I used to watch pretty regularly during seasons 2 and 3. Then I stopped. Because, for the most part, I stopped caring. Now, I only enjoy watching the sideshow audition shows that kick the season off in January. Once they hit Hollywood, I’m out of there.

But I did watch the finale.

That show last night was Exhibit A as to why I don’t watch anymore. It was the results show. Everyone wants to see who wins. It’s literally a 5 minte show that they streeeeeetch into a 2 hour infomercial extravaganza. Everything is an ad - Coke product placement, AT&T product placement, Mike Myers douching it up for his new movie, Jonas Brothers and a somewhat sad-looking and sounding George Michael promoting summer tours. There’s the 12 Idol finalists basically doing the bits they’ll do during the summer tour. There’s Bryan Adams who’s hawking a new CD that no one really cares about. There’s Carrie Underwood who, as a WaPo columnist put it,

dressed as a Wimbledon streetwalker with a hammock slung between her arms, singing her newest tune about hopping into the sack with a random guy and waking up married to him so she doesn’t even know her new “Last Name.”

A half-hour show would have been plenty. A one-hour show, I could have understood. But two solid hours of promotion? I don’t sit through infomercials for scam artist Kevin Trudeau, so it pained me to sit through this marketing-fest.

And that’s why, come next year, I’ll sit through the audition shows and then drop out when they reach Hollywood. Because it’s a show that is already somewhat of an insult to one’s intelligence. They don’t have to pile on.