I can tell you the answer to that question in one word: drama. The Powers That Be at American Idol mistakenly think that makes for good TV, so they throw in this obnoxious group competition. I’m here to tell them why they’re wrong.
No one wants to see the sleep-deprived divas blubber and whine. We really don’t. And worse? I don’t want to see the seemingly normal contestants have to console and pacify the emotional wrecks. Why, oh why, is that supposed to be entertaining?
We really don’t watch for the personality clashes, the tears, the dorm room drama. We watch to celebrate the great talents.
I get that they may want to test out how the contestants will do when they get to the top ten and have to do the “Up with People” musical numbers, that cause us almost as much pain as they cause the performers. It is important to know how to work with people when you get that far. I mean, they’ve got those groovy Ford commercials they have to do together, right?
OK, all that said — once they got to the performance part, I loved it. Well, I very, very selectively loved small parts of it. The first group knocked it out of the park and I almost jumped off the couch cheering, I was so happy for them. OK, and then that group that wanted somebody to love? Oh, me, me, pick me! They were awesome!
I was also glad to see that some members of the group could make it through and didn’t ruin it for the whole group if they forgot the words or were generally horrible.
So, I guess I really only loved two performances out of the whole night, and I still stand by my theory that TPTB think the drama is good TV. What do you think?
Clacked by Debbie McDuffee
on Feb 05, 2009 @ 09:00 EST5EDT
Maybe they want to see how the singers will hold up under pressure, and the group singing is trial by fire.
I have to agree with bsgfan. Plus there is a subset of people (me being one of them) that does enjoy watching the drama and the cat fights.
And realistically it group performances are a MAJOR part of the show, albeit the contestants are usually guided by a professional for the later group performances, but by throwing the kids to the wolves like this you get to see what they are like under a lot of pressure. AI may be billed as a “singing competition” but it has a lot to do with personality as well, and if you can’t hold up under stress then you aren’t going to do so well when things get really difficult.
So my thought is that while this is drama and entertaining, it’s also a good gauge on how the kids will be able to deal with learning 3+ songs a week and the general stress of the competition.
It’s fun TV. Plus they want to see if you are a people person, you will have to work with people if you make it to the show.
American Idol- What’s the point?