American Idol

Ho hum. I absolutely love American Idol. It is the one show I look forward to every season. Actually, I missed the first 3 seasons and started watching it during season 4 when I was in Israel (go Bo and Carrie! I'll never forget my Aussie roommate saying he enjoyed watching me watch AI because I always unconsciously grinned during it.) Through the magic of youtube I've been able to catch up on much of the earlier seasons (Fantasia was a star! Was bored by Ruben Studdard and Clay Aiken, but maybe it is because I didn't live through the week to week drama. Sorry, folks.) I really enjoyed last season also and thought Taylor, Mandisa, Paris, Bucky, Chris Daughtry and the others were all really terrific. I'll never understand why Katherine McPhee was in the finals since she is clearly a broadway singer, her bulemic thinness and current slutty makeover notwithstanding, but the drama and the singing were still great, even in the final episode. This season, however, is very different. I am bored. The audition episode focused too much on the ridiculous and the terrible and totally neglected the good auditions, which I crave just as much as the silly ones. They seemed to go on forever. Hollywood week was a bust and nothing was shown or said; I felt robbed. The top 24 performances aren't that intereting either. The guys in particular are dull, even tho tonight's second episode was much better than the first. I can't even remember their names even though I knew everyone in the past 2 seasons. They just are not memorable, except for Sundance because that name is impossible to forget. So far, only Blake has stood out for his good performance last week and his beatboxing this week. I didn't vote for Chris Sligh this week because when I went back and compared his performance of "Trouble" to Taylor's there was no comparison. Chris Sligh would not have even made it to the stage last season. The girls sang great last week, but somehow it was all very predictable. None of them seem to have a distinctive personality and all of the white girls look strangely identical and sound identical. I'm beginning to think that America has run out of talent and the show ought to take a 3 year hiatus. I also don't understand how that redhead managed to stay another week. She was atrocious! Hopefully, the performances will get better, but in previous seasons we did not have to wait for the shows to improve--they were great from the get-go.