I know I haven’t posted much about this season of “American Idol,” but, to be honest, I’m finding it tougher and tougher to watch each season, and not just in a “con sarnit, the old seasons’re better!!!” grizzled prospector kind of way (although I do yell this at the screen all the time). I’ll try to explain why this is.
The way that the 65 weeks of “Idol” elimination are structured, with only one person getting booted off each week, it’s very, very hard to watch when you know that half the contestants have no chance of winning, so you’re basically just tuning in to see the exact order in which the subpar contestants get officially eliminated. How can I even pretend to feel the slightest bit of suspense awaiting the elimination announcement between the bottom three of Ramiele Malubay, Kristy Lee Cook, and Brook White when we know none of these three is going to win the competition?
I know the show has always been this way, but my God, Kristy Lee Cook has been in the bottom three since her damn audition, when the judges happily declared “You are goin’ to Hollywooooooood!!! And you’re in the bottom three perpetually until you eventually lose, beginning now!!!” She survived the “Eight Days a Week” country medley, she was in the bottom three again on Dolly Parton week which should’ve been her time to shine — what does this person have to do to get voted off? Maybe change the theme-week song to an impromptu Weird Al parody about Simon Cowell loving Jell-O?
My point is, Cook will definitely get voted off in the next couple weeks, so why would anyone who isn’t a direct relative watch the show with any kind of eager anticipation until that happens? It’d be like taking “The Apprentice” seriously before all the minority candidates are voted off. Or taking “The Apprentice” seriously ever, in retrospect.
I didn’t mean for this to sound like a personal attack on Ms. Lee Cook, who I’m sure reads this blog and values my opinion highly — no reason to single her out, there are obvious non-winners in every “Idol” season, but she’s the most glaring recent example of why this show is harder and harder to watch each year. She’s not going to pull some miracle sudden goodness and shock the world by winning the competition. It’s based on votes, you can’t orchestrate an upset yourself like it’s the NBA Playoffs, plus if she did win it’d be even more disconcerting (slash retarded).
I just hope the Fox producers will take my observation to heart once the cartoon dollar sign sacks generated by last night’s episode stop raining from the ceiling. My guess is, they definitely will.
