American Idol Season 8: Joining the Party
Gene and I are coming late to the American Idol party. Neither of us has ever watched even a single episode before. We've been certain that Idol is not our type of show.But we've heard the buzz loud and long; finally we decide to see for ourselves. Not wanting to dive in the middle of a season, we save ourselves for the Season 8 premier.
The show opens at the Phoenix auditions, and we think we are watching an Obama rally. The screaming excitement and shameless posing of the Idol hopefuls baffles us. Because we are not hooked on the show. Yet.
All they can say about Phoenix is that it's hot. Wednesday night, they show the Kansas City auditions. Kansas City, whose best view is in the rear view mirror, is positioned by Idol as a hotbed of talent, because David Cook hails from Kansas City, whoever he is. Half the show elapses before we realize why there are so many Wizard of Oz references and so many renditions of Somewhere Over the Rainbow.
Little Ryan Seacrest's role seems superfluous, like one more fly on the wall than you need. My opinion of Seacrest may be biased because of Joel McHale's constant berating of him on The Soup.
Is something wrong with Paula? Why is Simon such a dick to her? Has he been harassing her like this for eight seasons? We keep watching which direction the judges' heads are shaking. Why are the contestants begging for another chance? We can tell what Simon is thinking, we think, by the look on his face. He gets this little smile, showing no upper lip, when he likes someone.
It dawns on us that to be true Idolers, we won't be able to DVR this show all season . . . isn't the real-time voting a big part of the draw?
We hope all this fluff, the shots of the crowds, the previous season flashbacks are only part of the audition show. Please be only part of the audition show.
Labels: American Idol, Joel McHale, Paula Abdul, Simon Cowell, The Soup
posted by Gene and Kate @ 9:13 PM
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2 Comments:
Kia ora Katie,
I have a bit of reading to catch up on here, particularly your Paris trip. I think you and Gene are about 4 years too late to catch onto this American weirdness, but I certainly wish you the best of luck in sticking it out. I am still sticking to the NEVER watched an episode of this tripe, and proud of it!
We had a pretty cool holiday here, a month off, and Tara and I even managed to get down south by ourselves, connected with some very interesting people, and enjoyed our first holiday alone in a long time. Please send an email as our computer fried a while back taking our address book with it. My aroha to you both.
Robb
I've watched it since the very first year although I don't know how I originally stumbled upon the show; I think I was channel surfing. I don't particularly like the part of the season we're currently seeing -- the auditions. I like it when it gets down to the top 20. I think it was the top 12 the first year I stumbled upon it.
I don't like it when they're mean to the contestants either--last year was particularly nasty. I'm glad they switched it up a bit this year by adding a new judge because it was getting stale.
I never phone in and vote. I'm a big one for DVR'ing it because a) I love blasting through the commercials and b) it often runs past my bedtime.
The first 2 years you could pretty much watch it on your own schedule and the unknown of who got voted off wasn't revealed until you chose to watch your DVR. Sometime in the last few years it's become almost the first news item on my morning news. The DJs on the ride into work too will yammer on about the show. Geesh. I like the show but not that much to have a DJ rehash it for minutes on end.
Speaking of yammering on, I'd best shaddup now.
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