I haven't seen the ep yet, but I'm also wondering how "blinded" the process is for getting on the stage in the first place, y'know? Are they picking many/any people who are "weird" looking? I mean, I loved Beverly and Nakia the first season, and neither of them are terribly conventionally attractive.

And where are the queer people this year??

Interview with a Full Metal Jousting contestant.

Video bios of the contestants.

Full Metal Jousting starts this Sunday on the History Channel.

Don't forget that we may see some of the rejected people again. If by the end of the blind auditions, all the judges don't have 12 people each, they bring back a bunch of the rejected ones. I would bet that the Yale guy gets in then. He had an okay voice, but he would be a total teen magnet.

I kind of loved/hated Alicia Key's backup singer. He's so fricking sexy and sounded great, but damn... tone down the cockiness just a bit!

I forgot how fun and addictive this show can be (I wasn't planning on watching until so many people were talking about it!)

He didn't come off that way to me. I really liked him, although I may have been blinded by the sexy. He just came off as really knowing his business, which worked for me.

If by the end of the blind auditions, all the judges don't have 12 people each, they bring back a bunch of the rejected ones.

Ooh, okay, so how does the format work then? How long are the blind auditions? After that, when it's teams, how does that work?

well, last year, they wanted each judge to have the same number of people.

so they brought some of the ousted back to sing again.

then when each judge has their team, there will be a sing off between members of the team - 2 people on each team sing the same song together.

their judge has to choose which one to keep.

these rounds continued until it was down to the final 4. that's when the public votes for the winner.

Okay, so public voting doesn't come in for a while.

I think it would be more interesting if more of the head to head competitions were between teams. Say, in Week X Blake goes up against Christina, the song is chosen, and they have to pick the best of their team to compete. Or something.

The sing-offs all being within a team just seems so strange, and like it reduces some of the competitive interest. Not to mention the competition among the judges.

Right now the judges only have 3 or 4 each, right? How many more audition shows are there? I know last year they showed people getting added to the teams without showing the full audition, but even so it seems like there will be at least 2 more two-hour shows.

At least that, I think.