australian Idol: two, maybe three of the performers last night were decent. The pig farmer who's never formally taken singing lessons has the best vocal instrument of the lot, exhibiting a mature control over his vibrato and demonstrating pretty good range. Note how the better-looking performers -- the cutesy twinks, the former football players, and pop princesses -- were the least effective singers, pushing their voices beyond their capabilities. As for the judges: it's sad to see that the trio has now fallen into -- I should say, succumbed to -- the roles given them. Mark Holden either says, "That was good" or "That didn't do anything for me." Marcia says, "Thanks honey. You have a great voice" to everyone. Dicko says, "Loved it" or "You belong in cabaret" and "You're now completely out of your depth". Boring.

Final episode of Buffy tonight. Based on the past few episodes, and having rewatched the penultimate episode a couple of times, I'm now convinced that:

* Angel won't hang around in the episode for long. He was the deus ex machina of the last episode, so he'll scoot out quickly after giving Buffy a quick kiss.
* Spike will die, thus demonstrating his 'platonic love' (yeah, right) for Buffy in a redemptive act of self-sacrifice.
* Faith and Principal Wood are being set up to join together in a Faithcentric spin-off series.
* Anya will die, protecting Andrew from harm's way (we know this because Anya said last week that she's finally begun to love humanity, while Andrew is resigned to likely death).
* Oz probably won't return, since Willow already has (1) a partner she's lossed and misses -- Tara; and (2) has a present snuggle bunny -- Kennedy.
* Willow will perform magic on a big scale.
* Faith and the Principal will be fighting with the Potentials against the ubervamps.
* the original gang, plus Dawn (perhaps -- unless she's fighting with Anya and Andrew, or at home with them, preparing to tend to the wounded when they return) will face off against the First, armed with amulets and other assorted magic instruments.
* did I mention that Joss likes to use lots of magic instruments to help his characters save the day? It's the equivalent of technobabble on Star Trek and nifty gadgets on James Bond.

Ok, no one who's seen the episode already say a word about the finale! Let's say how I do with my predictions.