I'd love nothing more than for Idol producer Ken Warwick to look to his show's sister program, So You Think You Can Dance, as an example of what a judging panel can and should do. The SYTYCD crew — Nigel Lythgoe and Mary Murphy, plus a rotating guest judge — surpass the Idol panel in nearly every way. Their critiques are articulate, specific, and full of authority, and most importantly, display a degree of investment in the contestants and the program that Paula, Randy, Kara, and yes, even Simon, have not come close to matching over the last several Idol seasons. Not only that, the SYTYCD judges (especially Murphy) are infinitely funnier, and achieve a much more effortless camaraderie, than their Idol counterparts.
As for Paula, well, she certainly raised her game during season 8 — especially compared to her abysmal season 7 showing, which culminated with the Paulagate incident (in which she critiqued Jason Castro's second number before he'd even performed it). But still, I'd contend that the fallacy of American Idol's judging panel, or more specifically, Paula's place on said panel, is that "wacky"/"artistic"/"kindhearted" and "insightful" are supposed to be mutually exclusive. Look at SYTYCD's Debbie Allen, whose judging repertoire is filled with loopy surface nonsense — "you handled your big woman!" — that upon closer inspection turns out to be constructive and interesting. The woman may have her own patented brand of crazylingo, but she's paying attention to what happens on the stage and she's damned invested in making sure she provides loving, critical, helpful feedback to the show's contestants. Paula scores points for "loving," maybe, but considering how much she gets paid, shouldn't she also be able to nail the "critical" and "helpful" aspects of the equation, not to mention "concise," "coherent," and "easy for the average viewer to understand"? Based on her job performance and her overall sentimental value to the show, is Paula worth the money she's after?
My only real problem with Idol dumping Paula, in fact, is that she's really only second runner up — behind the rambling, gaffe-spewing, and consistently disappointing Kara DioGuardi and the utterly nonsensical Randy Jackson — in the running for Idol's least valuable panelist. Randy's contract locks him in till 2011, but Kara is also reportedly still negotiating to return for season 9. If the show's only getting rid of one female panelist, I say let it be the woman who foisted "No Boundaries" on beloved contestants Kris Allen and Adam Lambert, as well as an unsuspecting public. Or, if Idol is really interested in change we can believe in, if the show's producers want to proactively fight the show's slow but nonetheless real ratings decline, maybe it's time to clear the entire table to the left of Cowell, and bring in two new judges who can match Mr. Nasty in honesty, humor, and musical expertiese.
What do you think? Take our poll below (check out Jody Watley's Idol blog before you vote!) and then head to the comments section to discuss this matter of vital national importance! (Also important: Follow me on Twitter @EWMichaelSlezak!)
It would be wrong for Paula to go after this past season when she was often the most accurate or the second most accurate commentator on a peformance. Kara seems like a nice enough person, but is useless. Her comment about singing earlier Aerosmith like Cryin’ or Crazy still makes me laugh.
I never understood all the hate toward Kara. Paula and Randy are both useless.
Simon…well…he seems like he’s lost his passion for this show. Maybe a hefty raise will help, but I don’t know.
http://tvdonewright.com/
You know where I stand on Kara.
But that doesn’t mean I want to throw Paula under the bus. None of them need to go. I just want them all – Paula and Randy, especially – to step up their game. And I want Simon to stop being such an obvious shill.
they should keep paula and kick kara off and replace randy with missy elliot
that would be hilarious!
seating plan: Missy, Simon, Paula (jus so simon can be surrounded by them) that wouldmake the judges more interesting and in order to keep simon as the last judge to critique we can have missy start then paula then simon.
Randy’s the most useless of them all. Kara was good for a while then tried to out-Paula and out-Simon the others and lost her own voice. Randy’s never had a voice other than saying Yo Dawg.
I agree that everyone but Simon needs to go….but you’re missing a very important reason the show isn’t working and that’s the producers. They need to go too. They first need to look at musical ability and performance and THEN cast the show. Instead they seem to pick people who meet certain types and then seem to believe that they will magically develop into outstanding performers. And then then need to start delivering a quality show that can actually finish on time and is ENJOYABLE to watch instead of being moments of performance joy scattered amoung way too much angst and bull that I don’t want to watch. I haven’t watched a full episode of idol ever until the finale this year (thank adam)…its more pleasant to watch the performance recaps and to skip over them when they are awful.
Michael: I LOVE how you use the SYTYCD judging panel to explain what AI’s judging panel SHOULD be. No matter how hurtful a SYTYCD judge’s comments may be to a dancer, the dancer always knows that they are respected and cared about, that the comments are honest and insightful, and that they are in the best interest of the dancer’s career.
That can’t be said of most of the judging on Idol.
With the exception of getting rid of Kara (which, Dear God, NEEDS TO HAPPEN), this post is really off. Mary Murphy is so not funny–she’s ridiculous, and screams just for the predictable Nigel reactions. I do agree that the third judge on the SYTYCD panel is usually great, whereas Randy is completely phoning it in and is too easy to please.
But Paula, one of my favorite people on reality TV, MORE than deserves her contract. She is the one who cares about those contestants. And Slezak, she DOES make sense–when she says things were in the wrong key or that certain phrases were off-pitch, she knows as a singer what she’s talking about (I’m a singer too). I love Paula, I hope she doesn’t go.
Although I don’t watch regularly, I feel like the Dancing with the Stars judging panel is more impartial and delivers more technical critiques than the Idol crew this year who clearly had agendas to push.
Missy Elliott was amazing as a judge on the MTV dance show.. she can replace Randy or Kara
I’ve seen Idol in other countries. It still works with a different mix of judges – sometimes two are sarcastic, or two are industry experts, etc. They can stir the pot and get something better.
The judges need some weight to their critiques . . .like paddles/scores on DWTS. Then they would pay attention and care when the singers sing. Once they get past selecting the contestants, they have no purpose with the current system.
Simon is the only judge worth keeping around. Randy has a 5 word vocabulary and Paula says nothing worth hearing. Get rid of them.
Hey Michael–still waiting for that list of collaborators for Kris Allen; I’m really interested in reading and discussing your ideas for him!
As for Paula–I’d be okay if she left; the four-judge format made the shows run waaay too long last season, to little benefit for the contestants or the audience.
If anyone needs to go, it’s the biggest douchebag on television, Ryan Seacrest. And they just gave him a huge deal to stay! So if he stays, then Paula should, too. She is a lot better to watch and listen to than he is!