The Best & Worst of American Idol (Limited Edition)

I admit, season 5 is the first season of "American Idol" that I started watching it. I ran out to buy this set after I saw the permiere episode of season 5. I was a little spectical at first but Im glad I bought this. Great for a American Idol beginner [like me.] or a avid watcher. I reccomend buying the best and worst together because you get a great bouns disc. This set is one of the best purchases I've made in a long time.


Disc one

Disc one is "The Best of American Idol". It features all the winning Idols audtions {Kelly Clarkson,Ruben Studdard, Fantasia Burrino and Carrie Underwood} You also get the runner-up audtions {Justin Gurinni, Clay Akien, Diana DeGarmo and Bo Bice.} Plus featuretts on how the show is made, "Cuddles" a extremely funny {yet disturbing} short with Paula Abdul and Simon Cowell going on a date. "Your a Star" with montages of good and bad audtions. This disk is great if you want to see great Kelly Clarkson preformances. If you want to see bad audtions get the worst of.

Disc 2

Disc two is "The Worst of American Idol". With Paula Abdul taking us through, we have everyone's favorites. {Mary Roach, Tamika Bush, Scat Girl and more.} Not only will you get William Hung's "She Bangs" audtion but you also get a extended audtion and "She Bangs" proformed with dancers!!! Be sure to take asprin before you watch this disc. Winning and Fun, this disc will be your favorite.

Disc 3

Disc 3 only comes if you buy the "Best and Worst" together. If you are fans of season 4 this disc is totally for you. Packed with interviews with Carrie Underwood and Bo Bice, this disc is OK if you like Carrie. The interview with Carrie lasts about 42:00 and unless you are a mega Carrie fan you'll get a kick out of the interviews. Bo Bice is very funny. I am a big Bice fan and I was so happy to see the Bicer in action! His interview was very very funny. The best feature on the disc is the "Carrie and Bo return home" feature. This feature allows viewers to go in-deph to where Carrie and Bo grew up. {The most winning thing on the disc is watching Bo return home!}

This is the number 1 thing for an American Idol fan to have. You won't be able to live without it. The only thing that bugs me is Carrie's profomance of "Could've Been" by Tiffany isn't here. There could've been more Consentine moments here. I think you only get one preformance from him. That's ok, Buy this now!!

The best thing about "American Idol: The Best & Worst of American Idol (Limited Edition) is not that Paula Abdul is "hosting" the three DVDs rather than Ryan Seacrest, but that all of the Worst bits are on the second of the three DVDs. After watching over an hour Keith Beukelaer and those who cannot sing and Tamika Bush and those who want to argue with the judges, I had to proceed to the third disc. I can only take so much, because I do not watch "American Idol" to see people humiliated, I watch it to see people who can sing learn how to perform in front of millions of viewers. Watching the premier of "American Idol V" this week I was totally disgusted by how not the judges but the producers of the show further ridiculed a young man with gender issues by playing the theme from "The Crying Game" underneath his post-audition meltdown. I really think those who audition and are given a hard reality check by the judges need to be venting at the producers who set them up and not Randy, Paula and Simon. At least William Hung brings a smile to your face for the right reasons, but he is really the only reason to go back and watch anything on the worst disc.

That is why I liked being able to see the complete auditions for the top two contestants from the show's first four seasons. Seeing the judges me impressed is always a lot more fun than watching them come up with minor variations on telling somebody they are terrible. Yes, it would be nice to see more of the memorable performances, but they do get beyond the winners and the winning moments from each season (Kelly Clarkson squealing and crying through "A Moment Like This" is still the best of those, although Fantasia's "I Believe" has its moments too). But "Breaking' Up is Hard to Do" was Ruben Studdard's best performance, and you can say the same for Clay Aiken's "Bridge Over Troubled Water," Fantasia Barrino's "Summertime," Bo Bice's a cappella "In a Dream," and Carrie Underwood's "Alone." They also get beyond the winners, so that you have Tamyra Gray's "Feel the Fire" and Constantine Maroulis' "My Funny Valentine." But you do end up with the eight auditions, nineteen featured performances, to go along with recaps of the seasons (the first three are dealt with together and then season four). There is also the infamous Paula and Simon kissing/nightmare bit (but not the spoof on the big stir about Paula from last year).

The third disc has an extensive interview with Carrie Underwood (the girl knows how to tell stories and the one about not being sure she wanted to actually get on an airplane and fly away from Chekotah is about as endearing as you can get), along with a follow up one with her and interviews with Bo Bice, Vonzell Solomon, and Constantine Maroulis. Then there are "extended never-before seen footage" of Carrie and Bo on their return trips home shortly before the 2005 "American Idol" was crowned. Then the finale is an exclusive Paula Abdul interview where she discusses her experience on the show and her relationships with the contestants and other judges. The interviews alone run close to two hours, so the bonus disc is not a skimpy throw-in. All things considered, fans of Carrie Underwood will be very happy with what they get to see of her on this disc. It even leads you to not only hope but actually believe that life in the big cities and the fast lane will not change this small town girl. She is definitely the star on this disc and makes up for the fact the "Worst" disc brings the overall rating of this collection down.

Well, I've been a HUGE fan of American Idol ever since the beggining. When I heard that they were releasing a 3 disc DVD, I was ecstatic. I thought that I would finally be able to get all those classic performances on DVD, but when I got this, I have to say that I was very dissapointed. Now, this does have SOME of those really great performances. like "Respect" by Kelly Clarkson, "Summertime" by Fantasia, and "Alone" by Carrie Underwood, among a few others, but there are definitley quite a few missing. For example, where is Jasmine Trias' performance of "Inseperable"? and they put Diana DeGarmo's performance of "Enough is Enough" but did not put her signature song "Don't Cry Out Loud", what gives? they also miss a bunch of other great performances, like "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" by Kimberley Locke, "Circle of Life" by Jennifer Hudson" and "This is the Night" by Clay Aiken. While I'll admit that this is a must have for an American Idol fan, I just hope that if they come out with another box set, they will re-think it and REALLY put the best of American Idol.

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