So, there stood 12 supposed country acts we knew very little about, one of which would get the axe on Monday night's Nasville Star debut on NBC.

And I tried hard to give a crap.

In six seasons, the successful USA Network talent-show has yet to produce a successful winner. On the other hand, Nashville Star did give us Miranda Lambert, who I think is one of the more substantive country acts of the past decade.

Miranda Lambert -- "Gunpowder & Lead"

Seriously. Love Miranda Lambert. First, the vocals are always there. Second, she is a terrific writer, and to be a great country artist, you have to at least be cognizant of good writing. It's rare that a country artist writes his or her own stuff, but every artist worth his or her salt writes. Believe that.

So, knowing what little I know about the franchise of Nashville Star but knowing enough to know that it produced somebody genuinely talented like Lambert, I watched tonight's Star debut and thought, "Who the $%^# are these people, and where is the talent?"

The biggest problem with the 6th season of Star so far is that it's living up to Ryan Seacrest's proclamation that it's American Idol without the talent. Quite the indictment from a show whose actual musical worth is supremely limited.

A problem almost as big is that the show's new network audience wasn't given the chance to get to know anybody. Sure, the show stayed true to its pattern the past five years of getting straight to the action, if you will.

But I think it would have served the show well to rethink and reset, spending a couple of weeks at least on auditions. First, it gives us a chance to build loyalties and rooting interests. Second, for those who might not understand the country music industry, a couple of weeks of auditions would give us all the chance to grasp what the industry is looking for.

Heck, I don't know crap about dance, and the audition weeks of So You Think You Can Dance? offered a pretty fair education into what the pros seek.

So, there's a pretty big black hole where talent should be, and Star's producers haven't given us any time nor any reason to root for anybody. Was there anything worthwhile?

I'll be really honest. Tonight's Nashville Star was pretty close to as bad as ABC's The One from a couple of years ago, a show that espoused becoming a legitimate Idol competitor only to be cancelled in two weeks.

Moving to NBC was a big risk for Star, and the first episode failed pretty badly, at least critically. Heck, the ratings might be off the charts. Heck (again), that might not even be a surprise given my theory that country music fans will buy anything.

Sorry. I'm a huge country music fan in the Texas tradition of Willie and Waylon, Jerry Jeff and George Strait. Love the whole Red Dirt scene, too. However, an industry that features Taylor Swift as one of its iconic stars is hurting.

The youngster sang on Star tonight, and as Randy Jackson would say, "It was a bit pitchy, dawg."

Luckily for her, sycophantic judge John Rich was there to tell her how much she kicked ass. Unfortunately for us, the team of assembled judges was another point of weakness for the country music talent show.

Jeffrey Steele is a phenomenal songwriter, having penned Rascal Flatts' "These Days" and "What Hurts The Most," which is a wonderful, wonderful song.

Rascal Flatts - "What Hurts The Most"

However, nobody outside of the country music industry knows a thing about the guy. And devoid of a Simon Cowell-like personality, Steele comes off like wallpaper.

John Rich is quite the opposite, coming off as quite the confident performer. On one hand, Rich is what I really despise about country music of the past decade, way more focused on building a new audience than on pleasing its hardcore, traditional one.

On the other hand, "Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy" is one of the best songs of any genre of the decade even if it's not quite "Old Country" by the great Mark Chestnutt.

Big & Rich - "Save A Horse, Ride A Cowboy"

Rounding out the judging trio is folkie Jewel, who is supremely talented in her own right. The problem with Jewel has always been her unwillingness to stick with the low-key folk stuff. One time she goes all-out pop and has a mild hit with "Intuition," and now she's going country and having some success there.

Many would call that being multi-dimensional, but it wreaks of desperate to me. Alas, although each judge is certainly qualified to be where they are on Season 6 of Star, there wasn't really any chemistry among them. Who was the bad guy? Where was the trademark a la Mary Murphy?

Have you noticed that I've mentioned nothing about any of the contestants? Well, only nine of this year's Star finalists are solo acts, which is a major departure for the show. We have Laura and Sophie who don't look like much but who were genuinely pretty good on the Tammy Wynette classic, "Stand By Your Man."

Unfortunately, the pair of trios -- Pearl Heart and Third Town -- were second rate. The former gave a pitchy rendition of "Wide Open Spaces" from the Dixie Chicks while the latter sang The Oak Ridge Boys' "Elvira."

Quick tangent: I've always thought The Oak Ridge Boys were vastly underrated. First, you've got the guy with the funny hat and bird's nest beard. Then you have Davey Lopes singing lead (baseball reference for those over 35), and then you have the guy with the bass voice (Richard Sterban) who is infamous in pop culture circles for having committed suicide, which he did NOT. That would be Steve Sanders who replaced William Lee Golden at baritone for a time.

Oak Ridge Boys - "Leavin' Louisiana In The Broad Daylight"

Among the solo artists, only a couple stood out to me. First, Melissa Lawson, 32, has a pretty big upside (not to mention backside). Sorry, it was there. Melissa's a beautiful big woman with a pretty above average voice, and while she sang a gimme in Bonnie Raitt's "Something To Talk About," it's clear she was the favorite of the competition.

Gabe Garcia of Lytle, Texas, didn't sound all that great in singing a George Strait classic, but his vocal style is pure traditional country, a la somebody like a Freddie Fender. It's amazing to me that there aren't more Hispanic country stars. When I lived in south Texas, most of the Hispanic men were country music crazy. We used to have karaoke contests each week at Greek Bros in El Campo, and the Hispanic dudes were always the best country singers.

What's most telling though were that neither Lawson nor Garcia were all that great, particularly when compared with some Star competitors of years past. It left me wondering whether the show's producers were actually looking for potential long-term country successes or to build the most marketable cast possible.

You've got the youngins, the thirtysomethings, the black guy, the Hispanic guy, the military icon, a couple of hot chicks, the male model. It's almost textbook cliche.

When it came down to it, Allison and Charley were deemed the weakest performers by Star judges, who then sent Charley home. On one hand, Charley had a better country voice than many of the singers.

On the other hand, they all kind of sucked and so it didn't really matter.

Oh, don't you worry. I'm still going to watch. However, my hopes and expectations for Nashville Star are significantly lower as of 12:30 a.m. Tuesday than they were before I watched.