Checking Out America’s Got Talent

For someone purportedly interested in regressive entertainment, I watch a woefully low amount of reality television. I swear, it’s not my latent elitism rearing its head! Well, maybe when it comes to The Jersey Shore. I watched episode one of that just to see what the buzz was all about, and my soul imploded. I have yet to order a new one off of eBay.

But I’ve enjoyed some of the other reality shows. I watched the first season of Survivor with my sister and her wife, and found it fascinating — no one seemed to know how that show would develop that inaugural year or what the rules would be. I watched the first season of American Idol and was impressed by the producers’ ability to construct a narrative arc out of a talent show, something which is now fairly common. I watched the first season of America’s Top Model with some friends and it was deliciously trashy. I mean, who knew that Adrienne Curry would be lighting up the Twitterverse all these years down the line? More recently, I enjoyed The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills for similar reasons.

But I’ve stayed away from America’s Got Talent…until now.

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