The beginning went by in a busy, boring blur. Ryan Seacrest in his tuxedo informed the crowd that 132 million votes had been cast this year (the number of votes cast in the last presidential election: 129 million. Though that doesn’t count teenage girls voting over and over and over again for a guy named Phillip Phillips.) John Fogerty and his mop top of dyed dark hair clanked his voice against Phillips for a while. One of this year’s contestants kept distracting me from the group numbers with her uncanny resemblance to Florence Henderson. Chaka Kahn flirted dangerously with camel toe. Steven Tyler was filmed playing with a three-toed sloth, revealing that he and a three-toed sloth have the exact same hairdo. Jennifer Lopez performed a medley in a sparkly dhoti.

And then Ryan Seacrest invited former contestants Diana Degarmo, who was 16 when she was the runner-up in Season 3, and the long-haired Ace Young, a contestant in Season 5, up onstage. They waved hello, and Young said, “This has always been home to us, and I felt this was the perfect place to ask a simple question.” Ryan chirped, “Dim the lights!” And then Young proposed to a surprised-looking Degarmo — with the help of David Webb jewelry. (Never forget your sponsors.) “I love you to death, you’re my best friend, and I will do anything in my power to have the most unimaginable, amazing life together, if you’ll have me. Diana Nicole DeGarmo … will you … marry … me?” he asked on bended knee. She nodded yes, the “Idol” theme music swelled, and these two newly engaged people, having significantly boosted their chances of getting some reality show company to pay for their wedding, embraced onstage as the show hurried mercilessly, ceaselessly on, this time to the thematically appropriate duet  “You’ll Never Walk Alone.”

A wave of emotions crashed over me. I realized I had been screaming at the television. (“Nooooarghhhahaahaeeeee” or something like that.) While this was, on a human level, so ill-advised — what is wrong with doing private things in private???— it was also undeniably entrancing television. The “Idol” machine had struck again. What if these two kids had chosen to get engaged off camera? In the relative privacy of, say, a Cheesecake Factory? Would we, the audience, have been forced to watch a supercut of Steven Tyler’s most lascivious comments instead? One of Jennifer Lopez saying sweetie over and over again? Or just more commercials? When I thought of it this way, I could almost appreciate the utilitarian sacrifice of Degarmo and Young’s privacy and dignity: The entertainment of the many outweighs the needs of the few.

But this engagement was not the highlight of this episode. No, the ever crafty “Idol” had waiting in the wings a tactical tour de force: Jennifer Holliday, the Tony Award-winning actress who originated the role of Effie in the Broadway production of “Dreamgirls,” and so is the ur-performer of “I’m Telling You I’m Not Going,” that canonical musical competition song and a number the teenage Jessica Sanchez  has been singing for nearly her whole life. Holliday and Sanchez came onstage to do a nominal duet of the song, which turned into an extended solo. (Sanchez’s willingness to let Holliday steal this number right out from under her is the most likable thing she’s done all season.) Holliday, who looks like she can dislocate her jaw on command, and at various points seemed poised to inhale Sanchez with no need for chewing, absolutely destroyed this song, and did so in such joyful, reckless disregard for what she looked like while doing so  — here are some gifs of her in the act — that it almost wiped out the sourness of the engagement sequence. Here was a public act, one that was meant to be public, performed with such passion, it felt private: Who can possibly know what is going on inside of a person’s body or mind when they are as possessed by anything as Holliday was by this song?

When Ryan Seacrest finally told Phillip Phillips he had won, after 10 o’clock at night, he picked up his guitar and began to sing. Ever since Kelly Clarkson cried her way through “A Moment Like This” in the show’s first season, the winner is expected to perform their new single at the end of the show.  But halfway through “Home,” Phillips broke off, to sob. The background singers kept singing, and the confetti kept falling, but Phillips didn’t even try to get back on the mic. For about a minute, he stood on stage, quiet music playing in the background, trying to pull himself together, to do what was expected of him. He couldn’t. He didn’t sing again. Instead, he walked offstage to his family, who pulled him into a big group hug, inadvertently hiding his face from the cameras. At which point, I think that I got something in my eye.

And the second? The second is Ryan Seacrest.

