Welcome back to American Idol, and hours and hours of the same old stuff. The audition weeks have become caricatures of what they once were. The bad contestants can't just be bad, they have to be bad and come in costume. And you can spot the good contestants before they ever sing, because there's a whole produced segment about them. Oh look, a Navy guy – let's get footage of his aircraft carrier. Naturally we know that they went to the trouble to get that footage after he was selected.

Every judge (including Jewel) is mean this year, but mostly in a sort of "Oh come on, are you kidding me?" way. It's like they're bored with the whole thing.

They also do that thing that everybody hated last year, where they make a montage of all the bad singers all singing the same song. So, in other words, these people were told that they were horrible, and then told "Sing some more." Most of those people walked out of their audition screaming, cursing and crying…so why would they sing more just so they can be mocked again?

The first night reveals very few good singers at all. But perhaps the worst thing is that every bad singer gets a very lengthy segment. Why? From the minute they open their mouths it's obvious that they're not going anywhere. So why let them sing a complete song, and then keep them around chatting? I was fast forwarding quite a bit.

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