Pauler-gate aside, they no longer seem to give honest critiques on what they actually see and seem more focused on a pre-conceived agenda.

longsong, with each passing year this is becoming more obvious. This whole fiasco could make for a better show next year. I am hoping for the best. 4got, the pimping is an assumption that the viewers are stupid and must be told what to like or dislike. Quite insulting, actually.

Randy is useless and he would not be missed. He contributes NOTHING to the show. If AI wants a BETTER show next season, this is the first place to start. If they do decide to replace Paula, it should not be done in the same season that Randy leaves.

Next year they need to fine tune it, bring in some guest judges and try to bring in more interesting amateur
contestants.

jpfan, I think that if a contestant has had a recording contract and a released CD, they should not be on the show.

MJ, is it still possible to vote in the survey?

IMO either they haven’t devoted as much time to the contestant’s personalities, or the contestants themselves don’t really have much of a personality. Not sure which it is. The ones who have really shown their personalities to me are DC, JC and BW. The rest – not so much.

I have to really rack my brains to even remember who was voted off weeks ago. BUT, I can remember every single person from Season 5.

Ace could have used Carly’s t-shirt that night!
Simon loves me (this week).

That’s the night everyone did really well, though when Katharine went last, Simon said she made everyone else look like “just good amateurs”.

Of course, others might not have liked that night as much as I did. I LOVE the crooners from the old days, and the old “standards” as Elliott called them. It might be my favorite style of music.

That was the night Kellie went off pitch and lost the timing also. I think she went home the next night. There was a LOT of talent in that season.

Oops. I forgot to add the “change” thing.
I think perhaps allowing instruments this year wasn’t a good idea after all. While they got people who had more sense of who they were as an artist, Brooke and Jason got much further than they would ever have gotten had this been the old AI.
People seem to be complaining of late how Jason and Brooke don’t/didn’t deserve to be there, and now there’s a backlash against Jason because he’s not a great enough vocalist.

(Just for the record, I am feeling so sorry for Jason at this point because of the invasion into this very shy guy’s life, as soon as he makes it into the top 3, I’m giving my 1,000 votes to Archie. AI deserves Archie’s father.)

I think AI should go back to no instruments. It’s not fair to the contestants who get bashed.

Also, mj, is it you who prefers the old stage? I’m with you on that one!

He’s hot, intelligent, talented, has been performing since he was young, and is a great humanitarian. I would definitely want to hear what he has to say.

Ricky Martin

AI has been on 7 years, and the novelty has worn off. Period. It used to be that you had to wait to get your Idol fix until January. Now, there are so many shows that basically rip off the format that you can see Idol any time of year. How many shows haven a mean British judge, a cattlecall with funny/bad auditioners, weekly performances with someone voted off, a whole “plucked from obscurity to rise to the top” theme? You can see Cooking Idol, Fashion Designer Idol, Model Idol, Dancer Idol, Star Dancer Idol, Novelty Act Idol, Country Star Idol, Rock Star idol… you get the idea.

I don’t think any of that is under 19E’s control. The best they can do is get an intresting mix of kids, edit entertaining audition and Hollywood episodes, pick some interesting hoops to jump through via the themes, and turn it over to America. Some years it will click, some it won’t. I really can’t see how it should be any other way.

As to Randy. He can go, go, go and take his “dawg’s” and “pitchy’s” and “not feelin’ it’s” with him. He lost his relevance, oh, about midway through Season One.

Ryan’s a keeper, though. The only one who has retained his enthusiasm for 7 seasons.

I would like to see Naomi Judd replace Paula.

Gah! No! She’s definitely talented, but too self-important and could be sooo mean!

While I would love for Dicko to replace Randy, I can just see the news stories next year –”American Idol on its last leg… too many changes, too late?”

I think if they revamp the audition rounds to focus more on Hollywood and less on the goofy silly auditions for WEEKS that’d be a good start. Make Hollywood WEEK at least a couple of episodes. Also, I am with everyone else on the theme thing, GET CURRENT PEOPLE! How do you expect to find a current ‘pop’ star when they only get to choose from songs that are a minimum of 10 years old and most haven’t sung a song that was written after their birth year? Which, the birth year thing was obviously ANOTHER duplicate theme except for a few contestants. Changing the themes alone could revive the show IMO.

And Randy is a tool.

The mosh pit sucks.

Andrew Lloyd Weber? Please. My 13 year old thought we was a creepie old man.

These judges seem to have taken their good fortune at having THE dream job for granted. Their sense of entitlement is beyond the pale.

Amen to this! The judges take their jobs for granted, the contestants for granted, and the viewers for granted. And it’s not fair to anyone. Remember way back in season 2, when the right two people made the finale? And they were TRUE undiscovered talent? I found the show so much more enjoyable then. Was there a hidden agenda? Oh, probably, but it wasn’t so calculated as it is now. I think that the quality of the contestants has gone up, but the hidden agenda of the show is getting to be a bit much to bear.

Another reason for the Fall of the Idol Empire prediction is that the producers are such control freaks. I wish they’d let the viewers decide without all this tacky pimping & de-pimping.

The judges have been bored this year and I just feel CHANGES must be made.

Grammie Karl, I think you hit the nail on the head. For God’s sake, these stooges are getting paid millions of dollars and they can’t even pay attention during a one and a half minute song?!

Pauler-gate aside, they no longer seem to give honest critiques on what they actually see and seem more focused on a pre-conceived agenda. I can’t count the number of times a contestant has given a decent performance, the energy is high, the audience is cheering and Randy takes a long pause and says, “I don’t know man, I just wasn’t feeling it. It just wasn’t the bomb, dawg” and he’ll suck the energy right out of the room.

Simon seems the most “honest” (that’s not saying much) of the three, but dang! You don’t see NFL announcers getting bored and disinterested in the game they’re giving play-by-play on.

These judges seem to have taken their good fortune at having THE dream job for granted. Their sense of entitlement is beyond the pale. I hope the producers do more than just a little saber-rattling with them.

The judges have a synergy and a relationship, I guess chemistry is a better word for it, and that is something that once you eff with that, there is no going back. Then finally every show has an expiration date. 7 seasons of this type show is incredible. 2 shows, sometimes three a week unprecedented for remaining so popular. I know its the show we all love to hate, but do we really think anything is truly going to bring back season two, or five? I don’t think so.

I think next year will really be the year that either stablizes it, or writes it’s epitaph, not to say that it will be it’s final year, I don’t think so, but if next year doesn’t stablize, then it will no longer be the most watched show on tv. Finally look at the ratings for the other top shows, every one is suffering the ratings blues. I don’t know the percentages, but this slide has more to do with viewership in general than idol imho.

And………….the stupid mosh pit has to go.