We watched the first two seasons of American Idol, and although we enjoyed them, there were many things that we did not like.  We found out about Canadian Idol online and after watching some clips of Ryan Malcolm, we asked a friend in Canada to tape the second season for us.  We found it to be a much better show in every aspect imaginable and it has become one of our favorite shows.  We no longer watch American Idol.

Just like with the other Idol shows, Canadian Idol is a competition in search of the next star.  However, unlike American Idol, the judges actually seem to know what they are talking about and seem more invested in the outcome.  They offer helpful advice and even when they don't like a particular person, they still give them constructive criticism.  They start out with thousands of hopefuls and bring over 100 to Toronto where the judges whittle the number down to the contestants who will compete in the semi-finals.  The Canadian public then takes over and votes for their top 10 and continues to vote each week until there is a winner.

The best part of the show is how different it is from American Idol.  The judges, as previously mentioned, are very fair and generally likable people.  The top 10 contestants are usually talented and deserve to be in the finals.  There aren't a million episodes, and the results shows were not just filler and did not seem to go on forever, unlike on American Idol.  The finale actually has the contestants singing for the majority of it, and the host Ben Mulroney is very likable as well and fun to watch.  Another great thing about this show is how they are more willing to try new things, such as when they let the contestants play instruments (we believe they were the first idol show to allow them to do this).

The worst part of the show is how winning doesn't really mean anything in the end.  The winners of the show are guaranteed one rushed CD that they don't get much input on, and by the time it comes out the Canadian public has mostly moved on.  As you can see from looking at the past winners, they don't necessarily do better than the contestants that did not win, and most are even dropped from the label after their first album.  Another annoying part of the show is how Canada broadcasts American Idol, and most Americans don't even know that Canadian Idol exists!  There are so many talented contestants on Canadian Idol and it is a shame they don't have more recognition (or any, outside of Canada).

We can't really say that the show went wrong, because even though there were a few sub par seasons, it did bounce back again with season 6.

Kalan Porter winning season 2, Theo Tams winning season 6, Jacob Hoggard singing "Space Oddity" in his shiny blue skintight outfit, "The Canadian Railroad Trilogy" group performance by the second season's top 6, and the "Journey of a Lifetime" group song as performed by Ben Mulroney, Jon Dore, and the best of the worst of season 1.

Although we like many of the contestants, our favorites include Ryan Malcolm, Kalan Porter, Jacob Hoggard, and Theo Tams.  Ryan was the reason we started watching the show and we really enjoy his original music.  Kalan was just so cute on his season and really deserved to win.  His blogs are very funny and we look forward to where his music career will take him.  Jacob was very different and memorable and his original music with his band Hedley is the best we've heard out of any of the contestants from Canadian Idol.  And Theo might have been the most deserving winner out of them all and we rooted for him from his first audition.