Pool Preview

Idol Returns January 13th for an 8th Season. Yes, we will be having our pool and it seems a lot of the people in the pool are still at the same job and emails so that’s definitely a good thing! As always, if anyone wants in, please include them (and if you want out let me know!). Changes abound, with most of them being logical even if they aren’t what I agreed with. (I wanted a new judge REPLACING an old one, not just a new judge.) In general I think Idol had good buzz ending last season even though the ratings overall were low, the finale ratings were not bad at all, ratings will no doubt be up this year (event TV during a recession?) and both David Cook and David Archuleta had hit singles (Cook with three top 40 singles so far and Archuleta having a top 5 single).

February 11th is the start of the voting with the Top 36 and March 6th starts our pool with the final members of the Top 12 being announced!

Changes
-Hollywood week on TV is extended a week. Thank god. It was 2 hours total last year, and they basically didn’t show anything. It made the Top 24 really flat the first week, because who were these people?
-Bad auditions will be cut down during the audition shows. Instead we will have a “Worst Of” type show at the end of the final audition week. Makes sense to me. When the bad auditions are the whole show, it minimizes the impact anyone good can have.
-There is no Top 24 weeded out this year. Instead we return to the Season 2 format, where we have 36 finalists, 18 men and 18 women. We will have three weeks with 12 performers. Each week the top male vote getter, top female, and next top person (male or female) will be chosen. That will be 9. Then the judges will pick three wildcard people based on a 4th show which will contain the judges remaining favorites performing, with the judges choosing the last 3 spots. It’s not clear if they will be chosen right away or during another show. This is a good change. The last contestants chosen in the Top 24 always seem to be random, cookie cutter type people. (Simon said the Top 24 had become a battle of cookie cutter blondes, and he couldn’t even remember their names at that point. I don’t disagree). Also, no theme Top 36 weeks, it’s any song on the billboard Top 100 chart for any given year from 1956-2008. That’s pretty broad. I also like this because it gives people more time to know who the contestants are, which can’t hurt.
-And last but certainly not least, We have judge #4. (I still think Paula gets “sick” or something happens to her at some point.)

Kara DioGuardi.

http://www.americanidol.com/news/view/?pid=1393

She is a songwriter and producer and apparently people (not me) know who she is because most articles mentioned her without giving much background! Simon has spoken highly of her which I think is for 2 reasons, she cuts down on Paula’s rambling time and she gives Simon the ability to tie the vote, and the say “I am the tiebreaker so X wins” which must be a huge ego boost. Who is going to care at all what Randy and Paula say now. It’s new judge, and then Simon. We’ll see how this goes.

I’ll probably start writing things here soon that I see about some of the contestants that already have buzz. There are always people at this time that are already looking like possible favorites.