Going, going–which surviving finalist will ‘The Glee Project’ bless?

FINAL five (left to right, from top): Samuel Larsen, Hannah McIalwain, Lindsay Pearce, Alex Newell and Damian McGinty

Thus far, “The Glee Project” has been conducting its serial eliminations with efficiency and dispatch. Last August 1, however, with the surviving finalists’ number cut down to six, the specialized talent discovery tilt was psychologically boggled when one of the survivors, Cameron, decided to bow out of the competition!

The specific stumbling block and sticking point that made him resign from the hotly contested tilt was that week’s focus on “sexuality.” Brought up as a conservative, with scrupulous values and a principled sense of privacy and morality, Cameron balked at singing and grooving to a song that was all about teen love and lust.

After much thought, the shocked finalist decided that he couldn’t “commit” to the “revealing” challenge, and disappointed his mentors by opting out of the contest, which seeks to reward its final survivor with a seven-episode slot in next season’s “Glee.”

The mentors were disappointed, because they felt that Cameron had it in him to “go the distance.” But the young talent fretted that even more unacceptable tasks were up ahead, so he decided to forego the prospect of sudden stardom on “Glee,” with all the perks that went with it, in favor of not betraying his principles.

The other finalists were shocked—but, they also breathed a sigh of relief, because Cameron’s resignation assured them of their own survival on the show for one more week.

Especially thankful was Damian, who later found out that, if Cameron had chosen to stay, he would have been the chosen “evictee” for the week!

The five talents remaining in the competition are all prodigiously talented and interesting performers—in vastly different ways. They include a black “girly gay,” a lovely, young diva, a “plus size” singing comedienne, a “boy next door” and a “dreadlocked” hunk. How varied can you get?

With only five out of the original 12 contenders remaining, it should now be possible to make an educated guess on the tilt’s outcome and ultimate winner. After all, haven’t we successfully divined the eventual winner of quite a number of “American Idol” competitions?

But “The Glee Project” is different from “AI,” because it’s out to discover, not the best singer, but the best “total performer” whose inclusion in the new cast of “Glee” will enable the hit show to tackle stories and themes it hasn’t highlighted before.

So, the search is for the person who can excite the show’s creative team with his unique “life story,” conflict or ethos, enough for them to write him or her into next season’s sequential dramatics.

The fact that quite a number of the show’s leads are expected to “graduate” from high school and the show makes the search for key replacements more urgent than ever.

Seen in that context, the winner of “The Glee Project” remains a big mystery—and conundrum. Will it be one of the tilt’s remaining three “lookers”? That’s a safe but not necessarily edgy choice. Will it be the fat girl or the gay? Perhaps, but the show already has its resident gay and its plus-size diva. What do you think? Perhaps your crystal ball is shinier and clearer than ours!