Seacrest appears in Clark’s obits like the Boswell to Clark’s Samuel Johnson, quoted instead of family members as the apparent authority on Clark’s life and legacy. His tribute to Clark on “Idol” the night after his death became a news story in and of itself. For years, Seacrest had been slowly positioning himself as the new Dick Clark, taking over as the host of the New Year’s broadcast when Clark was ill, and modeling his career after Clark’s by taking ownership stakes in radio shows and TV ventures. Seacrest has become so entwined with Clark’s story that when news of the death broke, it was hard not to picture Seacrest kneeling in some dark rite, screaming to the heavens as Clark’s power possessed him, “Highlander”-style.

The problem with this image is that it’s far too interesting to have anything to do with Ryan Seacrest, a man who has made a career out of being professionally boring. If we’re going with a sci-fi reference, it’s easier to think of him like the bureaucrats in “Brazil,” toiling away in some back office, looking up briefly as an intern arrives to tell him the news, nodding curtly, shedding a single tear, and immediately returning to work. (During his tribute on “Idol,” he said that Clark was “in a better place saying, ‘Hey, let’s get on with the show, OK?’”) Seacrest is not someone who does dramatic things in fields. He is a person who stands in places of no place and intones blank words like a priest performing some long-deprecated rite. And he’s been very, very successful at it.

Seacrest’s extraordinary rise, so counter to the prevailing trends of the time, points to a current of artistic and social conservatism in the mass audience that persists despite the relentlessly progressive story we like to tell ourselves about the march of culture.

Like Clark, Seacrest got his start in radio. Clark’s early jobs were in an industry where local was king, getting spots at small-bore stations in upstate New York and only going national when “Bandstand” was picked up for TV distribution. Seacrest, however, came to radio just as it was being deregulated and local stations were being eliminated in favor of national conglomerates like ClearChannel. As such, he was able to move to Los Angeles and, at the age of 20, take over a morning radio show that became nationally syndicated. He followed that up with his own form of conglomeration, taking over the weekly “American Top 40″ from Casey Kasem in 2004, and launching his own new programming ventures, like “On Air With Ryan Seacrest,” a four-hour block he records daily and which is distributed to more than 150 stations nationwide.

But his big break was “Idol.” Premiering in 2002, it at first seemed an unlikely phenomenon. Why would anyone want to watch a “Star Search” where the contestants didn’t change? The country did not lack for pop stars, after all: Between “Total Request Live” and Radio Disney we were experiencing something of a bumper crop in those years. The success of “Idol” speaks to both the unalloyed effectiveness of its format and something deep in the national mood at that moment. Bathed in post-millennial anxiety, and eager as always to avoid discussing the possible causes of and responses to a national tragedy, “Idol” seemed to reflect our best selves. It was meritocratic (the best will win, regardless of their social position), individualistic (only single singers, no messy bands), populist (the people vote), and aggressively cheerful.

Key to that success was Seacrest. The judges represented the business aspect of the transaction, the reward at the end. The voters were America, of course. But Ryan was the Idol. For struggling amateurs, he was the end product they were training for, smooth, professional and unchallenged, a perfect pop product encased in a suit. While the contestants’ images varied, Seacrest’s presence on stage was a constant reminder of what the producers had in mind when they talked about a pop star.

There have long been rumors that Seacrest is gay. It’s hard to know what to do with these, exactly, but there is something undeniably unsettling about his sexuality. The image he projects is that of a non-threatening teenage boy, a pre-pubescent heartthrob like Ricky Nelson, David Cassidy or Justin Bieber. But Seacrest, who has dated Teri Hatcher and Sheryl Crow, is decidedly post-pubescent. He is, as they say, a grown man. Merv Griffin, who hired him to host a children’s computer-themed quiz show called “Click!” in the mid-’90s, said that “he had this spiky haircut, and we knew all the little girls in the audience would love him, and they did.” And they do. And he doesn’t care. Which is, maybe, a big point in his favor.

But it’s a point against the audience. All teen idols grow up, and as moral panicky as the process can be (“I’m Not a Girl,” etc.), we’ve seen it happen enough times now to know that part of the pleasure of a non-threatening teenager is knowing the threat they will inevitably become; Justin Bieber is fascinating because we want to see how it all spirals down. For Seacrest to stay in that neuter state reflects a childish, eyes-closed denial of reality among those audience members who still like it. The last decade has seen a remarkable opening of public discourse about all kinds of sex; currently the news media is tirelessly (and tiresomely) covering a story that basically amounts to “Hey, some people like bondage!” Adult sexuality is at least an option for our public conversations now, and lots of openly gay celebrities have remained idols in their own way, able to publicly pursue relationships without having to maintain the facade of blank sexlessness. But if Seacrest, the Delphonic seer of conventional wisdom, is in fact gay (or sexual at all) and truly thinks breaking face would kill his career, then maybe he’s right. For all the recent gains we’ve made, there’s a sizable portion of our fellow citizens who would much rather have Ricky Schroder stay a boy. Whether you want to have Seacrest or be him, he is selling the troubling fantasy that desire doesn’t have to be dirty.

