As an aside, why does everyone refer to the contestants as ‘kids’ ? When someone is in their 20′s, don’t they deserve to be called man, or woman? It just kind of bugs me.

Because they ARE kids to a lot of AI viewers, the judges and TPTB. And I think there’d be a lot fewer potential “Fraumageddons” if folks realized these “men and women” were young enough to be their children or grandchildren.

Anyway, I hope Paula is still considering the show. Idol will go on but Paula is important to the Idol formula. It’s hard to change something that has been going so strong for 8 seasons now…so I hope Idol can still survive. I’m hoping Paula will be back for Hollywood week.

Bugs me too. And I don’t think Simon calls them kids. But then he’s not the patronize type. Calling them kids always relegates them to a station less than you. No matter how talented they are, they are just kids.

And if she loved ‘the kids’  so much, why wasn’t their $$$$ offer enough?

Yeah, interesting what’s revealed when there’s nothing left but the bottom line. Just because Paula runs around telling everyone who will listen that it’s all about “the kids” for her, doesn’t make it so. Words are cheap. For me, Paula always made them cheaper by refusing to be honest.

Thought you might find this interesting:

http://ausiellofiles.ew.com/2009/08/06/press-tour-diary-executive-session/#more-1851

According to this, they are planning to keep the 4 judge thing and replace Paula.

AI could of done maybe instead of throwing a 4th judge in have potential candidates be guest spots on Ai to see which one fit the best. Thats what they did on REgis to replace Kathy Lee.

IDK if Paula will be back with Idol you never know..

With all due respect to Nigel, who knows a hell of a lot more about this than I do, I just don’t see any possibility for her return once the judges’ auditions are really underway.

IMO with Idol, anything is possible. But the thought of having four judges plus an occassional guest judge — 5 judges! — is just frightening!

I’m no great fan of Paula, but I will really miss her. I’m also having trouble visualizing how the current line-up is really going to work:

Randy – uses so many repetitive clichs
Simon – last season was mostly snarky or bored or both
Kara – often is too verbose, can’t seem to clearly make her point and she says some really stupid things.

Too bad they couldn’t find someone really quick-witted, nice and knowledgable about current music to push Simon a bit.

Kara is knowledgable about pop music, and I forgave her for some of her stupid statements – like “Studio 57″ (the NY club with Ketchup!) – and the comments after Ring of Fire which were strange but at least entertaining.

But she really lost a lot of credibility with me on Top 4 Rock & Roll night.

1. After Danny sang “Dream On by Aerosmith” she commented that it would have been better if he had chosen an ‘earlier Aerosmith song, like Crying’ . Huh? Dream On was released in 1976 and Crying in 1993.

2. The after WLL she stood up and called Adam a “Rock God”. I love Adam but that was just silly.

The final straw for me was the bikini thing on the Finale. The Finale should have been about the Idols, not Kara. And based on what she said about it, she didn’t have to do it, she wanted to do it.

I think S9 is gonna suck. Paula is just part of it. The show is tired, the gimmicks didn’t work, and the next crop of contestants better be REALLY good this year (Kradison and Matt wannabes, I’m looking at you!) or forgetaboutit. There will NEVER be another Adam, IMO, but I guess I’m willing to settle for the next tier. If I want to watch Idol, and I admit I still do, I suppose I have no choice.

At least something good came out of all this Paula news.

Even though the judges start contestant auditions Friday, Lythgoe says nothing’s undoable until the show goes on the air in January.

With all due respect to Nigel, who knows a hell of a lot more about this than I do, I just don’t see any possibility for her return once the judges’ auditions are really underway. How would it make any sense for her to come back in January, when the show starts, if she has had absolutely no involvement in screening the contestants? The only really crucial role the judges play on AI is in selecting the semi-finalists, and she would have played no part in that process. The contestants would all be complete strangers to her. Not gonna happen. At least I hope not.

“An adjustment needs to be made. Paula was the yin to Simon’s yang; if he said something particularly cruel, will there be something to offset it? I don’t know whether Kara will be able to fill that role. ‘ ¦ The silver lining here is that they’re going back to three judges. Four was too many. I would have gotten rid of Kara or even Randy first ‘ ¦ though Kara didn’t really have the opportunity. It was tough for her, she was crashing the club, the clique.” ‘” M.J. Santilli, MJSbigblog.com

:clap_tb:

As an aside, why does everyone refer to the contestants as “kids”? When someone is in their 20′s, don’t they deserve to be called man, or woman? It just kind of bugs me.

And if she loved “the kids” so much, why wasn’t their $$$$ offer enough?