Thursday, January 18, 2007

It's that American Idol time again

Yay, it's that American Idol time of the year again. I don't really watch much TV these days, and normally I wouldn't be happy with the plethora of reality shows flooding the world, but American Idol is one of the few things on TV that still manages to perk up my interest.

Last season I skipped watching most of the audition phase and Hollywood eliminations and even the semifinals. I thought it would be good enough to just start paying attention when the crowd of contestants was narrowed down to the top 12, but there were a bunch of times towards the end of the season that I really wished I had been following it from the beginning... So I'll try to do that this time around, not missing any episodes from now until the May finale, even if it means watching it when Star World replays it at 11:30PM (or 2:30AM, should the need arise!).

So yeah, I did stay up late last night to watch the 2-hour season premiere at 11:30PM. It was the typical auditions episode, complete with lots of hilarity and a little bit of talent and some other sprinklings of human interest stories. I wish there was more talent in this talent show though... almost none of the "good" performances I saw last night had any spark of the stuff that gives me the good goosebumps. Anyway, the auditions are worth watching even if just to see a bad singer take a verbal thrashing.
Auditionee: "Is there anything I can do to improve?"
Simon: "Leave."
Ah, brilliant. :)

6 comments:

  1. who doesn't love American Idol? :D
    I'll be watching it tonight. Yey for torrents. Can't wait!
    Glad you didn't reveal more details of the show :P

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  2. Mike's not the type to blog any spoilers. He's the type to give you spoilers in person. ;-)

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  3. Well, it's still the auditions. Even if I did go into detail there's not a whole lot of info that would be considered spoilers.

    Not like saying that Bruce Willis is already dead in The Sixth Sense.

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  4. SPOILER!
    Near the end of Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ, Jesus DIES!

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  5. Apparently, there is a screening process that was originally supposed to allow only the most talented singers to peform before the judges. It's kind of like the first cut, if you will. However, because the bad singers seem to draw as much of a TV audience as the good ones, they actually screen performers for pure entertainment value...whether great or horrible. They just need to allow enough great ones in to meet their quota.

    It isn't really fair to people with talent because in some cases their time slots are filled with some of these bad singers. The show has gotten so huge that they don't have enough time or available spots to insure that the best talent is represented. Some of the best don't even appear before Simon and the others.

    Oh, well...advertising dollars take precedence. And the show seems to be doing just fine as is.

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  6. Yeah, I did read somewhere that there's a pre-audition screening where the pick people based on either singing talent or entertainment value or human interest. I've always suspected that, actually. They couldn't possibly get tens of thousands of people to personally perform for the judges. I don't like thinking about this screening process though... it dampens the feeling of spontaneousness, even though it's necessary.

    Oh well, if it ain't broke...

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