Throughout a decade in which celebrity scandals were everywhere, Seacrest himself remained steadfastly above the fray. The scandal boom was great for entertainment news, but unstable workers are bad for the entertainment business. Scandal-plagued actors may get more publicity, but they make it a lot harder for a production to get insured, and the harder it is for the talent to hit their marks, the longer it takes to make the product. You never had to worry about that with Seacrest. A tireless worker and consummate professional, a morality clause would just be superfluous for any contract you might want to strike with him. In a decade of turmoil, Seacrest was the rock, the thing you could always depend on.

But since when has good TV been about dependability? The fun of watching “Idol” is its anarchy, whether it’s Paula’s looseness and Simon’s free-form contempt, an unknown amateur maturing into a star or flaming out under pressure, or the direction of each season, which producers, for all their tinkering, ultimately leave in the hands of the audience. “Idol,” at its best, is a show that can genuinely surprise everyone. In the midst of that glorious chaos, Seacrest stands apart, a stable center. His ability to parlay that personality into lucrative positions on other shows indicates that stability is what a certain portion of the audience wants. And that’s worrisome.

During an authoritarian period in American politics, culture was the lone bright spot. It seemed to be rapidly democratizing: corporate conglomerates were failing, user-generated content was everywhere, and even highly controlled mediums like TV were expanding their offerings to become far more adventurous. But no shift brings everyone along with it, and as easy as it now is to find people who like “Mad Men,” cultural progressives are haunted by fears about what everyone else is watching. Maybe, like Glenn Beck said, we really are surrounded; certainly a lot of people seemed to watch “Two and a Half Men.” Seacrest is like your square brother who went into banking: His success makes you wonder if the cultural power you feel when you’re with your people is really all that strong. Despite the fact that Ryan Seacrest has never done anything even slightly objectionable, people hate Ryan Seacrest. And that’s why.

“Idol” has, inevitably, begun to wane in influence and audience. As the paying audience for pop music massively declined during the ’00s, “Idol” had been able to stay ahead of the curve by making it about competition and narrative rather than music. But that audience had broken down too, splintered into niches by the expanding array of entertainment options. This should have spelled doom for Seacrest, eternally a mass-market guy. But he saw it coming, saw that the family-friendly audience he served would soon just become one market among many, and formed Ryan Seacrest Productions in 2006. His major hits so far have all involved the Kardashians, but he just signed a big new deal with Comcast, and more could be on the way.

If Dick Clark is an eternal teenager trapped in a ‘50s image of adolescence, Seacrest is a teenager from 2002 who’s persisted across time, simultaneously trying to please parents and safely experience more sensual pleasures from the standpoint of a moment when America had a serious interest in being pure and virginal. He’s achieved this by splitting his personality across business ventures, appearing as a squeaky-clean host on TV and radio while using his production company to push delightfully trashy reality fare like “Keeping Up With the Kardashians.” When we look at Ryan Seacrest, we see innocence; when we look at Ryan Seacrest’s productions, we see naughtiness framed as a secondhand experience. A man so averse to scandal that he takes pains to present himself as asexual, Seacrest is one of the few remaining examples of television’s “Least Objectionable Programming” doctrine, a remnant of the era of mass audiences. His particular evil genius has been to recognize that you can do just this but for every audience. Give the family hour what it wants, give the late-night gossipers what they want, and keep it all firmly separate with plausible deniability.

Throughout this season and last, the three “Idol” judges loved just about every audition home audiences were allowed to see. Nobody was terrible, or awful, or the worst thing anybody ever heard, to use the phrases of Simon Cowell, whose brutal honesty made the show in the first place.

That left with Cowell, leaving the teddy bear Randy Jackson as the meanest of the three, of all things. And the worst he’ll ever say is, “Dawg, singing is just not for you.” But mostly all he, Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler will ever say to the rare reject is “You’re not quite ready, sweetheart” or “Come back next year.”

