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11,000 Idol hopefuls come to Dallas to audition. Our first guest judge, Neil Patrick Harris, says his goal is to make people cry. He wants to shatter thousands of dreams. LOL

A series of clips are shown, several of which are of Idol winner Kelly Clarkson who auditioned in Dallas in Season 1. Among those clips is one of Julie Kevelighan who gave one of the cringe-worthy auditions in S1. She butchered "Lady Marmalade" and I actually remember seeing her. She's the girl who told them she had a vocal coach and Simon told her she should sue the coach. Unbelievably, 8 years later she is auditioning again! She says she has been practicing and working on her image. Well, she "sort of" looks better. It's more like she was underdone before and she's over done now. However, the singing, on "Black Velvet" this time, is still bad. NPH chooses to comment on her sign that proclaims she is the next Idol. He says that he noticed that as she got to the end of her name, it got more squeezed together because she ran out of room and he thought she should have started over. They are expressing that she won't be going on so she responds by singing "Over The Rainbow". They reinforce the no vote, which prompts her to sing "Something To Talk About". But the judges are done talking so security hands her the sign she made and escort her out. I have never seen security used as much as it has been this year. Nice to know that the contestants are helping to preserve the security guys' employment. It's part of the Idol Stimulus Plan.

Next up is Lloyd "Big & Sexy" Thomas, a dockworker with a wife and 2 daughters. Lloyd is a big guy with an even bigger personality. They give him camera time, spending some time in his home with his family and at his job. He wants to be able to tell his daughters that they can do anything because their daddy did. Lloyd sings "Overjoyed" by Stevie Wonder. He's very smooth, kind of like Ruben but not so much so that I would mistake him for Ruben. Simon claims he's the best he's heard all day. One golden ticket later, Lloyd is celebrating with his family.

According to a series of clips, it appears that NPH and Simon butted heads a bit throughout the day. They should have featured more of that; it's more entertaining than some of the other stuff they've dished out so far this year.

Kimberly Carver decides to sing an original song. Hard to believe that after 8 prior seasons that anyone thinks this is a good idea. Actually, it doesn't suck as bad as most and her voice is strong and rather jazzy. Simon doesn't think she has anything special or current, and NPH disagrees. And apparently Randy and Kara do too because she gets 3 yes votes with Simon the lone no vote. I certainly think she was good enough to get that chance to shine in Hollywood.

Arriving with an overabundance of confidence is Dexter Ward. He has a very high opinion of himself and his appeal. He appears to have a condition called SarahPalinSyndrome as he can't seem to stop winking. He sings "If I Ever Fall In Love Again". Well, it's not actually singing. All the notes in this song seem to have been condensed into just 2 different ones, making it sound almost monotone. As bad as this is, the panel acts like they are digging it which only encourages him. I found that rather pointless. They must have been bored. He doesn't get through but the panel treated him pretty decently.

They show a string of girls, maybe 10 of them, leaving after being rejected. They are mostly all crying. Idol seems to like that.

Ryan takes a moment to chat with Neil. Neil says he thought they'd be booting a lot of people but felt they had moved on more than he was expecting. Asked if he found it hard to say no to people, Neil replied that people get reamed out every week on this show (referring to the live shows later on) and "if they can't stand this heat, that kitchen is the broiler".

Erica Rhodes used to be a Barney Kid. They show a clip of her on that show. She says that she wants to show that Barney Kids grow up, and to that end, she appears before the panel in leather, brandishing a whip. That's some serious growing up. They ask her to sing the Barney song (all together now - "I love you, you love me, we're a happy family. With a knick-knack paddy-whack--- Oh wait - it just sounds like that.) For her real audition she sings En Vogue's "Free Your Mind". Honestly, I can't tell based on this song if she can actually sing particularly well. It sounded fine but was it special? But she made enough of an impression on the judges to get through. (Or were they just threatened by her whip?)

About 5 people are shown celebrating with their golden tickets but all we get is this glimpse, not even any names.

The last contestant of the day is Dave Pittman. Dave has Tourette's Syndrome but he says it doesn't affect him when he sings. His audition song is Sam Cooke's "Bring It On Home." My assessment is that he is almost a really good singer. He reminds me of Scott McIntyre just in that regard (they don't sound alike at all). Both Neil and Simon made comments I agree with. Simon said he thought people were really going to like him and I believe they will (like him as a person enough to allow a little shortcoming in the singing). Neil told him he was crazy brave and I agree with that too. I wish him well.

In total, 14 got through in Day 1 of which we saw 4.

On day 2, Joe Jonas took over as guest judge. (We shall miss ye, Neil Patrick Harris.) The first contestant of the day is Todrick Hall who was in "The Color Purple" with Fantasia. He is singing an original song and it turns out to be quite clever. It's all about the Idol process and the judges. He sings it great too. I enjoyed this audition quite a lot. The judges applaud his originality, except for Simon who remains his stoic self. Todrick says "no applause from you Simon?" Simon claps his hands together just one time. Todrick gets his well-earned golden ticket.

We get a quick listen at Dawntoya Thomason and another quick one with Stephanie Daulong. Both of them go through. Then there are very quick peaks at 2 guys and 2 girls, all of whom go through as well. One of the guys I recognized as Michael Castro, brother of Season 7's Jason Castro.

Our next full audition is from Maegan Wright singing "To Make You Feel My Love". Gosh, she's got interesting eyes. They appear to be grey. Ooops, better listen to her sing. She was just OK to me. I didn't much like the way she sang the song, but her voice seemed decent. All 4 judges want to see her move on so perhaps I'll get another opportunity to hear her and make a better judgment.

Ms SuperPositiveAttitudeReallyHyperColorful contestant aka Vanessa Johnston is just bouncing off the walls. She's so HAPPY! You know, it's contagious! I'm positive too - positive she's not gonna make it because she cannot sing "At Last" (or any other song I'll bet) at all. As expected, she gets all no votes. Once outside the door, she is still all bubbly and happy, as are all her friends. Hmmm. The cynic in me says she knew she was bad, her friends knew she'd be bad, and this was just a big, fake audition done for fun. But what do I know?

Ryan offers us an explanation as to why Simon is so mean. Through a series of video clips, he talks about going to 7 cities for 2 days each, listening to one person after another, many of whom are pretty bad, many who are mediocre, with only a relative few who are good, so this wears on him and he gets cranky. Well, I don't know about you but I think if I got paid the millions that he gets, I could figure out a way to handle it.

The last singer in Dallas is 16-yr-old Christian Spears. At 4-yrs-old, she was diagnosed with Leukemia and they were afraid they were going to lose her. After all her treatments, they finally got word when she was 8 that she was in remission. She picks a tough one to sing: Etta James' "All I Could Do Was Cry". She did a nice job on this song, showing more feeling than I would have expected from one so young. I would say she has good potential and the panel agrees.

We only saw 4 full auditions from the second day and 3 of them got through. In fact, we only saw 3 auditions from people who didn't make it on this entire show. Ryan says 17 people got through on Day 2 for a total of 31 chosen in Dallas. There is only one audition city left - Denver. I'm hoping that there are lots of really good ones there or that we haven't seen the best of them featured in these episodes because I'm not seeing many "winners" out of the first 6 cities.

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