Nick Fradiani becomes the 14th American Idol

You can check out more info and a video of Nick's win on USA Today here.

I don't know if Nick winning is good or bad? For the first season ever, I really have no opinion LOL. Did he deserve it? I do know that my gut instinct seeing him doing some of the group numbers last night (and some of the folks who got the boot along the way) that maybe he was one of those Idols who was just "aa-iight" enough week-to-week that he got the votes? That could be unfair, but I swear I heard more exciting voices from some of the others.

Then again, that is a phenomenon I have observed in other seasons: for lots of reasons (stress mostly) the Idol rejects seem to sound better after they have a few weeks off, and come back for the Finale. Have you guys noticed this as well? A lot of times they even look like they're having fun for a change.

So in any case, Nick is our winner, for the penultimate season. I read one rationale that Idol didn't just pack it in this year was that they already have auditions in the pipeline for next year and it was too late to cancel them (this is true). But I also think Idol will treat this last season as a kind of year-long retrospective, don't you think? I'll bet a lot of the old faces we haven't seen for a while will be back.

I feel bad in a way that Dr. L and I were so busy doing other things that we did not watch most of this season. It's not like we didn't watch TV; if anything we watched even more of it. But Idol (if you really watch ALL of the hours leading up to the show, and the padded two hour broadcasts) is a real time commitment that we chose not to make this year. I guess the rating show we weren't alone. One stat I read was that after the EMPIRE season ended (serving as a lead-in or -out for Idol, I believe, right?) that Idol's rating plummeted 29% that next week. Ouch! And the numbers for the Finale were even worse.

So as for us, during most weeks we watched Gotham, Castle, Supernatural, Goldbergs, AoS.H.I.E.L.D., Grace and Frankie, Daredevil, The Fall, Mad Men, Flip or Flop, Game of Thrones, Hart of Dixie, The Walking Dead… and these are just the ones I remembered that we watch regularly, not to mention the occasional Netflix documentary or stand-up show, or all of the movies we saw on TV or at the theater.

I think Idol just kept getting bumped down on our priority list? And like Rubbertoe has said, some of the best parts of the show aren't even the actual competition. So we missed out on those, and then we didn't have that connection to the contestants. There were some favorites by then that truly baffled me, I couldn't believe they made it. And then the format changed, blah blah. It just wasn't the old Idol.

So there were some good years on Idol and I was glad we watched it, but to me it kind of hung around too late at the party? I won't miss it as much as I will miss this blog! So maybe we can find another crazy ass show to talk about. And we have one more year of Idol, so I will be on board for that for sure. Let's get in to see some of these last shows, y'all!

I would love to hear if you guys had any thoughts about Nick's win! It just seems like a "meh" to me, maybe not on par with Lee DeWyze but closer to that than the first 5 seasons. But maybe it was a good thing! Maybe the right guy won.

K Out!