Idol-ized

It's true. I'm officially hooked on "American Idol".

My relationship with Idol goes back several years. Since about season 3 or 4, I watched about 30 minutes of one of the early audition shows every season- just enough to catch a few of the horrible or hilarious performances for that year. At the time, I had no appreciation for the good performances; in fact, they were far less appealing to me than the bad ones. I enjoyed that 30 minutes a season, and needed no more than that. Never watched another minute of it for the rest of the year.

This season, for some reason, I don't think I watched any of the audition shows (still haven't seen the "pants on the ground" guy). But at some point, the kids (led by Brendan, I believe) asked if we could watch Idol together as a family. The first episode we watched was the first episode of Hollywood Week, when all the contestants with the yellow tickets from the auditions get together for the first time to compete for the finals. I was intrigued. The talent was better than I expected, but most importantly, I felt drawn in to several of the contestants already after that first show.

We watched again together the next night, then set the DVR for a season pass to record it every week. By the second week, my fledgling attraction had become more like a passion. Now that the competition is in full swing, it truly is appointment television. Even though it's recorded, we're all in front of the TV every Tuesday and Wednesday night, and voting on Tuesdays along with 30 million others.

From what I read and hear, this year's cast of contestants is less interesting than some of the previous casts, but since it's all I know, I'm enjoying them quite a bit. I've already got favorites (Lee and Crystal) and ones I can't stand (Casey and Siobhan), and feel like the middle-aged hack that I am when I critique their performances and argue with the judges.

I'll be sad to see it go when it ends later this spring, mostly because watching it has become a fun family event but also because it's the first show in ages that I've watched on a weekly basis and I'll have a void that needs to be filled. By then, I think Molly will have rehearsed enough that she'll gladly stand in as the first contestant in our home game. Owen will be the witty schmoozing host, and Brendan of course will be the acerbic judge ready to groom his protege into a superstar.