TV is the New Reading

‘America’s Got … Issues’

Oh, it’s so hip and edgy! The judges have snitfests and storm off! David’s just nutty! Sharon’s a sweetie! Piers is a prig! And no one’s getting along!

Yawn.

Seriously, in the two-hour second-season premiere of “America’s Got Talent,” focused on the audition rounds in Dallas, there was so much camera time devoted to the judges’ antics and their worthless opinions about everything that we got to actually see only a couple dozen acts – mostly in snippet form.

Add to that Jerry Springer’s utter pointlessness and you’ve got this vacuous and annoying display groaning under the weight of far too many commercials.

The “unscripted” meltdown happened when this adorable 9-year-old wandered around on stage hopping occasionally in an unfocused cheerleading routine. See, in a world where 9-year-olds train for the Olympics and for national dance and ice-skating competitions, you need a little more going for you than sparkly hair.

But when judge Piers Morgan actually called her on that, judge Sharon Osbourne decided he was being a mean ol’ meanie and that she couldn’t take it anymore and she stormed off. Piers followed her, leaving the child alone with judge David Hasselhoff, which couldn’t have been a comfortable situation for anyone.

See, if the production team had hustled the child off stage and tried to do a little damage control, I’d believe it. If they’d cut that whole pointless scene I’d have appreciated it. But the fact that they let David and the child and the audience sit there while the cameras followed Sharon and Piers out suggested that they knew exactly how long this tantrum was going to take.

Piers basically scolded the girl’s mother for shoving her into a national spotlight. As well he should have. Watching things like this angers me because the audience is so sappy and the bar is so impossibly low it basically encourages a renewed celebration of mediocrity. “Aw, c’mon, it’s a person! Doing anything at all! Give ’em a million dollars!”

Not that that was enough. While the hoppy child touched Sharon’s sweet sentimental heart – not enough, however, for her to recommend she go on to the Las Vegas round, I noticed – there was a guy who’d clearly spent his entire life working out who did this amazing aerial routine and who also didn’t make it. Was he worth a million dollars? Maybe not, but at least he managed a bit of showmanship. He was one of several acts that got the “Thanks, but no thanks” from the judges.

The people who made it? They don’t stand out for me as much as the bombs, but there was this enormous family from Branson, Mo., who took over the entire stage with some incredible musical talent. And there was “Mr. Big,” a saxophonist who seemed to be channeling International Man of Mystery Austin Powers a little bit. And a very cool masked dance troupe.

Ultimately, it’s as entertaining as any other such thing you’ll see this summer, and the audition rounds are probably the funniest because there’s a greater chance of seeing thoroughly untalented people doing bizarre things. And maybe in the end, some actually talented person might accidentally win something.

But from where I’m sitting, that’s a far from foregone conclusion.

Features Editor Terry J. Aman compiles the Best Bets for The Minot Daily News.

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