To me, the only reasons to watch this show were the early-season tryout episodes showcasing the delusional freak show contestants. Once they got to the actual competition I stopped watching, because honestly who cares.

I really enjoyed the first season, back when there were two hosts. There was Ryan Seacrest, the terrible human with no redeeming qualities. Then there was Brian Dunkleman, hilarious and entertaining. Unfortunately he didn't get the memo that America doesn't care about that if you aren't good looking and fail to give yourself a good stage name. I'll never forgive the show for cutting Dunkleman after the first season.

I've watched every single season since inception. It's my guilty pleasure (along with Big Brother) The best part was obviously the auditions, especially the early seasons with Randy and Simon just laughing in people's faces (William Hung) What kept me watching was the singing talent. Some truly great voices came out of this show, most notably Carrie Underwood. Remember when people were trolling the show and voting for the bad contestants? Looking at you Sanjaya. That's gonna be a no from me dog!

Take the excellent concept of bringing unknown talent to the stage, then ruin it with sadistic, high-pressure, over-produced contest which does not even come close to fair or representative of anything but the power to auto-dial.

I found this show's ratings dominance super annoying.

https://youtu.be/lHjIXCCHh3s

Demoralization propaganda for scholars? At times needlessly cruel as a sport, but mostly just rewards artistic conformity. Sometimes audition reels are funny, you wonder if they are staged just for attention sometimes? Other times, it’s just some little weirdo doing their thing & getting dissed for it when it wasn’t objectively bad, it was just quirky. It’s the kind of show that makes me feel like human mass extinction is probably fine, but then I remember it’s just a fraction of one country.

How to rate these shows that go on for 20 seasons of extremely variable quality? Almost impossible. (Especially when you stop watching).

it gave us masterpiece performances, more specifically that by Mary Guilbeaux AKA icon supreme of the universe.

Despite occasionally having incredibly talented people, American Idol suffers from focusing on compelling backstory than compelling performances. It also lost all credibility after Simon Cowell left the judges' table.

I was a huge fan of this show in its early days. I tuned out for the Mariah Carey / Nicki Minaj season because I couldn't stand them, but much of what came later I still enjoyed. The new series? Well... while I find the judges entertaining, they're not great judges. What frustrates me the most is the show is too short, cutting too many people too quickly, and now they don't even stand by their winners anymore, instead picking a favorite and promoting them even if they lose. Disappointing.

How do you rate a show that's run the gamut from great to awful? When it really was about the contestants and the music, it was great. When it became about drama and nonsense, it was Jerry Springer. It lost its way quickly.

It's a show with no redeeming qualities. They willingly exploit people so the fat fucks watching this (seriously, everyone who watches this show is fat for some reason) can feel good about themselves for half a minute. Simon Cowell isn't clever or funny, Paula Abdul is useless unless she does a line of coke before hand, and Randy Jackson's "I'm a black guy" shtick gets old so fast. Dave Grohl's comments on this show sum up exactly how I feel

Not my cup of tea, as music is such a varied and taste subject medium. This manages to make mostly crappy covers of songs made by way more talented people, which isn't fair.