Three unneccessary judges

Last night the wife and I watched Tuesday's American Idol -- it was TiVo'd. This is the beginning of the season, so they're auditioning tens of thousands of singers. They were in Minnisota so the usual 3 judges were joined by Jewel, making a panel of four. Of the thousands of auditioners, many many of them are terrible and have no hope of winning. There are some who have no hope for anything. Many sing out of key, meekly, and in a narrow range. (Interesting note: 9 times out of 10 a guy who can only sing in falseto but lacks a mid-range and a bass, or a girl who can only sing deeply but lacks a mid-range and a saprano will describe themselves as having a great range.)

They're reactions to being told they should not be singing are mixed; some have set their hopes on winning this competition and becoming rich and famous and I assume loved, so that when they get cut they shatter.

There are also several whose reactions border on violence. They debate the judges, tell them "you only heard one song," and leave the room yelling obscenities.

This is the part everyone tunes into, of course, the "drama" that surrounds these whirling tazmanian devils of failure. Of course the producers know this and edit the shows to include the dramatic failures and exclude those who solemnly and gracefully accept that they will not win the contest. But since these people never make it into the show, we can only assume they exist; we can be certain that there are many vith violent delusions of grandeur.

There was something I noticed in watching last night that makes this explitive-flinging croud all the more amusing: the judges always agree. There was never a case of a border-line singer being given two thumbs up and one thumb down. In fact, of those given the golden ticket to Holywood, I was iffy on half of them, thinking they were pitchy or their voice went thin in the high notes... I would have expected the judges to be split.

But not once was their dissent amongst the judges. Their bar was low but way higher than most could get to. And the judges agreed on exactly where that bar belonged.

So effectively, there was a single judge up there, and three unneccessary ones. Why? Why hire 3 judges? Why go the next step further to hire a fourth guest judge?

I think it's because of the delusionals who protest and yell and scream and shake their fists at the judges. If there were only one judge telling a delusional that their voice is made for the deaf, then the bodyguards in wings (we never get to see them, but you know they are there) would have to step in and break up dozens of fights. The unneccessary judges are there to provide saftey; saftey in numbers. I could probably take Simon, but I don't think I could take Simon and Randy, and certainly not if Paula were there scratching at me. I'm not sure the presence or absence of Jewel would make much of a difference for me. She probably knows how to fight, but she's only 100 pounds.