American Idol Review: Missing Mr. Cowell

Okay people. I gave the show 3 weeks. The first week, the new judges had to sit down and get a feel for the place. Last week, I correctly called Week 2 “A Kinder, Gentler Idol”, and here we are at Week 3. And … well … it’s official. The American Idol auditions stink without Simon Cowell.

Honestly, this week’s auditions in both Austin, Texas and Los Angelos, California were kind of a borefest. Sure, there were the usual weirdos, whackjobs, and WTF? hopefuls, as well as the melodramatic storylines which direct us to the contestants we should fall in love with. There were even quite a few pleasant voices along the way. But something about all of it feels unauthentic. It’s like they are creating moments that aren’t really there, drama that doesn’t exist, and trying to make us fall in love with people that are really quite boring.  And as far as the judges’ responses to the bad voices, that’s boring too. It’s all a bit too lollipops and sunshine.

Here we have a panel of three judges who are putting way too many people through to Hollywood who simply do not deserve to go, and no one to give them a wake-up call and say, “Have you all gone batshit crazy?” I mean really - Why are these people going through? Because they cried and begged and told the judges how they’ve wanted this their whole lives? PLEASE! You are FIFTEEN YEARS OLD! Anyone who is 15 years old and uses the phrase “my whole life” is automatically someone I cannot get behind.

Another thing driving me crazy is that they are trying really hard to make Randy Jackson “the new Simon”, and it is not working. I’m onto you, Idol. I am not stupid. In the past, all Randy ever had to say was a bunch of nonsense like “Dawggg! That was pitchy dawg! That was not good! Yo yo yo …you did your thing dawg! Dawg!” -  but now, he magically is the “harsh” one on the panel; the one that J.Lo and Tyler have to remind to “be nice” or “simply tell them no.” Randy needs to just be Randy and stop trying to take the place of Simon’s hilarious quips, which were real and off the cuff. When Randy does it, it feels forced and not at all in his character.

There is a lot of that going on so far in this season’s Idol. Everyone remembers last years big and surprising instant hit of “Pants on the Ground” – the self-written song by General Larry Platt that was played over and over and remained in America’s collective head for months. This year, the producers tried to recreate that same magic again with some weird dude named “The Human Tornado”, aka Cooper Robinson. He was bizarre, frightening, strange, loud, and not at all interesting. The whole “Pants on the Ground” phenomenon was organic and unexpected, and that’s why it became so huge in our memory. This, on the other hand, was completely manufactured. And that’s really how the early part of Season 10 feels so far to me – a lot of manufacturing, and Much Ado about Nothing.

 Because of all of this, I am looking forward to Hollywood Week, as the auditions just aren’t much fun without the witty British guy making funny comments, cracking up laughing at bad contestants, and putting everyone in their place.  I have nothing against J. Lo and Steven Tyler – in fact, I quite like them. I just can’t seem to get into these auditions like I have every other past season. I just miss Simon.

Audition Moments: Good, Bad, and Other

• An authentic cowboy actually named John Wayne, who lives on a ranch in Texas with his parents. His mother is a cancer survivor, and Wayne promised her that he would audition for the show. He got through.
• Courtney Penry, a girl who is off-her-rocker crazy and has a definite thing for Ryan Seacrest. Her audition was average at best, but they put her through anyway. She seems to have a few screws missing, so it might be fun to watch her stalk Seacrest if she makes it any further on the show.
• “Power Couple” in love Jacqueline Dunford and Nick Fink, who both had excellent voices and got through as a couple of sweethearts walking into the audition room holding hands. I liked them.
• Casey Abrams – a guy who sang some killer Ray Charles with some pretty amazing pipes. I think he might be my favorite so far. Absolutely loved him.
• A man dressed as an Armidillo … well ….that’s really all I need to say.
• The two best “WTF” scary-bad voices of the day went to Victoria Garrett and William Roberts. Both sounded like some sort of crime was being commited inside their throats.
• Karen Rodriguez from NYC, who wants to be the first ever Latina winner. Beautifully rich voice and sang one of my favorite Whitney songs, “You Give Good Love.”
• Brothers Mark and Aaron Gutierrez. Two nerds with colorful scarves and Mister Rodgers sweaters who had fantastic harmony in their duet, and got through to Hollywood together. They were like a creepy male version of Donny and Marie Osmond with their weird sibling sappy love for one another. Very talented, however.

Three things that were a mystery to me during this week’s episodes

1. What was up with all the yellowish, nasty teeth and bad acne in Los Angelos, California? Holy Crap! Is there a toothpaste shortage in that state right now? Wow. Maybe we need that weird dude  from last week with the giant toothbrush to come back and give these people a talking to.

2. Can someone please tell me WHY this show spent soooo much time focusing on the backstory of Isaac Rodriguez and Daniel Gomez??? These two were the biggest BORES on the planet, yet they spent what seemed like AGES telling us about their life history and showing us their entire audition. These two had zero personality, and their voices were mediocre at best. Definately not anything memorable at all. I have no clue why the show focused on these two. What a snoozefest that was.

3. The producers did something different this year by holding online auditions on MySpace, then choosing a few select people to attend the live auditions and possibly get through. Fine. But why not Twitter or Facebook? MySpace? Really? Seriously? Who the hell uses MySpace anymore? What is this – 2004?

In any case, let’s hope that things improve in the way of entertainment on this show that I used to love so very much. Right now, it seems to have lost its edge.

Need more Idol? Read “Don’t Call It A Comeback” by Erin Biglow.

Season 10, Episodes 5-6 (originally aired February 2 & 3, 2011)

Wednesdays and Thursdays, 8/7c on FOX

Images courtesy of imdbpro

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