Archive for the ‘Other Stuff’ Category

The Idol Off-season: How I Learned To Stop Worrying About The X Factor

Friday, September 23rd, 2011

Schedules have a funny way of working out. On the same week that the Season 10 tour ended here in the Philippines, Simon Cowell’s much-awaited (or, at least, much-promoted) show, The X Factor, premiered in the US. So as the final steps of this season’s Idol journey ended, viewers at home were provided with what Simon thought a reality talent show ought to look like.

Before I go to that, though, the tour. I’m not going to do a full concert report, but: it was a fantastic show, and frankly even some contestants that I beat on during the season are much more entertaining on the stage than they ever were on the small screen. (For a full report of how the Idols were received, I suggest this recap by local radio personality Chico Garcia.)

The one thing that stands out watching this group live was the talent level. We knew that coming in, but it’s even more apparent live. Yes, you can hide some flaws with a live concert that live TV will brutally expose. But you have to have something to work with first – and with this group, you did. In spades. The basic truth of American Idol is that a successful season needs a talented “cast”. Without it, a season fails. It really is that simple.

Which brings us to The X Factor. The hype for Simon Cowell’s new show was… well, a bit excessive, to say the least. It should have utterly demolished its competition the way Idol has been doing so fairly reliably for years, righ?

Not so fast. Early numbers are a little grim. Short version: X Factor won it’s first hour, but was beaten by Modern Family in its second. In the key 18-49 demographic, it did worse than the other new singing reality show of the year, The Voice. Somewhere in Hollywood, Nigel Lythgoe and Simon Fuller are laughing evilly, and Simon Cowell is probably cursing out a poor Fox flunky. Or wanting a refund on the millions he’s thrown at his PR people.

Some – maybe even most - TV pundits may be surprised to see such a highly promoted show do so poorly, but I’m not. We’d already seen what a Cowell-run show would be like. Seasons Eight and Nine of Idol were a perfect preview of what X Factor would be like – and those were seasons where he had others to restrain him. On X Factor, no one will dare say no. We may all be seeing a slow motion wreck in progress.

If Chinese philosophy has the yin and the yang, talent shows have Spectacle and Talent. The two Idol seasons that Simon dominated backstage were loaded with Spectacle – and, particularly in the second year, lacked for Talent. Based on the premiere, X Factor was even more so. Given how poorly the Idolsphere – and the public – reacted back then, was there any reason to think that this year would be any different?

Aside from the overdose of Spectacle, however, X Factor has another problem. Much of the spectacle this particular show uses has become downright rancid. Simon Cowell made his mark as the “brutally honest” judge a decade ago, but over the years it had become more brutal and less honest. The Simon-Paula buddy act was overshadowed by the fact that Paula was completely out of her mind. Was there ever a huge demand to see all of this again? Really? Really?

Now, it’s very premature to call it a flop. If it were anything but a Simon Cowell super-production, these numbers would be healthy. After all, coming in second to the big winner of the just-held Emmy Awards? And, while his image and reputation may have been sullied and reduced since its height in the mid-2000s, it’s still worth a lot of viewers. A show with Simon Cowell isn’t going to be a total stinker as far as ratings go.

What it isn’t, however, is the Idol-killer that it was all hyped up to be. As it turns out, the American viewing audience is very sensitive to talent levels in their singing shows. Unless X Factor turns out to actually have a deep pool of great talent – and frankly, there isn’t much to indicate that will be the case – it will be a long, long season for Simon Cowell.

And that, in and of itself, is priceless.

If things are… a little strange

Monday, January 26th, 2009

Regular readers may notice that things may look… a little different. That’s because we’re in the middle of a site redesign, so that our site looks halfway-decent by the time the semifinals begin. If you see anything that looks… strange, leave a comment here, and our web designer will take care of it.

