The Best & Worst Of American Idol: Seasons 1 –
4
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Extras: C Highlights: C
What hit
TV show has helped to destroy mainstream music as we know it? When I was watching American Dreamz (reviewed elsewhere on this site) and realized that
fans always vicariously lived through some Pop stars. Now, the idea is to do this on the
cheap. The ironically titled The Best & Worst Of American Idol:
Seasons 1 – 4 (issued in 2005) is 99% bad performances by people willing to
humiliate themselves jerry Springer style while searching for the shallowest of
acceptance.
Like
those self-hate shows, this one debases the viewer as severely as the
participants, but takes down the artform of music in the process. It is a one-joke show, where the joke wears
thin very, very quickly. I even felt bad
for some of the participants. At what
point is the price of fame and success, especially when you know you have
little talent or chance of long-term survival (if you can even think of this or
this coherently when selling your soul) if you “win” the contest. Even worse, this has inspired several hit
imitators. The set is a testament to how
bad the show is and a 3” DVD could have fit all you need to see from these
three discs.
The 1.33
X 1 image is the lack-of-definition, color-limited professional NTSC video
typical of such a cheap show. The Dolby
Digital 2.0 Stereo has no surrounds surprisingly and is not that great for
music, but then it exceeds the music’s quality.
Extras include interviews, the Underwood/Bruce “homecoming” and Paula
Abdul interview. Poor Paula. Even her limited DVD of six of her Music
Videos was poor. Hope she does better
next time and gets her money for this stint.
- Nicholas Sheffo
