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CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
19
Mixed:
11
Negative:
3
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Critic Reviews
Jun 19, 2013
Season 1 Review:
The show everybody will be talking about around the water cooler. [20 Jun 2002]
TV Guide MagazineJan 29, 2014
Season 13 Review:
Connick, who was among Idol's most engaging mentors in past seasons, is even more adept in this new role, and the chemistry on the current panel is at least on par with the more celebrated Voice cast. As Idol wraps its auditions this week before heading to Hollywood, I find myself looking more forward to the actual competition than I have in years.
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Feb 9, 2011
Season 10 Review:
We'll see how season 10 holds up once the chosen contestants move on to Hollywood, but for now Idol remains firmly on its pedestal. [14 Feb 2011, p.39]
Mar 9, 2018
Season 16 Review:
After watching that first episode, we can tell you that it’s a solid return, and definitely stronger than its last few seasons. A good part of that is the chemistry of the new judges--pop star Katy Perry, country singer Luke Bryan and Mr. “All Night Long” himself, Lionel Richie--with the contestants who walk into the room to audition and with each other.
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Jan 29, 2014
Season 13 Review:
Naturally, Idol is still heavy on crying mothers, the thrill of victory and agony of defeat, Ryan Seacrest saying things like “This ... is your show,” and an on-air script resembling a heart-disease public-service announcement that reads, “Life Can Change in a Heartbeat.” All told, though, the show feels brighter and breezier, and initially avoids some of the heavier-handed pomposity “X Factor” exhibits during these rounds.
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Jun 28, 2013
Season 1 Review:
There you have the magic of Idol: British headmasterly discipline running smack into the preternatural sense of self-esteem--often inversely proportional to talent--that Americans have hardwired into them from the womb. You may wince at Cowell's barbs, but you also welcome them when Abdul or Jackson offers a wimpy "Good job" to a singer who has scraped the fingernails of her ambition down the chalkboard of her limited ability.
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Jun 19, 2013
Season 1 Review:
'American Idol' is the Mae West of TV talent shows: when it's good, it's very good, but when it's bad, it's better. [24 Jun 2002]
Jun 19, 2013
Season 1 Review:
American Idol... has been excellent Tuesday-Wednesday entertainment this summer. ... The individual efforts at star turns have been genuinely exciting. ... For our part, American Idol fans, who watch chiefly to see if we can pick a winner, have become accustomed to the show's tackiness, its repetitions, and its garish product placement.
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Jan 20, 2011
Season 10 Review:
[Steven Tyler] may be all talk, the initial good cheer may wear thin and we may be begging to be slapped around by Cowell in a few weeks, but for now it's just nice to have judges who aren't learning how to be stars themselves. Which means that this year, maybe the show can be about finding a real American idol.
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Feb 13, 2013
Season 12 Review:
No matter who takes the title, these early rounds of Idol are win-win for everyone: Viewers get some good triumph-of-the-underdog stories; Carey and Minaj get to feel like they're back in high school; and the contestants get to dream of being showered with confetti in the finale and later achieving their best shot at a long-term career in this troubled music industry--ending up right back on American Idol, as a judge.
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Mar 9, 2018
Season 16 Review:
It’s a kinder, gentler show that, at least in the first two-hour episode, jettisons Simon Cowell–style cutting commentary and more fully embraces positivity and uplift. Call it American Idol Disney, or The Voice: Wish Upon a Star Edition. ... The new Idol often may make you want to gag even while it’s coaxing tears out of your ducts.
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Jun 19, 2013
Season 1 Review:
The Tuesday programs are involving for the musical numbers, but the Wednesday installments resort to the lamest tricks to drag out the announcement of who is gone. The contestants' awkward group performances add little to the process and play like the worst of Las Vegas. [4 Sep 2002]
Jun 19, 2013
Season 1 Review:
Offering prefab middle-of-the-road stardom, "American Idol" is entertaining, but not for the reasons its producers like to pretend. The open secret that the show's creators and its fans choose to ignore is that the music and arrangements are trite, full of wannabe Whitney Houston and Stevie Wonder wails. Originality is a losing strategy. But the series does have a stroke of commercial genius, as it shrewdly combines elements from a smattering of other series into one big marketable soup. It's "Survivor" with a soundtrack.
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Jun 19, 2013
Season 1 Review:
So much about the Fox series is unseemly, and I don't just mean the commercial-to-show ratio and the sponsor plugs, which have been downright obscene. "American Idol," a new hybrid of reality TV and beauty pageantry, represents some of the crudest aspects of both network TV and the pop-music industry. ... And yet, and yet. "American Idol" remains addictive TV. [4 Sep 2002]
Mar 8, 2018
Season 16 Review:
The new version is really just the old version, but a little sappier, a little more Disney-fied, a little more Americana-obsessed, and it's all, well, fine. It's not particularly good or particularly bad. It's just familiar. And familiar may be enough, depending on what you're looking for. But it's not special.
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Jun 19, 2013
Season 1 Review:
"American Idol" boasts two new wrinkles. First, the performances are so tightly edited that each singer gets barely a minute onstage. ... The second innovation: The contest is rigged. [21 Jun 2002]
Jun 19, 2013
Season 1 Review:
The biggest misconception about "American Idol" is that industry pros would actually spend 90 seconds listening to these mostly drab performers--as the judges do on the hit TV show that mixes the Cinderella aspects of "Star Search" with the humiliation of "Survivor." ... The fact that these six are supposed to be the best of 10,000 original candidates is sobering. Then again, the show--with its glitz and inbred dumbness--is hardly designed to find the next Kurt Cobain or Ryan Adams.
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Jun 19, 2013
Season 1 Review:
It is the show that just won't go away. ... It's a seedier version of Star Search or Ted Mack's Amateur Hour. Those were corny showcases for fledgling talent. American Idol is a study in nastiness. [27 Aug 2002]
May 21, 2013
Season 1 Review:
[A] blockheaded version of a high school talent show. ... What could be more stultifying than the way this non-celebrity sing-off crams product placement into the viewer's field of vision, everything from the Big Gulp-size Coca-Cola cups on the judges' table to the contestants being forced to enact a troglodytic skit while inside a Ford Focus? [26 Aug 2002]
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