The Trainwreck: It's Over (Almost)

I've been waiting for a while to get this off my chest...

So for several weeks now I have been inexplicably drawn to spending far too many hours of my life in front of American Idol, and it's more ridiculous in scope and singers than ever before. I've always been annoyed by the audition rounds (including the undeniable plants and lame drama that inevitably surfaces), but this year, more than ever, for whatever reason, I have found myself patently and uncategorically bored. I don't know why this season more than others, but I was almost never even slightly amused! I was annoyed and rolled my eyes about a thousand times (Bikini Girl, schizophrenic Tatiana, overcompensating-for-something "Norman Gentle" and drama crybaby Nathaniel... seriously dude, just stop being a girl and get ahold of yourself... and some pants that fit... oh, and lose the headbands), but hardly ever impressed or entertained. Strange as it sounds, the one redeeming factor of the entire show seems to be Seacrest, who, despite his cheesiness and bad script, is able to seem somewhat genuine and acts as the glue that holds the whole staged thing together. The judges are as dry and canned as ever, including Paula 2.0, whose presence seems absolutely unnecessary (although at least she can sing, I guess). Whose idea was it to have four judges anyway?? If Paula's on her way out next year, they should have just introduced a new judge when she left, it's not like you need to be trained to be a judge for this circus.

Anyway, now that the auditions and Hollywood rounds are finally over, and we're down to the top 36, at least the initial stages are past and now it's more like a talent show than a rigged piece of reality soap opera. Now at least there's some semblance of honesty to the program, since the outcome is purportedly the result of viewer votes, although that leads to some questionability about the system as well. A lot of you might be wondering, and Cami and I were discussing why (OH WHY) if it's so absurd do we keep watching it? The answer is simple, but still complicated: No idea. There's some kind of bizarre draw that just can't be explained. Call it morbid curiosity. Thank heaven for good TV, though, to offset this pile of steaming garbage.

As far as I'm concerned, the purpose of American Idol was to bring us Kelly, Clay, and maybe Carrie, and now that they have, there's no real reason to keep it around.