Yay!
No big surprises this time around. Latoya was a lock, and while I didn't think Amy had the second-best performance, she wasn't that far off, and I was pulling for her just on the basis of her personality. And, okay, maybe her hair. Anyway, this is the first group in which I'm unambiguously satisfied with the voting results.
I've been meaning to say this somewhere, and this is as good a place as any: American Idol is really three different shows, or at least a show with three distinct phases, and this is the first year in which I'm watching the second of them all the way through.
You can probably skip the rest of this, but to clarify... The first phase has the auditions: there's no voting, and much of the entertainment value is in watching the bad performances (and the occasional good one), not to mention watching the judges crumble after days of suffering through those bad performances. The second phase consists of choosing the top 12, in which most of the performers go home for good at the end of each week. The final phase is the main competition, with the question being not who'll get the most votes, but who'll get the least and have to go home.
The first season, I watched the auditions ('cause a friend of mine was in them), then lost interest for a bit ('cause he didn't make the final cut), then came back somewhere towards the start of what, that year, was the Top 10. The second season, I was on the road at the start of the season, and started watching it again during the Wild Card round, if I recall correctly. This year, I missed two of the audition shows due to VCR mishaps, but I've otherwise been watching it the whole way through.
Anyway, this part of the season is fun as far as it goes, but I'm really looking forward to the Top 12. That's when it gets good.
Posted by Shmuel at February 25, 2004 10:04 PM