Cowell was a record producer who didn’t have time for the bad, and no inclination to encourage the mediocre. More than that, he acted as if he had something on the line in considering these voices. The present judges, especially the marquee names, have no such urgency.

This far into the show, every remaining contestant seems a reminder of a past one: DeAndre Brackensick has the flowing curls of a Jason Castro (but a better voice); teary father Adam Brock the bespectacled look of Danny Gokey with blue-eyed gospel voice of Taylor Hicks. Fifteen-year-old Eben Franckewitz has the pre-puberty voice of a David Archuleta or some kid from “America’s Got Talent.”

There’s one guy with an unfortunate Vanilla Ice haircut and another who seems a little unstable until he’s allowed to play drums while singing; a third has just discovered he is the biological son of the lead singer for the truly terrible ’80s band Flotsam and Jetsam – a little flotsam off the old jetsam, if you will. It’s my favorite fun-fact about any contestant and he’s the last offspring of a famous person, since Jim Carrey’s daughter didn’t make it through Hollywood week.

Hollywood week was so hellacious this season, OSHA may want to investigate labor violations, since it pretty much forces newly formed groups to practice into the evening. So when they do perform, they’re sick or falling into the orchestra pit, or both.

If the current season has a voice of conscience it may be Heejun Han, who makes frank comments about the process and other contestants as if he’s not part of it, until it’s time for him to sing.

All of the guys are pretty good singers and already have an edge over the much more generic group of young women. Among them is David Leathers, an adorable round-faced kid with a voice like young Michael Jackson and the nickname “Mr. Steal Your Girl,” who is so obviously right for the show he plays the role Melanie Amaro played on “X Factor.” Her ouster was so glaringly mistaken, she was asked back to the show and won.

To get back on, Leathers will have to beat a giant with a soulful voice and another deep-voiced country kid with too big a cowboy hat (like the one who won Season 10 – can you remember his name now?).

The top 12 women, by contrast, seem too similar in their passable voices and smiley good looks — even their names are ridiculously similar: There’s a Hollie, a Hallie, a Haley and a Baylie. There are a few country belles in there, should audiences hanker for some more Lauren Alaina, who was runner-up last year in the all-country finals.

Among the women, there seems just a single standout: Big-voiced Jennifer Hirsh, who could be held back only because of her normal, healthy and non-traditional (that is to say: non-size zero) look. Unless voters with a long memory won’t mind harkening back to the first “American Idol” winner Kelly Clarkson, who by the way will be serving this season as a mentor … on “The Voice.”

Naturally, the online and print tabloids have eagerly celebrated her triumph — noting how weight loss success “does a body good” and marveling that “her figure is looking fabulous.” Reminder: This is copy written by adults — about a 16-year-old-girl. Suddenly I’ve lost my appetite.

Alaina tells Us that in addition to cutting back and doing “lots of squats,” she’s also relied on the low-carb, high-protein food delivery service Sunfare. And in an interview with Taste of Country, she admitted that she also has a personal trainer.

A young woman with a show business career and a deep-pocketed record label has every right to, as she puts it, better herself. Likewise, there’s nothing wrong with learning portion control, especially in a country where super-size is the norm and restaurant plates run to the size of manhole covers. And physical fitness is a sadly diminishing priority in too many young people’s lives.

Health and weight are not the same thing, however. And excuse me, but I don’t recall ever hearing a peep about the diverse bodies among other “Idol” contenders, including the generously proportioned Jacob Lusk. Alaina’s maxim that “you have to do it for yourself” sounds like a positive message of encouragement to other adolescents struggling to make healthy choices. But she’s also said things like: “I’m 10 pounds from my goal — almost there! I wear size small and extra-small now!” What’s 10 pounds less than extra-small? Lauren Alaina’s goal weight.

Earlier this month, Alaina told “Access Hollywood” that, “as a girl, a teenage girl, without even wanting to, you constantly compare yourself to other girls. It’s like I was in this competition with all these beautiful girls. Sometimes it would swallow me up. I would compare myself to those other girls to the point where it would make me sick, because I’m not like heavy, heavy, but I’m not the skinniest girl in the world.” Don’t worry, Lauren. Just a few pounds and a little more slavering encouragement from the celebrity press, and you will be.

