Power to the people

The stupidest line in last week's premiere of ``America's Got Talent" came at the end of the two-hour slog. ``Rapping Granny," exclaimed judge Piers Morgan, ``you are what this show is all about."

Wrong, Mr. Token Snippy Brit Who Wants to Grow Up to Be Simon Cowell.

``America's Got Talent" is not about a bobbing senior in an apron hoping to win a million-dollar prize. The already popular TV talent contest, poised to be a summer ratings hit for NBC, is more about the Clapping Viewer than the Rapping Granny.

Yep, it's all about us.

The show, which airs tonight at 9 on Channel 7, is all about the audience's cheers and jeers, and not a professional digit-snapper named Bobby Badfingers or a 60-something male stripper with a bronzer addiction. Like the many other voter-based contests on TV, ``America's Got Talent" is about giving viewers a voice in the entertainment world. We get to choose which novelty act -- the 8-year-old stand-up comic? the 76-year-old lady belting out ``God Bless America"? -- will become this summer's big star. We get a sense of power.

Traditional thinking has it that audiences love TV talent shows for the vicarious thrill of seeing a Taylor Hicks-ish nobody become a somebody. ``I'm looking forward to the American Dream," judge David Hasselhoff said last week on ``America's Got Talent."

And that up-from-nowhere excitement may have been true in the late 1940s with ``Ted Mack & the Original Amateur Hour" (formerly a radio show) and ``Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts." The folksy Godfrey ushered unknown performers before a newly TV-wired nation and fed into the much-loved myth of being discovered in a drugstore, as was falsely said of Lana Turner.

But the new generation of voter-based shows, including ``American Idol" and its knockoffs, such as Fox's ``So You Think You Can Dance" and CMT's ``Nashville Star," are about our empowerment, not the contestants'. They are little elections, opportunities to flex our muscles -- particularly those on our dialing, texting, and typing hand. With their text message and phone-vote abilities, the new contests make pop culture feel like a democratic process.

If we identify with anyone who appears on these shows, it's the judges who sit in positions of authority. The most imitated element of ``American Idol" has been the triumvirate of ``experts," those celebrities and professional snipes who get to voice our opinions in public. They represent us, not the contestants.

Cowell, the man behind ``America's Got Talent," wisely chose Morgan, Hasselhoff, and Brandy as judges to re-create the three-monkeys chemistry he has with Randy Jackson and Paula Abdul on ``Idol." They span the tough (Morgan), the middling (The Hoff), and the easy (Brandy). Indeed, with her wildly generous pronouncements, Brandy rivals Abdul in the indulgent department. ``It's different, it's hot, it's right now," she gushed to an a cappella group.

Later in the summer, a few other interactive contests will appear to stir us from viewing passivity. Like ``American Idol," ``America's Got Talent," and ``American Inventor," they will make us into little moguls who vote in a virtual board meeting. ABC will have ``The One: Making a Music Star," and HGTV will have ``Design Star." And next year, Steven Spielberg will invite us to create the next big Hollywood director with Fox's ``On the Lot." The show, co-produced by Spielberg and Mark Burnett, is bound to speak to the viewers' inner film critics.

Perhaps ABC should have given us voting rights on its new contest, ``Master of Champions," which premiered last week. The show, which airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. on Channel 5, includes an old-fashioned audience meter, for fans on the set. But we at home are left fidgeting while watching this reality loser. Last week's premiere was baffling in its sheer pointlessness. If ``America's Got Talent" is like ``The Gong Show," then ``Master of Champions" is like ``The Broken Gong Show."

In the first hour, two drift car drivers had to grate cheese rounds by driving in circles on the stage. Seriously, a critic couldn't have asked for a more ready metaphor for the entire show. Cheese, going in circles, grating -- it's all there.

A blindfolded 14-year-old contortionist shoots arrows with her feet! A team of acrobats performs with fireworks in the background! The viewer gets a headache.

The ``Master of Champions" extreme performances are so huh-what that the show feels utterly random. And the play-by-play voice - over narration is so sincere it's almost campy. Not even the judges -- Olympic gold medalists Oksana Baiul and Jonny Moseley and baseball legend Steve Garvey -- can stave off the futility of this exercise. Although they could ask the director to please turn down the excessive white lighting.

The only power we can exercise on ``Master of Champions" is to pick up our remotes and click.

Matthew Gilbert can be reached at gilbert@globe.com.