Let’s try something out…

Thursday, January 1st, 2009

I’m not quite sure yet just what to do with it, but we’ve got ourselves a Twitter account, which you can find right here. We’ll put in our more random Idol-related thoughts there; we’ll also try to reply to any tweets that come away. If you’re so interested, the link to it is always at the top of the sidebar over to the right.

Meet the New Idol, Same as the Old(er) Idol

Tuesday, December 16th, 2008

For the past week or so, the Idolsphere has been abuzz with talk of the changes for the upcoming season. Now, I haven’t talked much about them because they were still at the rumor stage, and I wanted something more solid before talking about it.

Now, though, Ken Warwick has talked about these changes, so it’s safe to put our two cents out there. For those who want to catch up, we suggest reading these posts from MJ here, here, and here; USA Today also has a good article here. Here are the “highlights” of these changes, and what we think of them:

  1. The semi-finals go back, in essence, to the Season 1-3 format.
    Now, we have to admit to a little bias. We didn’t watch Idol from the beginning, but from the middle of Season Three – largely because it wasn’t aired locally. While we have issues aplenty with Idol, the format isn’t one of them. The Top 24 system was a good one; the only change I would have made was to remove the unneeded gender split.The old system strikes me as a fundamentally unfair way of organizing things. It leaves to much to chance and producer manipulation. We’re liable to end up with another Group of Death like Season Two, where the entire top three came out of one group. In addition, this one-shot approach to qualifying leaves things too much to chance for our taste. Consider: David Cook’s opening song was a fair-to-middling rendition of Happy Together that wouldn’t have been good enough to put him through, either by voting or a wildcard in the new format. More songs before the finals means that the ultimate makeup is less determined by luck and more by overall talent. Who in the world thought that this was a good idea? Curious minds would like to know.
  2. The wild card comes back.
    Oh boy. I’ve spent many, many years decrying the increasingly blatant – and one-sided – producer manipulation. And what do TPTB give us viewers at home? Why, tossing us back to the bad old days when a large part of the field was chosen largely on the whim of the judges. Considering that Randy spent most of the last season deaf to any criticism of the Boy Wonder David Archuleta and Paula is well-meaning but useless, is this such a good idea? The only thing this will do is ensure that Idol pundits like me will have more ammunition whenever we complain of bias.One more thing. Has anyone figured out how this will work with four judges and only three wildcard slots?
  3. More Hollywood week, less auditions.
    Let’s face it – after the whole Paula Goodspeed mess the status quo wasn’t acceptable. The bad auditions are funny, up to a point – but the past few seasons had gone too far. Let’s face it: it’s one thing to feature people who can’t sing; it’s another to feature people who are clearly not right in the head. This change can only be a good thing. If they went ahead and threw out the ridiculous elevator episode, it would be even better.

Overall, the changes strike us as a little… less than inspired. The “changes” so far have a retro feel to them – and not in a good way. They’re going back to the bad – no, awful – way they were before. This is madness. This is like trying to cure a headache with an amputation. They do nothing to address the basic problems from the last season: biased judges, silly themes, and geriatric songs.

The most worrying part about this is it betrays the fact that the Idol PTB don’t really understand what they’re dealing with here. American Idol may have started as a cheesy, ridiculous show – but it’s gone beyond that now. With household names like Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, and Chris Daughtry emerging from the show, viewers are becoming more demanding. The smart thing to do would be to concentrate on the core of the show: the music. Make sure there won’t be clearance issues, pick good quality themes, pick legitimately talented contestants, etc. This should be simple.

However, that’s not what they did. Instead, Idol has been treated like any other reality show that can be saved by “twists”. That, in itself, is a stupid idea, but that’s for another day. What this whole episode reveals is that the producers are clueless and fall back on their bag of tired tricks.

If this was the sort of thing that was supposed to reassure us that Idol is back on the right track… it isn’t. Once again, if the show is to be as good as it can be, it will have to be entirely on the backs of the contestants, and in spite of the best-laid plans of the PTB.