For a decade now, “American Idol” has been winning fans with its weekly wallop of suspense and surprise, along with a fairy-tale conceit that fortune can smile on even the most obscure among us. It was a message that never really resonated for my family and me until this past season, when its variety show shtick turned out to be a surprisingly effective balm for our heartaches. The competitive song showdowns of James and Paul and Naima got us through a lot of rough, tearful nights, and so a pilgrimage to see our vocal heroes on their Idols Live tour seemed like an inevitable indulgence of grief therapy. And this week, after a new round of doctor visits, setbacks and concerns for loved ones, we had found ourselves clinging again to the prospect of awkward dance moves and Journey covers. Yet before last night, I’d never imagined how potent the show’s magic could be.

My daughters and I had never been to Newark’s Prudential Center, but as we stepped inside from a torrential summer downpour, we nonetheless instinctively beelined for our usual seats. Remember where Harry and his friends sat for the Quiddich World Cup in “Goblet of Fire”? That’s always us. Forget the nosebleed section — on my budget, it’s strictly the altitude sickness section for my kids. My children are accustomed to open rehearsals, Shakespeare in the park and college football games that start at halftime, when they let you in free. So accustomed are they to tickets that read “partial view,” they instinctively roost next to the back exits even at the movies.

Despite my daughters’ — and my own — genuine excitement at being part of the enthusiastic crowd, of getting to hear Pia, Lauren, Jacob and the rest belt out a few favorites, my heart sank as I approached our seats, located in an altogether different ZIP code from the stage. I wished, just once, to be someplace other than the last row. “Idol” had been a bright respite in an unbearably bleak period of illness and loss. I couldn’t resist a pang of envy for the families striding front and center, the ones swarming the concession stand for $30 souvenir books. “This is awesome,” I told the girls as we headed to the ladies’ room before the lights went down, “but sometimes I wish I could give you more.” Then a funny thing happened.

No sooner had the words left my lips when a man with an “Idol” staff badge casually nodded to us and asked, “You excited for the show?” And when my girls and I whooped in the affirmative, he asked, “Would you like to meet the Idols?”

As a skeptical New Yorker, I gave the only logical reply. “Look, dude,” I said, “I don’t have any money.”

“I’m not asking for money,” he said, handing us badges. “Come downstairs after the show for the meet and greet.” He was already walking away by the time we could sputter amazed thanks.

And so, after the show, a group of us — some clearly with connections and some just randomly selected goobers like us — found ourselves ushered through the bowels of the Prudential Center. We wended our way through a long tunnel until suddenly, there at our feet, was Lauren Alaina, plopped down on the floor signing autographs for a group of rapt fans. There was Casey Abrams, giving an ecstatic bear hug to fellow former contestant Brett Loewenstern. There were Pia Toscano and Haley Reinhart, hands on hips and posing for photographs. It was like opening a door to Wonderland. For a brief, happy time, the girls snapped pictures and gave eager, giddy hugs to the young men and women they’d passionately championed week after week all season long. (James Durbin, perhaps due to the Asperger’s and Tourette’s that can make socializing in crowds a challenge, wasn’t present.) My younger child, her loyalty to Lauren still fierce, refused to even approach this year’s champion, Scotty McCreery, preferring instead to engage in a serious bout of high-fiving with Jacob Lusk. Eventually the crowd thinned, and two train rides and much, much later, the kids made it to their beds, exhausted and exhilarated and still insistently wearing their badge-festooned T-shirts.

A few minutes with the stars of a TV-show-based musical revue won’t cure cancer, and they sure as hell aren’t a substitute for a lost family member. But that time last night was something else for my family, something nonetheless important. A little entertainment. A little bit of grace.

Soon after I was diagnosed with cancer, a friend who’d had his own harrowing year emailed me a few words of wisdom. “I’ve discovered the answer to ‘Why?’ is ‘Because,’ and the answer to ‘Why me?’ is ‘Why not you?’” he wrote. “So let people do astonishingly generous things for you. Know why? Because why not you?” As my beloved says, “Every time I have a worst-case scenario, I have to do a wildest dream come true as well. Every negative projection deserves a positive one. It’s only fair.” I like those odds.

Life is random and surprising. But it’s wonderful to remember that it’s often not just in the “oh crap, assume the crash-position” way. Sometimes you find a quarter on the sidewalk. Sometimes a friend calls right when you’re thinking of her. And sometimes, a fairy godmother in the form of a New Jersey security guard plucks you from the back row to backstage. Why? Why not? For no better reason than just because it’s your lucky night.