Fox's American Idol returns to dominate TV.

Fox has thrown the second of their late season one-two punch as American Idol season 206 premiered last night. It will also be on tonight (Wednesday) at 7 central. The first few shows are the audition phase of American Idol and my personal favorite of the season. You get to see the worst of the worst. Like Mr. Tony Kornheiser said earlier today on his radio show, when it gets down to the final 6 to 8 singers, they are all pretty good. Sure there may be one that stands out, but many of them will have their own record deal before the end of the show.

Last night was a two hour show and the audition took place in Chicago, my kind of town, Chicago. All three judges were there, Randy “Dog, Dude” Jackson, Paula Abdul, and the star of the show, Simon Cowell. Cowell is the star, especially during the audition phase because he likes to destroy bad singers. And last night was no exception. In fact, I almost could not take the abuse. It seemed like Idol had become extra mean. Don’t get me wrong, if a person comes on there and thinks they can sing, but they peel paint off walls, then they deserve to get some abuse, but last night it seemed to go over the edge. Even Randy and Paula seemed to be extra prickly during some moments of the show.

The best and worst moment was when a ditzy 16 year old girl who looked as though Paris Hilton was her American idol walked in. Right off the bat, Cowell started to make fun of the way she looked. Granted she had one of the worst spray on tans I have ever seen, but he just kept going on. After her horrible audition, Cowell continued to make fun of her and then asked to see her mother and proceeded to make fun of both of them. I thought that was a little over the edge, but as I said earlier, if you come on and do horribly then you should get some abuse. That is why the show is so good.

Other than some of the more uncomfortable moments like that, it was a good show. Quite a few singers were good, but that is not what you watch for. There were a couple of firsts on Idol last night. One was a person sang a song that had to have some words bleeped out. I have never seen a singer audition with a song filled with profanity. It suited the young lady who sang it because after she was told no, she cussed and cussed and cussed all the way out into the street. It was very entertaining.

Then we had some crazy bare footed farm boy who claimed to be able to talk to animals was really horrible. Randy for some crazy reason said yes, Cowell said never and then crazy old Paula said yes and sent this half a moron to Hollywood. Cowell actually looked p*&%^ed off and I thought he was going to walk off. All in all, the show was pretty good though much like Survivor, I am starting to get tired of it all. Surely this can’t last for much longer. I guess as long as there are idiots who will do anything to get on TV, we will continue to have shows like this.