American Idol 11 – The cross-country auditions are over

They went to several new regions this time!

Series producer Nigel Lithgow and co-creator Simon Fuller also finally changed some things for the better. Most of the shows were only an hour, so they were more focused on showing us the talented people instead of all of the awful ones. Those still showed up on screen long enough to be told “No.” and a small handful of them got full air time (we  couldn’t have been amazed at Magic Cyclops otherwise), but overall the pain was diminished.

The only disappointing thing: we didn’t have a ‘Pants on the Ground’-like thing this year.

American Idol 10 has begun!

New judges Steven Tyler and Jennifer Lopez are okay, but there’s now no mean judge like Simon Cowell. He’s often been a jerk, but let’s face a fact: that was often what drew ratings.

When they played Dream On for Tyler I expected it to be mentioned how contestant Danny Goki butchered the song a few years ago.

There weren’t as many ‘train wreck’ auditions shown as usual, but this was just the first night. Only one contestant stood out as a sacrificial Hollywood lamb too… a cute singing waitress.