A few sound bites from Nigel Lythgoe who attended the Carousel of Hope ball last night at the Beverly Hills Hilton. (Read more at E Online)
On Randy Jackson becoming the “new Simon Cowell” (Who suggested that?)
“There are no roles to play, ” Lythgoe said last night at the Carousel of Hope Ball at the Beverly Hilton hotel. “Randy is Randy. People have said to me, ‘Who’s the new Simon?’ Well, Simon’s Simon. There’s no one else like Simon…Randy has become the elder statesman now. He is the one that says, ‘Who do you think?’ He’s taken control of the panel.”
OK. So I’m totally expecting Randy to expand his vocabulary beyond “Yo Dawg” in Season 10. Don’t let me down, dude.
And regarding changes for Idol this season? Nigel says the show will change ‘quite a bit’:
“Like those whole middle rounds where you get to choose from 34 and you don’t know who they are, ” he said. “We’re going to try to get more of a sense of the singers, so we care a little more.”
Thirty-four? Is that a mis-print, or does Nigel forget how many contestants usually compete in the middle rounds?
“Getting to know the contestants better” sounds like the complete opposite of what the producers, regrettably, tried to do during Season 8 when they had a different set of 8 contestants compete evey week in the semis. I’m remaining cautiously optimistic.
