Well, the few four year olds I've heard sing were flat, far more than that little doll.

As far as the talent, the format has changed to an imitation of AI (don't know if it's because Cowell is now hailed as EP...he might have been from the outset, but I never heard him mentioned until this year). THEREFORE, it's kinda silly to make an across the board judgment about there being 2 or 3 "reasonably talented" people. There were I don't know how many acts that you barely saw snippets of that were put thru...no way to make a definitive statement as to their talent or lack thereof.

A lot of emphasis (ala AI) in the first (and I assume next) week is on those who don't make it, yet SEEM to think they actually have talent (again, like AI does). I'm not keen on that idea...it's borderline inhumane, and I fear one of these days, someone will go ballistic from the blatant humiliation(like the guy on Jenny Jones who killed the person who had a crush on him...another GUY...not too long afterwards.

As for the opera singer, I don't claim to be an opera buff, but in my limited purview, I thought he sounded excellent. Regarding his difficult upbringing, I feel the overriding implication was, that he wasn't only from a broken home, but his Mother is white, and he and his bro are obviously mixed, so he might have had to endure cruelty from that, which, coupled with a weight problem (and I don't KNOW that he was overweight as a kid) could be sheer hell for a kid.