THAT was rough. For a two-hour premiere we saw precious few people who have even a shot at making it to the voting rounds. Of them, Angela Martin (26) seems to be a pretty good bet. Angela has several things going for her. First, she's gorgeous, and has amazing hair. Second, she's charming as all get out. Third, she's got one of the saddest stories I've ever heard on this show, as her young daughter suffers from a debilitating CP-like illness. And fourth, she's got a decent voice. Not a great voice, as she demonstrated on "Signed, Sealed, Delivered" (terrible audition song). She's a wedding band singer (shades of LaToya London!), and is way, way too affected. But underneath all that is a nice, pure voice, and I think she'll likely make it to the voting rounds.

Kristy Lee Cook loves horses and kickboxing, and she's reasonably pretty, if not a bit too tight in the face. She broke out "Amazing Grace," and it was good. Nothing we haven't heard before, but she's got country pop written all over her, and we need at least one of those a year. She's badly in need of a makeover - tie-dyed top with long gauzy sleeves? Kristy Lee!

Brooke White is like the living embodiment of Pollyanna. Never saw an R-rated movie, never smoked, never drank, etc. She's a nanny. She's acceptably pretty. She has a very sweet voice, but she'll need to stand out more to make it past Hollywood.

Among the people who got through that I didn't care for, Chris Watson sang Uncle freaking Kracker's "Follow Me" --- the song with literally four notes in it --- and was heralded as being a great singer. Please. He is also wearing Ellen Cleghorn's hair circa 1997 and has disarmingly feminine facial features. Melanie Nyema, a former back-up singer for Taylor Hicks and thus already dead to me, screeched her way through Natasha Bedingfield's "Unwritten" (TERRIBLE audition song) and was totally unworthy of her golden ticket.

I've read that this season of "Idol" will focus more on the contestants' stories, and we got a rough one last night with a young woman named --- I shit you not --- Temptress Brown. Temptress is 16, yet looks very much like Etta James before her massive weight loss, but with copper rather than platinum hair. She is literally a linebacker on her high school football team. She decided to try out for her mother, who is morbidly obese, confined to a wheelchair, and hooked to an oxygen tank --- and who came with her daughter to try out. Jesus. Temptress was predictably terrible (she didn't even get the song name, artist, or lyrics right) and when the judges very nicely let her down, she started crying big, gooey tears. They did a group hug-even Simon was sweet-and then we had a seemingly five-minute Yay Temptress! bit that, admittedly, touched me at first, since I suspect that not a lot of great things happen in Temptress' life. But then I realized what kind of a message this is sending to her and other kids like her-it doesn't matter that you're delusional or completely out of your league; if you seek attention people will pity you and make you feel superficially better about your awful lot in life-and I got jaded all over again. Damn it, show!

Other infuriating moments: Dork-ass farm girl Christine Tallisano, who came with clip-on (CLIP-ON!) Princess Leia buns and a big Star Wars belt and then threw an absolute fit after the judges very politely passed on her mediocre voice. The 10-15 minutes devoted to Alexis Cohen, a sparkly, gender ambiguous cross between David Bowie and Willem Dafoe who did a bitchin' Grace Slick impression. I actually liked Alexis during her audition, then pitied her during her home visit, but afterward she had a complete mental break and went on a rampage, swearing that she will go into "actressing" and she will be famous and she will be "victorious" (what?). That person is mentally ill. Please do not point cameras at the mentally ill, because they will act out just to get your attention. You are taking advantage of their illnesses. This is Season 7. Have we not learned this by now?

Most awful of all, however, was the time devoted to major league freak Benjamin Hart, a bearish young man who dropped his full-body cloak once he entered the audition room to reveal a full, homemade slave Leia costume. Let me tell you why I was offended by this: I have no problem with alternative sexualities, but I'm not looking to watch some creepy guy get off on my television at my expense. And in case there is any doubt in your mind, Mr. Hart was certainly getting off on this. Literally. That was like four fetishes all rolled into one (cross-dressing, exhibitionism, role playing, and probably a little masochism), and that was totally a sexual outlet for him. And you, me, and everyone who watched it were dragged into his gross little fantasy. The worst part is that the show then made it 10 times worse when Paula told him she couldn't take him seriously (!) because his chest hair was all up in the Leia bra, and told him to come back once he'd had his chest waxed. I'm staunchly against chest waxing, but that wasn't he worst. The WORST was when she seemed shocked and appalled when he came back AFTER SHE TOLD HIM TO! IDIOT! Then he proceeded to "sing" exactly three words of the Pussycat Dolls' "Don't Cha" before being cut off by Simon. What was the point of all this? To humiliate him? To entertain us? Because I was just an unwilling participant in a sex act played out on national TV, and that's not entertaining. That's offensive. And it's crap like that that makes it very difficult to defend this show.

That said, I'll be watching tonight. Maybe, like Hart, I'm a masochist too.